The Ships Of The Gray Mists

Barge
Barges are very rare on the open Gray Seas, but more common in Pocket Seas.  While they can haul large amounts of cargo they are best suited to calm waters.  Many of the ships that make of the City-Fleets are old barges.

Caravel
Carvels are small ships that are fast and nimble and designed for long times in the open seas.  Carvels are the earliest ships designed to sail the Gray Seas.  They are decked and have small forecastles and sterncastles and two or three masts.

Cog
Cogs are ships with a single square mast and partial decks with just the bow and stern being decked.  These decked compartments are more of platforms than a forecaste or sterncastle.  While seaworthy they are mostly used for intersea trade.

Coracle
Made of hide stretched over a wicker frame, a coracle is one of the simplest ships.  Most coracles are so light that they can be carried on ones back.  Many of the Orcs who live on the Honu use coracles made of shark skin stretched over a bamboo frame.  Coracles are not ocean going vessels, and have a crew of one.

Dhow
The dhow is a moderately sized sailing vessel with a single lateen mast and a full deck. Their hulls are long and thin and are very popular for intra sea transport.  Most Cattie ships are Dhows.  Many have a rear deck house or stern castle.  Dhows general have between 12-30 crew members depending on the size of the ship.

Launch
Launches are small open boats with rounded hulls that are meant for traveling in open seas.  They are typically carries by larger ships and used for fishing, whaling, or landing.  The Shattered Isles makes the best Launches.

Elvin Catamaran
Elvin sailing ships are made from two hulls and made from the same growing bone substance that many elvish structures and armor are made from.  These ships can vary in size from single man craft to colossal frigates.  Extremely fast and with shallow draft Elvin catamarans are extremely popular with pirates and smugglers.  Unfortunately they are few and far between, extremely expensive, and require a skilled Elvin bonecrafter to maintain.

Galley
Galleys are large oared vessels.  They come in a variety of designed, some decked, some undecked, some may have a forecastle or sternccastle.  Many also have a single mast to catch the wind when the weather allows.  Galleys are only as fast as their rowers, and can only row for so long befor they must rest.  Galleys with two banks of rowers are known as biremes and those with three banks or rowers are known as triremes.  Galleys are not suited for travel in the Gray Seas because they flounder easily in bad weather and exhaustion of rowers.

Carrack
Fitted with three or four masts along with forecastles and sterncastles carracks are less ship and more floating fortress.  While not nimble carracks are both heavily armed and armored.  Carracks have multiple decks, massive cargo capacity and can carry hundreds of people.  The majority of ships that sail in the Gray Seas are carracks, albeit usually stripped down armor and armament wise for speed and cargo space.

Galleon
Galleons are very large carracks that have had their forecastle greatly reduced and their hulls elongated.  This gives them unprecedented stability and massive cargo capacity.  While most galleons have about 500 tons of cargo capacity the massive Azorian Galleons have upwards towards 2,000 tons.  Due to their size and complexity galleon construction is extremely expensive, involving the work of hundreds of skilled laborers, this keeping them out of the hands of all but the most powerful trading companies and the navies of the major powers.

Ironclad
Lined with thick iron plates and powered by an internal engine ironclads are extremely slow and clumsy ships.  They are also nearly indestructible.  Very few ironclads exist, and none of them can be found on the Gray Seas. 

The Shattered Isles keeps two on station at the mouth of the Fugue Sound as a show of might and as protection for the capital city and has more ironclads in the works.  Vardoux has one, in disrepair from the years of neglected caused by the revolution.  The United Empire has three under construction.  The Azorian Kingdom thinks that its massive galleons are good enough.

Junk
A junk is a type sailing ship with a flat bottom, high stern and bamboo reinforced sails.  Junks have a unique hull design that allows water to come in and out of the ship, with goods and people protected by watertight compartments making it excellent for use in rough weather.  Junk does not refer to a size of ship or number of masts but a design.  The smallest junks are less than 10 meters in length with a single mast, the largest are over a 120 meters with five masts.  Dowa ships are all based on the junk design.  The rough waters of the Ruby Sea make this almost a necessity.

