Background

Children throughout the northern settlements build figures from fresh snow during the long winter months, shaping warriors, hunters, thieves, sorcerers and caricatures of their neighbours. Sticks become weapons, scraps of cloth become armour and stones or roots form crude faces. Most remain harmless until they melt. During unusual winters, however, these ready-made bodies can attract the attention of the Hidden Folk.

Animated Snow Effigies understand little beyond the role imagined for them. Hunters follow tracks, thieves hide what they can carry and warriors attack whatever they believe to be an enemy. Their activity is usually confined to the coldest hours of night. By dawn they may be still again, far from where they were built and carrying things that were not there before.

Even helpful Effigies can be dangerous because their imitation is literal and crude. When destroyed, they collapse into ordinary snow and debris, leaving no obvious trace of whatever briefly occupied them.

Figures made to resemble witches are blamed for sour milk, restless livestock and frost appearing inside warm rooms. Their childish faces also become less amusing once occupied: pebble eyes shift beneath the snow, branch limbs bend where no joints were made and mouths open farther than their makers intended.

Snow Effigies | Dark Forest

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