This year, only three threads are about it. Way down from last year, if I recall.
Cold touch = no ML change. Frost = weapons at ML 20 or below lose 2 ML. Icy = weapons at ML 20 or below lose an additional 2 ML.
Nothing from the Eveningstar Altar reduces ML.
Glaciation increases an item's Absolute ML to the "normal" ML for that level of glaciation. (Glaciation 60 = Absolute ML 10.)
The Eveningstar Altar accepts cosmetics.
Advanced:
Cold touch replaces festival frost and icy. It also replaces normal frost, but not Frost II and above. Cold touch does not remove normal glaciation. (This is different from last year.) It does remove festival glaciation. (A "normal" glaciation 60 scepter can be reduced 4 MLs, for example, once icy is applied.)
Neither festival frost nor icy affect the ML of race restricted weapons. All rangen loot with mastercrafted or wondrous are guaranteed to be ML affected. (Unless said weapon is race restricted.)
Pre-ghostbaned weapons sometimes have their ML reduced, but more often not. I have not been able to determine a way to tell beforehand. (Ollie, now calling himself Vendui, has stated before that he can tell. He even tried to explain it to me, but I did not understand. Or he was full of shit. Take your pick.)
Epic Weapons: All weapons at ML 21 and above change 1 ML instead of 2 ML. Otherwise, same rules apply. If festival frost takes a weapon to ML 20, icy will then take it to ML 18.
There is an issue that is not exclusive to repeating crossbows, but as far as I can tell, is more prevalent with them: Festival frost reduces their ML by 2, but then Icy does not reduce it further. I have not been able to determine why. I have seen it happen on one longsword, and 8-10 different repeaters, both heavy and light.
If the weapon has one of paralyzing, smiting, banishing, or vorpal, and a heroic ML (but not mastercrafted), it can still be reduced, but odds are strongly against it.
Epic ML throwers get rejected by the altar. Some, but not all, throwers that are mastercrafted or wondrous & would have been epic otherwise are also rejected by the altars. I don't know why. This applies to non-throwers too, apparently, but much less frequently. (I had the Risia altar reject one wondercrafted bastard sword. I haven't had a sample size large enough to tell anything at all other than it happened once.)
I don't have access to a mirror of glamering, so I don't know whether the Harbor (or Eveningstar) altar accepts cosmetic weapons. (I'd love to know, if you're handing out knowledge, or mirrors.)
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