Longship
Longships are long narrow vessels with a single mast and often rows of oars.  While they do not have decks many may have platforms or cabins built into the stern and bow.  Longships also have a very shallow draft, allowing them to go up rivers, estuaries and deltas, even allowing the land on beaches.  Longships do surprisingly well on the open seas and on long voyages.  Often they are inscribed with protective runes and have elaborate animal heads carved into the prow.  Solvangers use the longship almost exclusively.  Longships are highly prized by raiders and pirates as well.

Pinnace
The pinnace is a small ship, equipped often with a single mast and oars.  Pinnaces are used as a ship to ship or ship to shore service boat.  Pinnaces are typically decked with a single small cabin.  While sturdy enough for travel on the open seas a penance is rarely seen very far from its dock or ship.  Pinnaces are very popular for pirates and smugglers.  Most of the Gnat Fleet of the Shattered Isles is made of old pinnaces.

Theurgemes
Theurgemes are ships that are powered solely by magical means.  Theurgemes should not be confused with ships that have a weathermancer onboard to help fill sails, or other means of arcane supplement.  Theurgemes are powered in any number of ways, from bound elementals (undines in particular), undead or construct rowers, or bizarre magical devices.  Theurgemes have the advantage of not being bidden by wind or crew exhaustion, or by convention hydrodynamics or ship design, however they are very difficult and expensive to construct.  As such only the wealthiest of individuals have access to Theurgemes.  Due to their unique nature, no two Theurgemes are alike.

Theurgemes are arcane rat rods. Most look like a combination of a Wacky Racer, rocket ship, and a wizard tower. Universally over engineered, and universally individual each is one is representative of the wizard who crafted it. They burn fuel, but as theurgeme engines are strange things they burn strange things like, milk, sugar, coffee, books, fungal alcohol, bones, dinosaur blood, for fuel. Many have a device known as a 'concept booster' that gives a huge boost of speed in exchange for eating a concept from someone. Concepts can be things like hopes, dreams, nightmares, history, secrets, etc. Theurgeme engines are easy to track as they leave strange contrails.

Turtle Ship
Turtle Ships are essentially heavily armored junks.  A shell of plated iron is placed above the deck of an existing junk, essentially adding another deck.  This second deck is often heavily armed, with cannons and baristas.  However due to the added armor and weapons most turtle ships are very slow and top heavy making very poor choices for long sea voyages.  Most Turtle Ships will also include a chemical thrower in the front that spews either a noxious sulfurs smoke for concealment or gouts of fire.  The Dowa Shogunate is the only power to have Turtle Ships in a significant number.

Sea Chariot
Sea Chariots are ships that are pulled by ocean creatures.  At the smallest are dolphin chariots, coracles attached to a team of dolphins, not unlike a dog sled.  The largest is the city-fleet of Inkhorn, who is drawn by a school of singing squid.

Beast Riders
Beast riders are not technical ships, but creatures ridden much like a horse.  Sharks, seahorses, dolphins and whales are common.  Fin-Folk prefer Hippocampi, while the Koa-Toa prefer large Man o’ Wars and other purpose bred jellyfishes.

Outrigger
Outriggers are typically long narrow canoes that have one or more lateral supports fasten to the hull.  These lateral supports allow outriggers to be very long and narrow, yet surprisingly fast and stable even in rough water.  Given their odd shape outriggers have a unique way of rowing that is often difficult for even trained rowers to pick up.  The Orcish people heavily use outriggers.

The Jonah Ships
Jonah Ships are essentially hollow undead whales that have been fitted with oars and retractable sails.  The oars are made from scrimshawed bones from the beast’s insides and the sails made from its own tanned hide.  Crewed exclusively by ghouls from Gant, Jonah Ships are some of the most dangerous ships in the seas.  Because the undead crew had no need to breathe, Jonah Ships are able to go underwater for extended periods of time, however pockets of corpse gas prevent them from diving more than a few meters below the waters.  While their crews use this ability for great stealth Jonah Ships are easily betrayed by the flocks of gulls, sharks, and other opportunist scavengers that follow in their wake. 

