One can hear Ithlinne's Prophecy whispered at every market, garbled and reused by every village witch, delved into in any treatise touching on sooths and diviners and in general saturating our common culture. We all know that "the time of the Wolf's Blizzard approaches, the Time of the White Frost" and that "the world will perish amidst ice." But few truly understand the meaning of these words.
The self-proclaimed prophets who shout out Ithlinne's words mistake stars reflected in a still pond for the sky. For the White Frost is no legend or mythical apocalypse. It is a natural phenomenon that can be described in the dry yet precise language of scholarship.
The renowned scholar of Thorn's studies have clearly shown that our world is not the center of the universe, but one of a thousand such globes spinning in the endless darkness of space. This space is usually described as a vacuum - yet to do so is grossly misleading, for through this "vacuum" swims, invisible to the naked eye, the White Frost.
We do not know exactly what the White Frost is - perhaps a microscopic dust that blocks the incoming light of the sun? Perhaps infinitesimal particles of the sort postulated by Democritus of Ban Ard, with the unusual property of sucking up warmth as a sponge does water?
We know for a certainty however, that, thanks to the telescopic observations of elven astronomers, the White Frost, whatever it is, has already destroyed a great many worlds. The star systems in which it appears perish into lifeless hunks of ice over the course of a few decades. Furthermore, each scholar is agreed that the White Frost will one day come to our world. Ithlinne's Prophecy, though based on magic intuition and not scientific observation, thus appears to foretell the truth.
Many mages are skeptical about the theses presented here. I recommend they carry out the same experiment I have conducted in my own laboratory. Using the spellPortus Asterum, [sic] open a microscopic portal for three and a half seconds to the coordinates 03 31 48 90, 89 27 09 34. Yet before you do, dress in your warmest furs and ready an axe for breaking through thick ice.
