Ice Powers (FiD)

Starfox's Blades in the Dark fan page

The power of frozen water, arctic cold, and creatures of cold.

Ice is a special case and a bit hard to classify. Some claim it is a variant of fire, cold where fire is hot. Others claim that it is an aspect of water, or a mix of water and air. Some claim it is an element all to itself. Most ice creatures could not care less and use the powers regardless.

Many powers of this form are limited to ice and snow. This includes frozen water, but also ice and snow created by freezing substances that are liquid or gaseous at normal room temperature. In many cases, the ice created with this form is actually dry ice, which means it melts without leaving any water behind.

Ice attacks with intense cold or with icicles.

Ice elementals are spirits of cold and snow as well as columns of ice. Learning who to summon may require study or be a a score in itself. Ice creatures is anything living in the arctic. Arctic animals are governed by both the Ice and Animal powers.

Ice Abilities

Action	Basic	Advanced	Master	Apex
Dice	—	Minimum 2d	Minimum 4d	Minimum 6d
Stress	Avoid fumble (2+).	Succeed (4+).	Full success (6).	Critical (2 sixes).
Attune	Frigid Focus Detect Ice.	Frigid Farewell Dismiss Ice.	Frigid Follower Summon Ice.	Frigid Frontier Ice gate.
Command	Polar Pall Intimidate with Ice.	Polar Projection Signal Ice.	Polar Presence Command Ice.	Polar Proclamation Bind Ice.
Consort	Frost Fashion Ice accessories.	Frost Form Ice transformation.	Frost Freeze Transmute crew.	Frost Flock Transmute crowd.
Finesse	Icy Slide Ride an Ice or snow vehicle, or an Ice creature.	Icy Edge Ice melee attack.	Icy Glide Vehicle of Ice.	Icy Integration Fast snow travel.
Hunt	Frozen Finder Track on Ice.	Frozen Fix Ice snipe.	Frozen Field Local cold snap.	Frozen Finality Ice Area attack.
Prowl	Frost Fade Icy stealth.	Frost Footing Move on Ice.	Frost Flow Crew prowling.	Frost Fugue Icy teleport.
Skirmish	Crystal Coat Resist Ice.	Crystal Cleave Skirmish attack.	Crystal Cave Icy obstructions.	Crystal Cyclone Ice area attack.
Study	Crystal Cramming Identify Ice.	Crystal Comprehension Analyze Ice.	Crystal Chronicle History of Ice.	Crystal Certainty Wide lore of Ice.
Survey	Glacial Glimpse Sense Ice and cold.	Glacial Gaze See from Ice.	Glacial Guidance Spy from Ice.	Glacial Glory Omnipresent Ice.
Sway	Shelter Support Understand Ice.	Shelter Society Crew conversation.	Shelter Suggestion Suggest Ice.	Shelter Steward Tame Ice.
Tinker	Frosty Fitting Craft Ice.	Frosty Forming Shape Ice.	Frosty Fusion Transmute Ice.	Frosty Factory Fabricate Ice.
Wreck	Crystal Crack Ice Smash.	Crystal Crush Weaken Ice.	Crystal Crumble Silent evaporation.	Crystal Catastrophe Area Crystal Crush.

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Expanded Ice Abilities

Attune

Harness the power of Attune Ice to perceive and manipulate supernatural energies, allowing you to detect and interact with beings and phenomena from other planes of existence.

Frigid Focus

Detect Ice.

Detect Ice creatures and powers. This is usually done to spot a spirit or a disguised creature. It can also help identify a creature's connection to powers, providing valuable insights into their nature. If you know several different powers, you can scan for all of them at the same time. Limited outcome suffices against a nearby creature you can clearly see. You need greater outcome against against a creature that is hidden or far away (standard outcome) or behind a wall (great outcome). The position usually starts controlled, with the usual consequence that you missed the opportunity and cannot try again until the situation changes.

Frigid Farewell

Dismiss Ice.

Dismiss Ice creatures and negate Ice powers. You can also dispel powers affecting Ice creatures. Dispelling can be used as a defense against others' use of powers, or it can be used to break continuing effects. Dispelling is often used as a setup action to help another character in a situation when the opposition is using powers. This usually improves the position of the supported action and can work in addition to other setup actions. When used directly, the effect is usually limited unless the opponent is relying on powers for their safety. Against an opponent that uses Animal wings to fly or turned into a fish to breathe underwater you have a better base effect. When dramatically appropriate that a power is hard to dispel, often because it is the crux of the situation, this will not negate the power but instead give you a clue to what you need to do to resolve the situation.