Jonah Ships carry no arms, except for their crews.  The ghouls are armed with the bone plate and shard swords hone from the shell of Gant itself.  The Ghouls must be fatted on meat from the great turtle or else they have a chance of turning on the Jonah Ship, devouring it from the inside.  In combat Jonah Ships flail wildly attempting to ram ships.  Any sailor (or ghoul) that manages to fall into the waters is devoured greedily by the undead whale.

The Traveling the Gray Sea

The Traveling the Gray Sea
As one might suspect traversing The Gray Sea is no easy task.  Many lives and ships have been lost in exploring and crossing The Gray Sea.  Just sailing into the mists could put you anywhere, or worse, nowhere.  There is no knowing where you could be or how long it might take you to get somewhere if lost in the mists.  Starvation however is a much preferable end then to fall prey to the creatures that reside in The Gray Sea or to wind up consumed by it yourself.  One might question why one would ever brave The Gray Sea, but just a reminder of the great wealth held by a Graywater trader is enough to answer that question.

However there are stable passages in The Gray Sea.  This ribbons of reality are known as Mistways and without them travel between the seas would not be possible.  While stable traveling a Mistway is still fraught with danger.  Mistways are hard to map as they have a tendency to wander, much like river on a flat plane.  They also in many places double back or coil upon themselves like a snake.  That said, they generally stay in the same area and have relatively similar travel times so travel can be done quite regularly on these lines.  This stability however does not offer protection against the denizens of The Gray Sea.  Many used the Mistways themselves to feed or raid. 

The entrances to the Mistways are also obstructed, often by the mists themselves or by weather or other natural phenomena.  Shimmering heat mirages, blizzards, whirlpools and even the mouths of volcanoes are all said to hold hidden Mistways.  It’s also said, but this may be more myth than truth, that both the Screaming Sands and the Eternal Blizzard both hide Mistways.  Cultures near both of these places have legends of great heroes braving the storms and finding hidden paradise and hidden hells.  Little was made substance of these tails until large icebergs were found beached in the jungles of the Jade Sea and a remote valley in the Dowa Shogunate was found filled with sand and a destroyed temple with pictographs of creatures that resembled the Catties of the Amber Sea. 

Knowing the Mistways is vital to any sort of crossing of The Gray Sea.  Captains will horde and swap information about the Mistways like precious gems.  Specific information about a Mistway, like if there have been sudden storms, new phenomenon, or things attacking ships can make or break a trip.  To many of the captains the information that they learn while sailing a Mistway is often more valuable than they cargo that their ship may hold.  Many trading companies and navies will pay small fortunes for ships brave enough to chart and observe some of the lesser traveled or more dangerous Mistways. 

Sailing on the Gray Sea
Sailing the Gray Sea is no easy task.  Trips are expensive and harrowing journeys.  Even on short trips you can expect your ship to come under attack at least once.  Many times it is just warning shots from rival nations or trading companies, pirates testing the crew’s mettle, or sea creatures more inquisitive than harmful trips in the Gray Sea are never uneventful.

Officers and Crew on the Gray Sea
In the Gray Sea having a good captain can be the difference between life and death.  Even the most liberal of ships, those whose crew make most of the decisions, still elect captains.  While sailing the captain is the unquestionable leader of the ship.  Their orders are to be followed and no questions are to be asked (if you are an officer you might be able to get away with a question, but push comes to shove an order is and order and you are to follow.)  Only the most skilled or the most foolish captains command vessels in the Gray Sea. 

Captains often designate an officer who serves as their first mate, their go to liaison to the other officers and the crew and who can serve in their place if otherwise preoccupied.  The first mate is typically in charge of maintaining order of the crew, settling arguments, and dividing up loot and supplies.
Almost as important as having a good captain is having a good navigator.  Navigation in the Gray Seas is difficult, to say the least.  Not only does one have to have excellent raw navigational skills, they must also be knowledge about the locations and phenomenons of the Gray Sea, along with its peoples, plants, and creatures.  In short a good navigator in the Gray Sea is more than just a navigator, they are a good historian, geographer, meteorologist, diplomat and biologist as well.

After the captain and the navigator comes the master-at-arms.  The master-at-arms is in charge of the ships weapons and defenses.  This includes not only what is on the ship but the guards hired to defend it as well.  Masters-at-arms are often skilled warriors.

