Each book always begins in the small village of Rin, in an isolated valley that rests at the foot of the forbidden Mountain.

Long before the time of humans, the bukshah travelled up the Mountain every winter to feast on a grey fungus produced by the ice creepers.

Above their abandoned home, the companions lay dying and the Bukshah were kept from Mountain Heart, leaving the creepers to breed and multiply.

The cunning works of the Keeper of the Crystal of Maris led to the Rin slaves turning against their Zebak masters, defeating the invaders.

Minds wiped by the Zebak, they remained unaware that half of their kinsmen were still enslaved across the sea, keeping their sad history recorded on silk paintings, as the people of the Valley of Gold had done also.

Three hundred years later, the Zebak devise a plan to invade Rin via the air, using flying creatures called grach, then taking the Travellers and Maris-folk by surprise through a land attack.

Rowan and his mother must travel to the beaches where the Maris civilisation dwell all in order to choose the next Keeper of the Crystal.

(Retitled to Rowan and the Ice Creepers in North America) An endless winter has begun in the land of Rin.

He journeys up the mountain in his beloved bukshah's wake to cease the endless frost and ice, but doing so may endanger not only himself, but his loved ones as well.

"[9] Rowan of the Bukshah was also criticized for plot conveniences and lack of a sense of danger; however, it was praised for its "genuinely creepy creatures.