The Ice

Abeth is almost entirely covered in ice.  The surface of the ice is a brutal and deadly place.  The air is thin and the wind never stops blowing.  The mountains which poke above the ice sheets are rare and welcome landmarks on the featureless expanse.

The Ice Wall

The corridor is bounded by a huge ice wall.  It looms a couple hundred feet above the plains of the empire.  A steep slope of broken ice boulders and shaped by frequent avalanches.  The steady advancement of the wall is just about kept at by by the nightly melting of the focus moon.  It isn't completely impassible.  A determined climber could navigate the rough, craggy surface if they are sufficiently lucky.

The ice sheet does not reach so far into the ocean.  Ice bergs frequently calve off in chunks the size of cities, leaving a shear wall that is 2 miles high in places.  The danger of falling ice keeps ships far away from the edges of the corridor.

The Melting Region

The region where the focus moon falls, but isn't strong enough to melt all the ice away, is a band about 30 miles wide on either side of the corridor.  The ice in this region looks smooth and polished from frequent melting and refreezing.  Above the continent, this region sees the ice ramp up from the 200 foot wall to the 2 mile thickness of the majority of the ice sheet.

The Snowing Region

The water which evaporates from the seas of the corridor inevitably falls on the ice.  The region where the snow falls is about 3,000 miles wide, and is one of the most hazardous places to be on the surface of the ice.  The fierce wind blows the snow into dunes that look like a featureless sea of white.  The deep drifts of soft, fluffy snow threaten to swallow up anyone who walks on them and so are piratically impassible in the best of conditions.  When snow falls, everything is burried.

The Blue Ice

Where it is too cold for the snow to fall, the ice thousands of years old.  Time and pressure have left the ice more transparent and slightly blue.  The terrain is shaped by the cutting wind and by the shifting of the ice sheets.  The surface here is split by ridges and crevices where the ice sheets grind against each other.  For those who can survive the temperatures, this is the most hospitable region of the ice.

Beneath The Ice

There are tunnels in the ice.  The dangers of the tunnels are many, and poorly understood.  Even so, they are sheltered from the cutting wind, which makes them possibly more survivable than the surface.  Scavengers and archaeologists frequently brave the tunnels to search through the wreckage of buried cities for treasures.