Cooks and doctors are also common, not just for making rations palpable and for treating wounds but for creating healing potions and salves.  These officers often serve other duties, like being the barber or carpenter.

Sailors in the Gray Sea are just like sailors from the Known Seas, if made out of a bit more hearty stuff.  They spend their days maintaining the ship and sails.  They complain about the grog and their ship biscuit.  They sing shanties and tell sea stories.  Sailors in the Gray a much more superstitious than those in the Known Seas.  They are also always armed.  You will never find a sailor for the Gray Sea without his weapons.  Most keep a staggering amount of weapons hidden on them, hold out pistols and boot knives are popular. 

Trade and Travel on the Gray Sea
For someone booking passage on the Gray Sea the trip depends a lot on what ship they booked passage.  Every ship and every captain has a reputation on the Gray Sea and making sure that you pick the one that best suits you is key to having a good voyage.  Some ships treat their passengers as little more than crew that have paid the luxury to come along on the trip.  Others treat their passengers as royalty with rich meals (as rich as one can get on the rations for Gray Sea voyages) and lavish private quarters.

Passengers are alright money for ships, but the real money is in trade.  In the Gray Sea lay wonders that can only be dreamed of in the Known Seas.

The Gray Seas

Introduction
The Gray Sea (or Seas) a nebulous ocean of pseudo-reality filled with strange islands, creatures, and even its own pockets of smaller seas.

Everything outside of the Gray Sea is the Known Seas.  The Known Seas are the ‘safe’ places where the rules work right.  The Known Seas are where maps work and routes are charted.  The Known Seas are the waters of your home setting.  You can point to the known seas on your world map.  The Known Seas are whatever you want them to be.

You can easily fit the Gray Sea into any sort of setting, all you really need is ocean.  It could be the areas off of the world map.  It could be an-extra dimensional plain of existence.

The Nature of the Gray Sea
The waters of The Gray Sea are cold and salty, no matter which sea a ship may have come from.  Dense heavy fogs dance over the glassy surface of the water.  It’s rare for crew to see more than a mile in any given direction and quite often captains are faced with fog so thick that it is hard to see from bow to stern.  The sun is but a large pale dot in The Gray and the stars are even more difficult to see making navigation very difficult.

By their very nature it is hard to define The Gray Sea.  Visually the mists are (typically) a dense and heavy fog, thick and Gray, that lies atop a vast blue Gray ocean.  The Gray goes by many names, The Gray-on-Gray, the Aether, the Soul Sea, the Foglands, The Gray Nothings, but most just refer to it as the mists.  The mists are constantly rolling and changing and are home to a number of weird phenomena and creatures.  While constantly in a state of flux, the mists to have some constants and the key to understand the mists is to first understand these constants.

First, The Gray Sea borders all Known Seas on all sides.  While most of the Known Seas transition into The Gray Sea by open oceans, the borders of The Gray Sea can take other forms, like in the case of the Screaming Sands of the Amber Sea - the vast constant sandstorm in its south - or like the Eternal Blizzard, north of the lands held by the Solvang Clans in the Blue Sea.  The borders of The Gray are not a firm thing.  There is no clear defining line between the Known Seas and The Gray Seas.  This nebulous area is known as The Borderlands.  The Borderlands are in a state of flux, constantly growing and shrinking, shifting and moving.  It is never quite clear when one has fully entered The Gray Sea as it always just seems to happen, one moment you are in a vast blue ocean, the next you are in a vast sea of gray.  While the border does flux, it is rarely if ever less than a three day or more than a week’s sail from the border to land in the sea.

Second, time and space does not work in the mists like how it does in the Known Seas.  The mists are not bound to standard geometry and physics.  Distance in particular seems to fall victim to the mists effects. Time often does not flow correctly while in the mists.  The Sun, while dimmed, still rises and sets, however; the speed at which it does is not constant.  Time in the mists has pockets where time travels faster and where time travels slower than in the know seas.  This phenomenon is typically referred to a ‘temporal fugue.’  Ships that cross the mists may have experienced a few weeks of travel, but in the Known Seas it has been only days, or even months.  Conversely the same is true, a ship may experience months of travel, only to be gone a few days.