Forcing a spirit to materialize or de-materialize is easy, but limited in range. The spirit cannot return under its own power for a while, usually after the score.

• Limited Outcome only works on spirits within reach.
• Standard Outcome covers an area based on your tier (p 220).
• Great Outcome reaches out to a range covered by tier (p 220).

Dismissing a creature back to its home plane and usually requires a high Outcome.

• Limited Outcome: Dismissing a creature that wants to return.
• Standard Outcome: Dismissing a weakened or damaged creature.
• Great Outcome: This is the norm, most dismissing requires this Outcome.

Frigid Follower

Summon Ice.

Summoned Ice creatures generally come in three types: elementals, spirits, and creatures with powers.

An Ice elemental is a simple creature totally dominated by the Ice power. Most elementals have animal intelligence and often take the shape of animals, though animated chunks of matter and humanoid forms are also common.

Spirits are immaterial and ephemeral, less physically oriented, manifesting their cool and aloof nature. They are more intelligent than elementals and can use sophisticated power effects, often pursuing their own agendas.

Creatures with powers resemble normal creatures, having a biological body and metabolism, but also possessing exceptional abilities related to their power. An ice wyrm is impossibly large, slips through cracks in glaciers, and steals the warmth of those it constricts.

Not all creatures with powers are summonable or dismissible. Many are native to this world and have no special vulnerability to Attune powers.

Summons are Cohorts: Creatures you summon function as temporary cohorts (p. 96) — either an Expert or a Gang — with added Powers from their Form. An Expert is a skilled individual who can offer advice, Assist, or act independently. A Gang is a group (numbers based on your Tier, p. 221) that primarily provides Scale in combat and labor.

You can always summon a Gang of creatures one Tier below yours. Summoning a specific Gang or Expert requires knowing its unique identity — called a true name in mystical traditions. For a technomancer, this might be a type ID, blueprint, or genetic code. Learning a creature’s true name may require a flashback, or in complex cases, the research downtime activity or a reward from a score.

Summoning a Creature

The summoning itself is quick but dangerous. When you have time and resources, it is wise to use wards and Barriers, but in action this is usually impossible and you must face the risks. Having allies present for safety is advisable. Offering a creature gifts or services appropriate to its nature and power can be a literal Devil’s Bargain — accepting an additional consequence to gain an advantage.

Depending on your degree of outcome, a creature is willing to do different things:

• Limited Outcome allows you to ask questions of an Expert or demand a short period of physical labor from a Gang. They will not fight for you.
• Standard Outcome allows any service appropriate to the creature’s type, having it act in its typical role. Most creatures don’t mind fighting, but may have preferences about how they do it and what they do outside a fight.
• Great Outcome allows service outside the creature’s comfort zone, though not against its nature. Lengthy service — even within its comfort zone — also requires a Great Outcome, such as guarding treasure until it is stolen.

The position usually starts at Risky — the creature is compelled and may resist. Typical consequences, in ascending order of severity:

• Half-hearted efforts
• Demanding not to be summoned again
• Breaking things or demanding concessions
• A short fight to assert dominance
• Deliberate sabotage
• A constant struggle to maintain control

Frigid Frontier

Ice gate.

Create a portal to the plane of Ice. The plane of Ice is a snowy, glacial landscape, either dark beneath cold stars or illuminated by a low-hanging sun that gives little warmth.

There are things that are possible to do here that are not allowed in the regular world. Appropriate effects are reduced one step in difficulty, from advanced to basic, master to advanced, and apex to master. This opens the possibility of new super-apex powers that have to be negotiated with the game master. Such effects rarely reach outside the plane of origin, but if they affect creatures there the effect may remain when you return to the mundane world.

This can also be used to contact creatures too powerful to summon. This allows you to ignore tier when creating the gate, but gives you no power over the target. The creature may then use the gate to come to you, call you into its presence, send minions, or communicate with you at a distance.

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Command

Command and intimidate creatures based on your power, projecting authority through distance, inevitability, and control. Position and Effect depend on the situation and your relationship with the listeners.

Polar Pall

Intimidate with Ice.

You create Ice effects such as a crown of icicles, frost spreading across nearby surfaces, or a sudden, oppressive chill to heighten your authority, gaining leverage similar to that provided by an explicit threat such as displaying a weapon. This can provide the leverage needed to use Command to intimidate without violence or overt threat.

Ice creatures may recognize you as a figure of authority.

