Basic Information
An Ice Giant is a large planet composed mostly of water, ammonia, and methane. The outer 15% to 20% of the planet may also be made of Helium and Hydrogen. The chemical composition of an Ice Giant gives them a bluish tone - from powder blue to deep ultramarine.
Don't let the name fool you into thinking you can land in their oceans, or on their icy surface. Ice Giants are a subtype of Gas Giant - what appears as surface from a distance is actually clouds and thick atmosphere. If you penetrated far enough in to land on something even remotely solid, you'd be experiencing incredible crushing pressures both atmospheric and gravitational. Despite being icy on the outside, the inner cores of these planets are still molten.
Our solar system has two Ice Giants in it - Uranus and Neptune.
Sources
Game and Story Use
- Adventure Seed: Ogres of the Ice World