The temporal fugue phenomenon has a number of strange features and side effects.  Of particular note, people who have spent significant time in the mists and have been affected by the temporal fugue possess unnaturally long lives, if not cut down first by the perils of the mists.  Particular strong ‘gales’ can blow through relatively stable areas wreaking havoc.  Strangest of all is that some fugues are even able to bend time back upon itself, sending one to the past.  There have been very few recordings of this sort of fugue, and most are only a few days at the most.

Third, the mists are home to strange creatures.  Despite what many think, the mists are not empty, nor are they entirely filled with madmen and monsters.  There are quite a few creatures that are docile, but still strange in the mists own way.  Pink eyeless dolphins that play in ships wakes, sharks with long whiskers known as beard-fish, bright blue parrots with three sets of eyes, tumble urchins, jelly slicks, and the great Gray armored whales can all be found in the mists.  The waters are also thick with seaweeds and vegetation.  Large patches of sargassum and thick mats of fungal mycelia can be found floating all over The Gray Sea.

Fourth, the mists are home to strange phenomena.  Rarely if ever do the ships that cross The Gray go without experiences some sort of odd sights or sounds.  These individual phenomena are never the same and can vary in intensity and ominous intent.  Some of the phenomena experienced are people hearing voices; sometimes a whisper, or a distant scream.  Some have seen movements in the corners of their eyes, or have felt rapid changes in temperature, both hot and cold.  Clouds make move in strange ways or take odd shapes, with the features of men and animas and even words.  Strange smells may waft through the air; the scents of burning flesh, of pine trees, of baked goods, of summer rains, of a lover’s perfume, of old books, have all been recorded.  People have noted their skin tingling and a sense of wrongness all over.

This phenomenon is not limited to just the senses, but many odd little encounters as well.  Flipped coins may land on their side.  Six sided dice might roll a seven.  Spoons and cups may not be able to hold their contents.  Ropes may rear up like cornered snakes.  Telescopes might peer forwards or backwards in time.  Small objects may float in the air for a moment then fall.  Sailors have all sorts of charms and rituals designed to ward off these phenomena while in The Gray.

Much of these phenomena however are quite harmless, if unsettling.  The most harmful thing in the Gray Sea however is the fact that healing does not seem to work correctly while in it.  Cuts and scrapes of course will clot, but open wounds will never close.  Unless kept clean infection sets in quite easily and many sailors opt to lop of a limb rather than risk infection.  No matter how much time one spends in the Gray Sea, the never seem to get better, only worse.  This ‘unhealing’ affects spell casters too and even the most powerful of mages and priests can seem to recall only the most basic of incantations and spells.  However this effect seems to be in place only in the open waters of the Gray Sea.  Ghost Islands, some floatresses, and land in the Pocket Seas seems to be immune from this effect.

The lawless nature of The Gray Sea had a tendency to infect those that spend too much time in it.  While this may have some benefits, like longer lifespan, and needing to eat and drink less traveling into the Known Seas for people that have spent too long in Gray Seas is like coming under a great burning pressure.  Those touched by the Gray Sea liken it to an intense headache mixed with sunburn.  Many of the objects that are imported from The Gray Sea have a tendency to fall apart or just stop working if exposed to the Sun of the Known Seas for too long.  For instance, the Paper-Folk of the Origami Isles will turn to pulp if exposed to direct Sunlight for extended periods in the Known Seas.  The Psychoactive Honeys from

Yet all is not water and wind in The Gray Sea, objects and lands exist too.  The Gray Sea seems to have an abundance of wrack and detritus floating in its water.  Anything from simple driftwood, animal carcasses, ships, icebergs, and buildings have been found bobbing in the waters of The Gray Sea.  Much of this wrack drifts aimlessly in the water without any sense of direction, eventually finding its way to The Rat Sea, however this rubbish has a tendency to congeal  into large clusters, that have been given the name of ‘Floatress’ by mariners.

There are also a ‘pockets’ of safe waters, spaces that are solid reality and obey (most) of the rules or reality.  In fact, all of the Known Seas are just the largest of ‘pockets’ in The Gray.  While this may sound welcoming these pockets, particularly the smaller ones are relatively unstable, appearing and disappearing seemingly at random.