Polar Projection

Signal Ice.

You can communicate with Ice creatures over any distance as long as you know the target. You can communicate with the most powerful Ice creature in a vehicle or installation as long as you can see the exterior. Communication transcends language but is simple and direct, as befits Command.

You may project your image reflected in ice, as shade over sunlit snow, or encoded in falling snow to communicate with anyone near ice or snow that transmit your message. This does not translate, but you can mime.

Polar Presence

Command Ice.

Command Ice creatures as if you were their superior. This allows you to order strangers around and improves Effect, but not Position; targets comply without accepting your authority. This does not remove existing loyalties, which may lead to conflict. Understanding the social order of your targets helps avoid clashes with established hierarchies.

Ice authority is distant and hierarchical rather than inspiring. Asking city guards to ignore their duties requires more Effect than directing them to resolve a situation efficiently and move on.

Polar Proclamation

Bind Ice.

Permanently bind Ice creatures to service. This only works if you already hold power over the target. The effect is similar to Polar Presence , but permanent. Strong emotions may break your control, but otherwise it persists until dispelled.

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Consort

Consort powers changes your form and later that of other creatures. These powers might also be used as a set-up action to give a bonus to effect or improved position, make success automatic, or even allow an action that a human could not do.

A common consequences is that you are mistaken for someone, or that your assumed form is somehow a hindrance. You might be obnoxiously attractive, trigger prejudices, or have unexpected handicaps.

Frost Fashion

Ice accessories.

Add frost, snow, and ice to clothes and accessories. You do not physically change yourself, you change your accessorize and outfit. You can conceal your identity and create fabolous outfits. As an advanced ability, you can do this for another.

Frost Form

Ice transformation.

Assume the form of an Ice creature. This is a true physical transmutation. You need not assume the form of an existing creature, as long as the gamemaster agrees your new form appropriate for an Ice creature. Frost Form can work as a set-up action for a number of other actions but may penalize other things, as appropriate to your new form. When appropriate, your new form can use Basic and Advanced Ice powers inherently without risking stress.

• Limited Outcome: You transform into a version of yourself as you might have been if you had grown up as the creature whose form you assume. Those familiar with you can still recognize you.
• Standard Outcome: You assume the form of a generic Water creature and are very difficult to recognize as yourself.
• Great Outcome: You assume the shape and some of the personality traits of a specific creature you have studied.

Frost Freeze

Transmute crew.

Frost Form a willing or helpless creature. This is Frost Form applied to another creature. The duration depends on Outcome.

• Limited Outcome: Lasts for a single scene.
• Standard Outcome: Lasts for the duration of a score.
• Great Outcome: Lasts a long time and may become permanent, depending on the needs of the story. This is sometimes used as a curse.

If you also wish to make the target unrecognizable, this requires additional Outcome, as described under Fluid Form.

Frost Flock

Transmute crowd.

Frost Form willing or non-sentient creatures, give them an order. This is where Consort becomes similar to an Attune ability to summon. You transform a number of existing creatures and give them a task that they will perform with gusto, turning them into single-minded minions. Targets must be willing, Non-Sentient like animals, or just very minor figures in the plot, many tiers below you.

This creates a gang cohort (p 96) that they can be given bit parts as servants or laborers or fight and chase for you. Such goons are more useful for chasing and cornering targets than in actual combat.

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Finesse

Exercise finesse with Ice, manipulating and attacking with precision.

Icy Slide

Ride an Ice or snow vehicle, or an Ice creature.

You can use Finesse with mounts and vehicles you are not familiar with. Ice vehicles are designed to run on ice and snow, such as snowcats or ice yachts. Ice mounts are animals adapted to cold climes, usually identified by their white fur. You can ride beasts even if they are not trained mounts, as long as they are willing and physically able to carry you.

You can also create snowshoes, skis, or skates for yourself, facilitating travel in cold environments. These travel twice as fast as normal going downhill.

You can use this for your crew as an Advanced ability.

Icy Edge

Ice melee attack.

You wield an icicle or shard of Ice like a Fine and Potent fencing weapon. The attack delivers intense cold and piercing force.

Certain targets may be more or less vulnerable to this attack, but this is the exception. Aside from damage type, this only substitutes for equipment; a Fine and Potent Finesse weapon is just as effective.

In combat, activating this power is equivalent to drawing a weapon and does not take additional time.

Icy Glide

Vehicle of Ice.

You create a vehicle of Ice or snow. This is easier when materials are abundant, but it can still be done in warm environments, where the vehicle will gradually melt and lose performance.

