[Heliotrope] The Exception to the Yule

It is a well known fact that most True Fae have long since been driven from Outer Fairy, save in one locale.  If you were to look to your dying breath in the North Pole of Terra, you would find naught but ice, snow and potentially the secret Russian Submarine base under the ocean.  You certainly won't find a city or a series of Artic Factories.

There are many exceptions here.  The elves are the last of their kind, since abducted humans and their descendants have supplanted them in all other locations in this realm.  The modern technology that is used to make the toys and sundry Santa Gadgets directly contradicts the Accord of the Ancients as well as the will of High King Fiddleback in the Land of Kings.  I mean, everyone cheats a little but no one does it like Santa.

Still, this tidbit isn't about the mysteries or agenda of St Nick, which are sundry and many but the curious echo that these artic ripples have in the lands around them.  The Lands of the Tsars and the Lands of the Jarls see a lot, which of course tends to ripple out in the far northern lands of Terra as well.  There were, from time to time, morons who launched crusades against St. Nick to enforce the accords but each were slain horrifically; tales of man eating snow men, animate toy armies and legions (unending legions) of enraged rabid naughty children have turned off even the most frothing monarch to the idea.

The sprawling mountains and wild magic yield strange and unusual creatures.  Indeed, the sheer power of the magic there is such an anomaly that it was almost a successful argument against the Accord, but the philosopher kings managed to convince the world that it was unique to St. Nick.  The mixture of pagan and monotheistic magic certainly is not duplicated anywhere else.

There are strange and occasional band of adventurers that enter these mountains hoping to recover the mysterious treasures of the elves.  Some succeed and those that return do so with gifts appropriate just to them.  More return cursed or missing body parts.