“Frosty the snowman was a jolly happy soul,
With a corncob pipe and a button nose,
And two eyes made out of coal. 

Frosty the snowman is a fairy tale, they say,
He was made of snow but the children know
how he came to life one day.

There must have been some magic in that
Old silk hat they found.
For when they placed it on his head,
He began to dance around. 
 
Oh, Frosty the snowman
Was alive as he could be,
And the children say he could laugh
And play just the same as you and me.”
 
Frosty is a glory hound and a motherfucking liar. He wasn’t the first and was by no means the last snowman to come to life. Just the only one to be so fucking obvious about it that the humans still sing that obnoxious song. And that shabby damn hat isn’t magical. Of course, he’d tell you that it’s the style of the tale rather than the truth of it that counts, but if you’re willing to go along with that then I pray you never cross paths with the icemen.
 
Truth is, we’re not exactly sure of all the events and ingredients that must come together for a snowman to come to life. It’s rare. But there’s something that happens every once in a while between the elements of the snow - clean, fresh, and hard-packed - the assorted pieces of junk that your maker uses to establish your initial form, and the wishes and dreams of a human heart. Magic, destiny, dumb luck - doesn’t really matter anyway, you’re alive, ain’t ya?
 
What is important is that act of creation forges a bond between the snowmen and human children everywhere, but more about that later. 
 
Anyway, most snowmen that come to life don’t prance around and make spectacles of themselves. They realize immediately that the human world isn’t the place for them. The lucky ones either realize they need to make their way north before they melt or run across one of the old hands we send out to watch for the newly awakened. 
 
And far, far in the north, of course, is Winter Wonderland, the place where snowmen have made a home of their own. It used to be a wondrous place of peace and happiness, where we could quietly prosper out of sight of the human world. And it’s still the only place we can call our own.
 
But there’s that pesky bond with human children, remember? Well, the world hasn’t been kind to children – divorce, school shootings, gangs, sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, you know? Innocence lost or crudely stolen. And it’s had an effect on us and on Winter Wonderland. Fuck, it’s given us the worst that human beings have to offer. 
 
You’d think snowmen would be a jolly lot, right? No fucking way. Now we all hang between two equally horrible fates. On one hand, there’s being melted by another snowman, by too much of any number of available “feel good” poisons, or by our own hand. On the other is becoming something wholly monstrous, hardening and sloughing off all softness and kindness until you’re a thin and razor sharp being of hatred and pain – an iceman.
 
As for Winter Wonderland, it’s akin to a feral city now. Sure, you can still eke out a living, but gangs, crime, and corruption are the new way of life. Violence is to be expected – it’s just a matter of whether you’ll be the victim or the perpetrator. And at night we seldom risk going out at all, cowering in our squats and barring the doors against the icemen. This far north the nights can be very long.
 
Sometimes I wish the sun would come and melt all the scum away.

 

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Game Chef 2008 came right after the birth of my second child, so I was bleary eyed and fucking lazy. But Sean Musgrave's disturbing images of snowmen involved in violence and crime spoke to my love for crime noir literature--you know, Cornell Woolrich, James M. Cain, Jim Thompson and the like. So I hacked Ron Edwards' Spione into Winter Noir, a nasty little game of snowmen being drawn into crime and facing either melting or turning into ice at the end of their tale. Take a look for yourself. I'm likely to pick this design up again soon to see if I can make into something more than just a vigorous hack since I love the fucked-up combination of snowmen and crime noir.