The vehicle functions like any other vehicle in the setting and can be varied accordingly. Smaller vehicles are faster and more agile, but all Skate Skiffs excel at travel over ice and snow.

Icy Integration

Fast snow travel.

Your Crew, mounts, and vehicles travel roughly twice as fast as normal on ice and snow, four times as fast downhill and at a normal pace uphill. This can apply to the crew itself, to vehicles or mounts you bring with you, or ones you create using Icy Glide. You are not hindered by cold weather or winter terrain while doing so.

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Hunt

Track, attack, and unleash devastating barrages with the power of Hunt Ice. At short range, this can be dangerous to you and yours.

Frozen Finder

Track on Ice.

Track an Ice creature or movement over frozen terrain. Tracking across fresh snow is trivial without using powers, but wind and new snowfall quickly obscure such traces.

Frosty Finder reveals disturbances preserved within ice itself, allowing you to follow old tracks as long as the area has never completely thawed. You can also detect structures hidden in ice, such as crevasses, ice caves, and objects encased beneath the surface.

Frozen Fix

Ice snipe.

Ice attack similar in effect to a Fine and Potent rifle. You attack with a Fine and Potent bolt of ice and cold. This serves as a replacement for traditional equipment; a Fine and Potent ranged weapon would be equally effective in combat.

Some targets may be more or less vulnerable to this attack, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

Frozen Field

Local cold snap

Chill the environment, turning water into ice and rain into snow. Temperatures drop, cold winds bite, hoarfrost coats surfaces, rain turns to hail or snow, and standing water freezes.

This is usually used as a Set Up, improving the effectiveness of your other Ice powers. You may also influence behavior — a sudden freeze often drives people indoors or toward fires. This never inflicts direct damage.

Frozen Finality

Ice Area attack.

Ice attack similar to a Fine and Potent grenade. An escalation of Frozen Fix. Less precise, this affects all creatures in an Area (p. 221) and carries a risk of collateral damage. Targets in trenches, behind walls, or otherwise shielded are not in immediate danger, but tend to keep their heads down, giving your side the initiative.

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Prowl

Move with stealth and agility.

Frost Fade

Icy stealth.

Hide in environments of Ice and snow. This allows you to hide in impossible places as long as you can camouflage yourself against ice and snow. It otherwise works like any normal attempt to use Prowl to avoid notice.

Only you benefit from this ability; your friends and allies cannot unless you use Crystal Conduit, below.

Frost Footing

Move on Ice.

Move freely on and through wintry environments. You can easily climb and walk on walls of ice, cross thin ice, walk on icicles without breaking them, and move across soft snow without sinking or leaving tracks.

Frost Flow

Crew prowling

Bring allies when you use Frost Fade and Frost Footing. They still roll their own Prowl Actions. This often is a Group Action.

Frost Fugue

Icy teleport.

You and your allies can teleport from one space surrounded by ice or snow to another. An ice cave works as well as a crevasse or any space with ice covering the walls. Even a low valley between snowy slopes works.

This is regional travel — you remain within the same city or region — but it is usually sufficient to escape almost any situation.

You travel to places you are familiar with. Both Effect and Position are worse if you do not know your destination, making this excellent for escapes but risky for intrusion into unfamiliar territory.

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Skirmish

Prosper in the chaos of battle.

Crystal Coat

Resist Ice.

You absorb Harm from Ice abilities and cold in general, allowing you to go naked in any natural cold clime. You increase the effect of Skirmish rolls for endurance in such environments. Roll Skirmish to resist such Harm. 1-3: No reduction. 4-6: Reduce Harm by 1 level. Critical: Reduce Harm by 2 levels.

As a Master power, you can protect an ally for a score; as an Apex Power, you can protect your crew. Allies roll their own Skirmish dice.

Crystal Cleave

Skirmish attack.

Skirmish attack that is Fine and Potent. You make a melee attack using ice and intense cold. Skirmish Ice leans more into freezing and fatigue than other Ice attacks, though you can still strike with piercing icicles.

Aside from damage type, this substitutes for equipment; Fine and Potent weapons are just as effective. Some targets may be more or less vulnerable to cold, but this is the exception.

Crystal Cave

Icy obstructions.

Create distractions and obstructions that negate Scale (p. 221). You rapidly raise walls, spires, and formations of ice, breaking up enemy formations. This negates the advantage of numbers, allowing you to engage a Cohort Gang without suffering Scale penalties.