One last note, the effects of The Gray Sea often creep into the Known Seas is vast fog banks and mighty storms.  These storms are quite similar in intensity and length of an afternoon’s thunderstorm, but occasional large cyclones will whip out to devastating consequences.  The most minor of these storms manifest as strong winds with an eerie howl or banks of thick fog and have little effect beyond strange behavior for animals and sending strange feelings of dread down ones spine.  Objects can be sucked up from these storms and drawn into The Gray to fates unknown.  The smaller storms are just take debris, unattended objects, and the occasional hat but the large cyclones may take up livestock, people and even whole buildings.  The Gray seemingly has a tendency to draw in objects.  Old salts say that all things eventual get pulled into The Gray's invisible currents.

Many objects found in the Gray Sea have strange, often reality deifying properties.  The floatress of Hoarfrost and the Frostbergs are made of ice that never melts.  Statue Stone, carved from the colossi in the Sea of Statues are made of a stone that is immune to blasting and most impacts.  The psychoactive honeys of the Floral Sea can induce false memories and emotions. These products fetch large price tags in the Known Seas for these strange properties.  However exposure to the Sun of the Known Seas damages the products and if not outright destroying the products begins to degrade them.  This degradation takes place over a period of time

Simply put the best way to understand the nature of The Gray is this: The rules of reality while in The Gray are not hard rules, like in the Known Seas, but merely suggestions.  This lawlessness infects everything found in this vast ocean, from the waters, to its islands, to even its peoples and creatures.

The Deep Gray
The Deep Gray is where the sea starts and the sky ends, or where the sky starts and the sea ends. It has gray water on a gray foggy sky. It is were the weird stuff comes from. Leviathans and Whales come from the Deep Gray. Ships that wander too far from the Known Seas of Gray Ways get consumed by the Deep Gray. Sometimes they come back but all wrong. Ships that sail on the wrong side of the water. Ships made of crystal. Ships that are living creatures like some sort of sick faux-golem. Ships that are alive, their masts trees their ropes vines. Ships that are alive, their masts bones their ropes veins and sinew. This however is nothing compared to what happens to their crews.

Sites of Interest of the Fumigated Sea

Quartz Town: In many places in The Fumigated Sea giant geodes can be found, some of which are as big as houses. A small settlement on one of the volcanic islands has broken into a number of these geodes and has turned them into literal houses. The settlers here have dragged the geodes to above the smog line to found one of the best defended towns in this sea.

The Toupee: At a distance The Toupee looks like a kilometer wide field of blond hair, moving softly in the breeze. A closer inspection shows that these are very thin worms that look like cooked noodles. The worms excrete clean water, a rare commodity in The Fumigated Sea, and small puddles can be found all across the Toupee. Unfortunately the worms try to tangle up anything that comes near them. Chitin shells and bones are scattered all across the Toupee.

The Caldera Curatio: This island is dominated by a vast collapsed volcanic cone that has filled to become a lake. The waters here are said to possess curative properties. Every day a slow parade of bandaged shapes come down from the lodges and shacks that dot the lake shore to bathe. The pus filled, the pox marked, the scabrous, and the bleeding, the lepers, the coughing, the wheezing and phlegmatic all come when all other cures have failed. Some are simple paupers coming with little more than fresh bandages and ship biscuits. Others are wealthier, with retinues of physicians and healers armed with all the cures money can buy.

The Caldera Curatio is unofficially run by the Leper King, the son a wealthy merchant who in his youth came here to be cured of a skin diseases that left lesion and pox marks all over his body. Now cured, he has traded his bandages for silk cloths, but he still wears his silver face mask. While he charges no fees for access to the caldera, he does ask that they wealthy visitors donate.

Rainbow Bay: This settlement is dedicated to the clothes dyeing business. The inhabitants here do brisk business training with the Painted Gnolls for their pigments. Run off from the workshops and warehouses run down from the hill the town is located on and bleed into the waters surrounding this island forming into a frothing rainbow tide.

