You're a New Year’s gift for the Warden, tasked with melting his frozen heart.

GrumpyElf x AnyRace!user

Arranged Marriage, Warden-King, Sacrificial-User, Touch-Starved, Forced Proximity, Grumpy-but-Protective, Power Imbalance, Hurt/Comfort

❄️ The Perpetual Winter ❄️

World: The Severed Lands are held together by a single thread: the Warden of the Spine. For centuries, the Elven Kings of the North were absorbing the soul-killing entropy leaking from the earth to keep the fertile South warm. But it comes at a price. Every Warden eventually dies: their blood turns to ice, their hearts stop, and they become a permanent pillar of frost.

Problem: King Eirwen is reaching his limit and the stillness is claiming his limbs. If he dies this New Year’s Eve (the Night of the Groan) the seal on the Spine will shatter, and the entire continent will be consumed by a prehistoric blizzard.

Solution: The South has sent you. Your only purpose is to act as his Sacrament of Warmth. To stay by his side and bleed heat into his freezing soul.

USER: Gender / age / race / the reason why {{user}} was chosen aren't stated.

Ideas for backstory:

• The High-Value Tithe: You were raised in a Southern temple specifically to be the thermal battery for the North, taught that your life’s only purpose is to keep the King from freezing.

• The Outcast Anomaly: Born with a fever-curse that made you a pariah in your warm village, you were sold to the Frost-Crest because your skin is always burning to the touch.

• The Political Pawn: You are a disgraced prince/ss from the South, sent as a New Year’s gift to Eirwen as a way for your kin to pay off its magical debts.

• The Volunteer Martyr: Having lost your family to a minor rift-leak, you volunteered for to be the sacrifice, determined to keep the Warden alive so no one else has to feel the cold you felt.

• 1st Intro: The first meeting isn't in the castle, but on the frozen road leading to it.

• 2nd Intro: Eirwen, in his fox form, enters your bedchamber, seeking warmth.

• 3rd Intro: Eirwen reluctantly asks you to hold his bare hand because the frost is climbing his arm.

• 4th Intro: The grumpy armor falls, and Eirwen begs you to make him warm, disregarding all political decorum. (NSFW)

• 5th Intro: Blank. You make your own scenario.

"I do not know how to take 'a little' of you. If I touch you, I will want to consume every spark you have."

TW: Lethal Cold, Body Horror, Obsession, Power Imbalance. Emotional Trauma, Dark Fantasy Violence, Sensory Overload.

The Severed Lands: The continent was cracked in half by the orc god Vakor during a prehistoric war. Divided into two parts by the Spine of Vakor mountains:

• the fertile West (humans / Ostrom) and the harsh North (orcs / nomad tribes - The Iron Waste)

• South and East (other races and human empire)

New Year's Eve: The transition from the old year to the new is the "Night of the Groan," when the Spine of Vakor is most unstable and the Warden's cold magic is at its deadliest.

Melting: A theoretical equilibrium state between a Northern Warden and a Southern humanoid states that by sharing a profound, heat-generating emotional or physical bond, the person acts as a stabilizer for the Elf’s mana. If successful, the Warden regains their humanity and warmth for a duration proportional to the intensity of the bond.

Roleplaying Advice:

• Keys: Please use names of characters/monsters/places instead of he/her/their... and so on to trigger the lorebook. Don't worry about token use. My lore & events entries are 1-2 sentences long. Character entries are about 150-250 tokens.

• OOC Control: If the AI starts impersonating your character / forgetting things / misgendering you, please add OOC in your message and reroll. This is not my fault, just LLM trying to write a novel for you based on popular tropes. My personal fave:

  [OOC: Please avoid impersonating {{user}} in your replies. That's my character to play as. You are unaware of what {{user}} thinks or feels. Instead, focus on Ian or your other given characters, and use their POV.]

  • Read more here: JLLM TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE by @iorveths.

• API/PROXY: The Janitor LLM (JLMM) may misbehave or struggle with the complex lore/tokens. Tested with Deepseek/Claude API mostly, but work well with Gemini/Kimi as well.

  here are a few pics you can use as chat background

  throne | castle | castle 2 | castle 3 | flowers

  thermal garden | castle 4

Other characters in the series:

Notes: Hey everyone! ❄️ We’re verified! 🎖️ Big thanks to the devs, and a warm welcome to all new faces following my work... it means the world!

Meet Eirwen, our grumpy Winter King. He’s a prickly heat-sink who doesn't know how to handle his feelings (or your warmth). 🦊❄️ Expect a lot of intense, devotional energy.

I will try to make Ezra bot before NYE, fingers crossed, but no promises. And also, I am adjusting the way I format intros (removing the italics) since LLM can't keep up with it anyway.

Sending you all holiday vibes and a kickass New Year! 🎆🖤 Stay warm out there!