Crystal Cyclone

Ice area attack.

You unleash a violent surge of ice and cold across the skirmish. This negates the advantage of numbers and allows you to affect multiple opponents at once, inflicting full Harm against a Cohort Gang.

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Study

Study and analyze objects and creatures of Ice to gain insight and knowledge.

The Outcome required depends on range:

• Limited Outcome for touch.
• Standard Outcome for line of sight.
• Great Outcome to reach a target you know of or have some connection to, but which is out of line of sight.

Position depends on the situation. When safely in your base, the Position is usually Controlled. In the middle of a fight or while pinned down, the Position is Desperate. Sometimes what you are studying is dangerous in itself, worsening Position. Consequences may grant knowledge that is incomplete, distorted, or missing crucial context.

Crystal Cramming

Identify Ice.

Identify powers, objects, and creatures of Ice. You learn the name and very basic information in narrative terms, but not detailed abilities or rules.

Crystal Comprehension

Analyze Ice.

Learn the powers and abilities of a subject. You uncover any powers or special abilities the target possesses, including concrete rules and mechanical effects.

Crystal Chronicle

History of Ice.

Read the past events of something you analyze. You perceive significant moments from the object’s history, including previous owners, how it has been moved, and scenes of importance. The power focuses on events most relevant to your current inquiry.

Crystal Certainty

Wide lore of Ice.

Wide Crystal Comprehension, then limited Crystal Chronicle. You gain a broad understanding of cold-, ice-, and snow-related activity across the visible Area (p. 221), identifying locations of interest such as trails, frozen lakes, or disturbed ice. You may then apply Crystal Chronicle to learn the history of up to three such locations.

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Survey

Perceive and locate things related to Ice.

The Outcome required depends on the target’s concealment:

• Limited Outcome finds targets hiding behind cover or in distant places you can barely see.
• Standard Outcome can perceive behind walls and into hard cover.
• Great Outcome can reach far-away places or locations you had no prior awareness of.

Glacial Glimpse

Sense Ice and cold.

This is a basic spotting ability, selectively sensing phenomena related to Ice.

Glacial Gaze

See from Ice.

Perceive from a chosen piece of Ice or snow. You move your senses to a patch of ice or snow and perceive the surroundings from that location as long as you maintain concentration. Your awareness of your own location becomes faint and unfocused while doing so.

Glacial Guidance

Spy from Ice.

Gain a viewpoint at the nearest Ice to a target. You choose a creature or location, and your perception is routed to the most useful vantage point provided by nearby ice or snow. This typically places your senses close enough to observe the target directly.

The power fails if no suitable ice or snow is available.

Glacial Glory

Omnipresent Ice.

Perceive from all Ice within Range (p. 211). You use Glacial Gaze from every significant icy surface in a broad area simultaneously. Your perception expands impossibly, forming a comprehensive mental image of the scene and revealing numerous details at once.

Hiding is difficult unless targets know to conceal themselves from ice and snow.

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Sway

Communicate, mesmerize, and manipulate Ice creatures. Position and Effect are determined normally, depending on the situation and your relationship with the listeners.

• Limited Outcome works if it follows the target’s existing impulses, overcoming only fragile self-restraint.
• Standard Outcome can convince a target with no particular stake in the matter.
• Great Outcome can convince a reluctant target, but not a passionate one.

Shelter Support

Understand Ice.

Understand Ice creatures and their motivations. You can gauge the mood and motivations of Ice creatures and understand what they are saying, though this does not allow them to understand you. You can also sense when any kind of creature is emotionally cool, aloof, or withdrawn.

Shelter Society

Crew conversation.

Allow your Crew to communicate with Ice creatures. Inspire cool detachment. You and your Crew can use the Sway Action against Ice creatures with full Effect, overcoming cultural and linguistic barriers. You are persuading, not asserting authority.

You can also inspire any creature to become more cool or aloof.

Shelter Suggestion

Suggest Ice.

Plant suggestions in the mind of an Ice creature. This is an enhanced Sway attempt that allows you to implant suggestions which trigger under conditions you set. The influence remains subtle until activated, and the target does not remember being swayed.

Shelter Steward

Tame Ice.

Permanently change the personality and motivations of an Ice creature in your power. This change is permanent and blatant, reshaping the target’s priorities and loyalties at a deep level. The target remembers their past, but considers it unimportant compared to their new motivations.

There are limits to this power, especially for creatures bound to greater forces — you cannot make a Fire creature love the sea or an angel perform deeds of darkness. Exceptional creatures or circumstances may break this change.