God’s Mouth: By far the tallest point in The Fumigated Sea, God’s Mouth a large volcano that’s constantly spewing smoke. Arcs of lightning dance in the ash clouds lighting up the smoke. This mountain services a navigation landmark for sailors and as a place of worship for the Painted Gnolls. As the Gnolls believe that the vapors emitted by the land are spirits escaping the underworld to the heavens this volcano is seen as the primary exit from the underworld. The smoke that the volcano emits changes color from time to time, and these changes deeply affects Painted Gnoll behaviors.

Maloeufs: This vast sulfur plain in home to an eponymous mining settlement that was abandoned suddenly and without warning. Once the largest settlement in the Fumigated Sea the ruins of Maloeufs dot the plain like a lonely archipelago in a sea of yellow. The Painted Gnolls go to great efforts to avoid this place, and the other setters refuse to talk about the ruins.

Freemont Pits: These three pits are in fact large lakes that lie well below the waterline. Of all the toxic places in the Fumigated Sea, these lakes are the worse. The water here is so acidic that anything organic that comes in contact with it is devoured in moments. The harshest punishment in Painted Gnoll culture is to be stranded in an iron boat in one of these lakes. With no oars one is left with the choice between a slow death of starvation or a painful death by acid. At night faint blue lights glow on the bottom of the lake, but due to the murky and inhospitable waters, no one has been able to find out why.

Aschendorf: This settlement is dedicated to gathering alchemical reagents and chemicals from this sea. This is a holy city of a minor god of alchemy, The Transmuted One. The residents here are all worshipers and they see the art of alchemy as a divine act. The settlement is guarded by a small army of artificially created, mercury based, Quicksilver Oozes.

Flora and Fauna of Note of the Fumigated Sea

Thermadors: These creatures look like a cross between a lobster, a spider and a horseshoe crab. Thermadors have eight legs, the front pair of which are large pincers which they use to scrape the bacteria from rocks from which they feed, and the back pair are a set of large flat flippers they use to propel themselves through the mud pots and boiling lakes of the Fumigated Sea. They are a long as a man is tall and can weight up to 300 pounds. They are covered in a hard armored shell dotted with spikes that is incredibly resistant to heat and have a large tail that ends in a sharp spine. Their flesh is very sweet and delicious, if cleaned properly.

Ash Yams: These tubers grow in abundance near the smog line. Earthy and slightly sweet baked or boiled Ash Yams, along with Thermador flesh, serves as the cornerstone of most settlers and the Painted Gnolls diet.

Spitter Crabs: This creatures name is actually a misnomer, being related more to spiders than crabs. Unlike spiders Spitter Crabs have hard chisel like front legs and rather than excreting webs they excrete a concrete like substance that they build their nests out of. They use their front legs to dig into the ground then cover their nests with a thin layer of their secretions allowing their prey to fall into their nests where they coat them in their spit.

Yeti Crabs: These crabs are the most numerous of the many types of crab in the Fumigated Sea. They have extremely long pincer arms and legs that are covered in downy fur that they use to cultivate the bacteria on which they feed. To cultivate the bacteria Yeti Crabs spend most of their time in and around the various hot pots and chemical pools common in this sea.

The Awoken: Not all of the mummies entombed in the spherical coffins of the Iron Hail slumber. Some, after untold eons of slumber have awoken and they are pissed. As twenty foot tall hulking undead monstrosities the Awoken wander the Fumigated Sea crushing anything in their nigh unstoppable warpath. As undead the Awoken do not need to breath, an asset in the Fumigated Sea.

Rock Worms: These long tube worms that live in the geothermic cracks and vents and can grow up to ten feet in length. The have red beaks on their tips that open when the noxious gas clouds appear to absorb nutrients. As these beaks open before the clouds appear they can give some advanced notice to those that are paying attention.

Painted Gnolls In Depth

Painted Gnolls are tall and lean creatures, the shortest adults are rarely less than six feet tall and most are around seven feet tall weighing in around 275 lbs. Their oily fur, when not painted, is a light brown, with darker stripes or spots, very rarely a Gnoll will be born with pure white fur. A slight mane runs from their heads down their backs. Female Gnolls have a tendency to be slightly larger and more powerful than the males. Gnolls have a quick maturity cycle becoming fully adult around eight years. Most Gnolls only live to their early thirties, due mostly to the conditions of the Fumigated Sea, warfare, and starvation. Given optimal conditions Gnolls have the same life span as humans.

