After a thousand years of warring between the factions of Good Law and Evil Law, the Ice Men entered into The Treaty of a Thousand Years on 14 Varech 1398. Tired of the never-ending and futile campaigns, in which many more were lost to the climate than to the enemy, they agreed to total peace over the Ice Cap for the next thousand years.
The Treaty was signed at the Ice Palace, under the auspices of HASSAK Demigod of Ice, Who had suggested it (pointing out that He had claimed more lives than anyone in the war). HASSAK is the son of GORRO and IGNE, and twin brother of UFFEH Demigoddess of the Clouds. He dwells in the Ice Palace and commands not worship, but respect.
It is said that the Treaty was the spark of hope that caused the conception of FIDAR Goddess of Peace. It is also said that it was the Ice Men’s expression of their utter distaste for ZAKEL God of War, Who was blamed for the appalling rise in the attrition of the war which preceded the Treaty. Certainly, no Ice Man is Evil / Chaotic.
Thus the struggle between Good and Evil and the lesser struggle between Law and Chaos moved from the cold battlefield to the warm campfire, and was fought with words rather than weapons. Not everyone obeyed, but the skills of fighting were lost to many. Violent energies were absorbed by the growth of the Ritual Hunt, the greatest prize in which is the Zoklava.
So, despite numerous inflammatory incidents in the years leading up to 2398, on 14 Varech of that year the Treaty was resigned for a second Thousand Years, this time under the joint auspices of FIDAR and HASSAK at the Ice Palace. The Ice Lands have become a great (if not the major) source of FIDAR’s Clerical power. But the cynical say that any peace there is due at least as much to the practical impossibility of warring there as it is to any consensus of minds.
In any case, in practice the Treaty only has much meaning to the small minority who live in the two settlements of Good / Lawful Zukon-Zakil in the Overworld and Evil / Chaotic Blierez in the Underworld. The majority of Ice Men are small, self-sufficient bands of nomads, who journey from shelter to shelter across the Ice Lands in search of the animals and lichens they need to survive. The nomads support the two towns, which trade manufactured goods for raw materials and food to supplement the produce of their Food Caves.
P.R. Wild, 2 October 1983; revised 4 January 1998
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