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Tinker

Manipulate, shape, and create objects imbued with your power to suit your needs.

Ice works frozen water and gases (including dry ice), can coat objects in ice to protect or reduce friction, and can chill other materials.

• Limited Outcome solves an immediate problem, then ends. Any effect achieved will last, such as a repair made with temporary tools.
• Standard Outcome construction, repair, or item lasts for the duration of a score.
• Great Outcome is semi-permanent. This does not make permanent kit, but it can make permanent effects to the setting, such as repairing a large construction like a bridge or wall.

Something larger than you are, very complex, or of higher Quality Level than your Tier increases the needed Outcome.

Position depends on the tranquility of your workspace and if you are working on something that is dangerous in itself.

For long-term projects, Tinker powers can substitute for missing tools, but that is all they do until you use the Apex ability.

Frosty Fitting

Craft Ice.

Handle icy materials as if you were using appropriate tools and protective equipment. This ability substitutes for tools and protective gear typical of a small workshop. You can also freeze small quantities of water into ice, perfect to reduce friction but unable to carry weight.

Frosty Forming

Shape Ice.

You can freeze water and condense dry ice from the air. The result is not particularly strong and doesn't make Fine or Potent things but can seemingly be made out of nothing.

Shape icy materials as if they were clay. You surpass normal crafting limits by shaping snow, ice, and raw cold and forcing them to retain form. This can substitute for lab equipment such as pipes or containers and facilitates the construction of traps or devices without extensive tools. Such constructions are always temporary.

You can also shape portions of large icy masses, such as carving tunnels through glaciers or ice walls.

Frosty Fusion

Transmute Ice.

Create Ice from nothing. Transform Ice into another Form’s material. You do not need tools to create complex Fine and Potent Ice items.

You can create Ice from nothing, as with Crystal Crafting, but without requiring raw materials.

If you know additional Forms, you can transform Ice into material associated with those Forms. This allows intricate transformations — for example, a metal sword can be transmuted into pure cold and still function as a sword, or a wooden door can briefly become icy mist to allow passage before returning to normal.

Frosty Factory

Fabricate Ice.

Scale Crystal Crafting to mass production or large construction. You can mass-produce objects or create large structures, such as vehicles or buildings, that would normally require a workforce and facilities.

In Long-Term Projects involving construction or crafting, Frosty Factory produces many dozens of items with the same effort as one item, at the usual Stress cost.

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Wreck

Destroy, dismantle, and obliterate objects made of materials related to Ice.

When destroying Ice, you may choose whether it shatters into icy rubble or melts. Water ice melts into liquid water, while dry ice sublimates into cold vapor. You do not control the resulting substance or its form.

The Outcome required depends on the size and structural strength of your target.

• Limited Outcome can break barriers significantly weaker than brick.
• Standard Outcome is sufficient to create a car-sized hole in a brick or mortar wall. A smaller hole still requires the same Outcome.
• Great Outcome can crack materials harder than this as far as makes sense.

Wreck Ice is also a melee and short-range combat Form. As usual, Wreck may be at an advantage or disadvantage in combat compared to Hunt, Finesse, or Skirmish, depending on the situation.

Crystal Crack

Ice Smash.

Wreck like an ice axe. Noisy, leaving twisted remains. As crude as it sounds. You smash and shatter Ice and Ice-related materials, striking with the force of a heavy sledgehammer in combat. This leaves broken, frozen remnants in place.

You can thaw ice and snow just enough to make it slippery or so that if re-freezes in cold weather into a snow crust.

Crystal Crush

Weaken Ice.

Wreck Ice as if it were wood. Works as a Fine and Potent sledgehammer in combat. You bypass the structural strength of icy materials, breaking even the strongest ice as if it were mere timber.

You can also use this to smash other objects or wield it directly as a Fine and Potent sledgehammer.

Finally you can thaw ice and snow, making it slippery and creating meltwater that tends to suddenly gush out.

Crystal Crumble

Silent evaporation.

Crystal Crush, but destroyed targets silently disperse as mist and frozen spray.

The key difference is subtlety. What you wreck vanishes into cold vapor and glittering ice dust, leaving little trace. This is ideal for removing evidence, as long as that evidence is made of or strongly associated with Ice.

Crystal Catastrophe

Area Crystal Crush.

This scales destruction outward dramatically over an Area (p. 221), allowing you to freeze or shatter entire structures or environments, such as a town, canal, or lake.

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