The Height of Magical Fashion in Icy Wilderness - Eversummer Silks
/The climes, environments, and locations that a player can go to are as limitless in a fantasy or science fiction role playing game as there thoughts in a Game Master's mind. Players are just as likely to trudge through a city on stilts built in bogs, as well as walk up the face of a mountain that distorts gravity.
Wandering the worlds of your RPGs is a perilous things, but future tech and magical conjuration makes the journey safer.
Eversummer Silks
The first explorers in our world and worlds of ttrpgs were well prepared - Arctic Explorer by Anton Juntunen
On the slopes of the most immense mountains, and in environments of intense cold and endless snow, most adventurers would die from cold exposure if they trekked too long. Most RPG systems have their rules, or ways to logically adapt it. Beasts and natives have their way to survive in the cold. For visitors, there are eversummer silks.
Eversummer silks were first woven as the principles of magic were being conceived of by the earliest civilisations in Dungeons and Dragons. As the cold places of the world were being explored, the temperatures began to get to them.
The thick wools and tweed that explorers wore to keep warm on treks were soon suffused with safe, heating magic.
The earliest garments and clothes with these enchantments always have the sources of heat facing inwards. The temperature ranges between five and fifteen degrees Celsius.
As the magic that suffuses heat into eversummer silks became more refined, the magic to them became potent in less and less insulated cloth. Silks that mirror the fashions of warmer climates became common among the wealthy in wintry settlements. The heating auras in modern eversummer silks exudes as an aura of warmth from otherwise not warming clothes. This prevents snow even settling on a person's head, let alone ones clothes. High fashion still staying functional in the cold has become increasingly common.
Clothed in Glory
As eversummer silks became magically refined, the height of fashion became beautiful whilst still keeping the wearer warm - garment and photography by Firefly-Path
The trade of eversummer silk varies depending on how GMs want to use them in their settings. These are just a suggestion based on how I've used them in my previous games.
Eversilk is an incredibly valuable and rare commodity, made by masters of the craft in a specific corner of the world. It's imported at a very high price across the world in immense, warm spools of cloth to be crafted into the styles of the wintry region.
Players may be asked by a wealthy lord or merchant in the arcane weaver's guild to ensure the safe passage of a spool of eversummer silk. A crime lord at the head of a Thieves' Guild may want to pull a great heist to seize the valuable commodity for themselves and turn a great profit.
There's room for quests and story beats centered around things of high value in the player world. All are worth exploring. Now we want to hear from you. How would eversummer silk feature in games you GM? What strange commodity would feature alongside magically warm cloths. Let us know on our discord server or in the comments below.
Adam Ray contributes much for adventurers here on Apotheosis Studios. As co-founder of fantasticuniverses.com, he writes about card gaming and PC gaming to a corner of the internet he carved out himself. On Youtube, he can be found game mastering for No Ordinary Heroes, or editing the antics on The Hostile Atmosphere. Follow his Twitter @IzzetTinkerer.
