Ded Moroz
Grandfather Frost. NG lesser power (possibly an archomental) of winter, joy, generosity and renovation [He/Him]
Pantheon: Slavic
Symbol: A colourfully decorated tree
Realms: Para-Elemental Ice / Fog of Unyielding Frost / Great Ustyug
Proxies: Snegurochka (prime snow construct [she/her] / CG)
While Cryonax rules the Para-Elemental Ice with his iron fists, another power rises at the borders of Frostfell. Grandfather Frost claims to be the power of “everything good about winter”—Midwinter celebrations, skiing, playing snowballs, building snowmen, and most of all natural cycles of rest and renovation. This attitude has made him a bitter enemy of Marena and Cryonax—and an ally of benevolent Slavic powers. He’s also known to be sympathetic to La Befana, one of the Strangers of the Hinterlands.
Grandpa Frost does indeed look like someone’s grandfather. He has a long white beard, and his nose is always red for some reason. He fears a heavy blue fur coat and chapka, decorated with white frost-like ornaments. He’s never seen without his magical staff, which is decorated with a snowflake-like tip. And don’t forget his chariot, which is pulled by three white horses—December, January and February (yes cutter, those are their actual names).
Ded Moroz has a small number of worshippers and petitioners, many of whom are children who met tragic ends, but lately this number seems to be rising. Moroz is unusual among powers in that sometimes he visits the Prime, together with his petitioners. Those days are called Dedy or Dzady, and are the holidays when primes can contact loved ones who have passed away. Followers typically prepare the feast and gifts for each other and for the petitioners—and sometimes receive gifts from Ded Moroz himself in return. Of course, travelling away from their plane of rest is the time when petitioners are at their most vulnerable, so Grandfather Frost has to be mighty careful on these jaunts.
Snegurochka [she/her, prime snow construct, CG] was a construct fashioned from snow and imbued with a soul by a couple of elderly wizards, who desperately wanted to have a child. She lived in her parents’ tower for many years, but one day the wizards went away on some errand and never returned. When Snegurochka left her home to search for them, she quickly discovered what Summer is—and how fast she would melt in the warm sunlight. So, the Snow Girl died. But of course, Ded Moroz took pity on her and fashioned a new snowy body for her soul, along with granting her formidable magic powers. While Snegurochka is happy to live in Great Ustyug with her “grandpa”, she misses her parents, whose disappearance is still shrouded in mystery.
Sources: Margarita and Jon Winter-Holt. Margarita notes: While this homebrew power is based on Slavic folklore and beliefs, the amount of actual information we have on pre-Christian Slavic deities is so minuscule that building any kind of lore out of it is impossible. However, there are a lot of folk beliefs about things these deities are thought to represent, which I have worked into the piece.