Painted Gnolls have a number of adaptations that have allowed them not only to survive in the Fumigated Sea but thrive. They have a translucent extra set of eyelids that they can deploy and retract at will. The eyelids, known as a nictitating membrane, allow the Gnolls to see while in the many gases and vapors common here. While they can see, the vision is somewhat blurred, and they are only able to since movement and bright colors. This membrane also gives off a bright red reflection whenever they catch the light.

The respiratory system of a Painted Gnoll is much stronger than any other humanoid. They have extremely keen noses and are able to tell from sniffing the wind which gases are in the area and where they are moving. They also produce large volumes of thick mucus which wile giving them temporary protection from most of the noxious vapors causes them to be clearing their thought almost constantly. Gnolls do this by a series of high pitch fast coughs often mistaken for raspy laughter.

The society of the Painted Gnolls is based around the pack. Gnoll packs are tribal like extended families. Blood ties are central to Gnoll culture, or as the Gnolls themselves refer to it ‘Kin above all, Kin above self.’ Gnolls view other pack members and brother and sister, and are fiercely loyal allies. While Gnolls may squabble, even come to blows among fellow pack members (as all siblings do) these conflicts are quickly forgiven and forgotten. This desire for a pack will cause isolated individual Gnolls to form their own surrogate packs from close friends and group members. Gnolls will also sometimes ‘adopt’ individuals, both fellow Gnolls and other humanoids, into their packs.

The packs are ruled with a combination of matriarchy and egalitarianism. Gnolls are not monogamous, and it is very difficult to tell who the father of a litter of pups is. Rather they trace decent from the mother. Leadership rolls however are decided solely by skill and ability and not by gender. The leader of a pack is known as the ‘color-keeper’ as they control who gets access to the various dyes and colors the Gnolls hold sacred.

The Painted Gnolls make their homes in the isolated mesas and hills that exist above the smog line. These havens are few and far between and often no larger than a hundred square meters. The packs go to great lengths to fortify and defend their homes. Improvised walls made from large rocks and scrap metal jut with spikes, pit traps dug deep and lined with scrap and broken rock, lava tubes are used to create ambush points and escape routes. Gnolls will defend their homes to the death, but will occasionally allow visitors to their mesas and hideaways if they are on good terms with the pack.

There is very little arable land in these settlements and what is arable is usually dedicated to growing ash yams or other starchy tubers. Painted Gnolls are primarily meat eaters, but will rarely turn down anything edible. The majorly of their diet comes from hunting, mostly spikey crabs, rock worms, and Thermadors. Unlike many humanoids Gnolls have no cultural taboo regarding other humanoids, save for eating other Gnolls as that is an extremely spiritually impure act.

The Gnolls reputation for savagery and violence is an unfortunate stereotype born of from their first interactions with humans. With resources being so limited in the Fumigated Sea, Painted Gnolls are fiercely territorial. Hunting and scavenging parties of anywhere from four to eight Gnolls can be found wandering below the smog line. Most of these parties will go out of their way to avoid conflict with other humanoids, however explores into the Fumigated Sea say that there are few things more disturbing than sets of red eyes peering out of a poisonous fog bank, watching and cackling.

The reputation of Gnolls being scavengers however is much more deserved. Very little metal occurs commonly in the Fumigated Sea and even if it did the Painted Gnolls do not have the technical understanding of smelting and iron working. Rather than mining, Gnolls harvest the Iron Hail. Large teams of Gnolls will tear the spheres apart, after ritualistically disposing of the corpse inside. Every metal object that the Gnolls have is derived from either the grave goods from the Iron Hail or from the Iron Hail itself. In particular they covet the parts stained rainbow from exposure to high heat.

The Painted Gnolls use this scavenged metal to make their arms and armor, as well as their tools and fortifications. The metal that the Gnolls harvest is not easy to work with and most Gnoll objects are rather primitive looking each piece being unique. Their armor is made of overlapping connected plates, similar plate mail adorned with the many jagged scraps of salvage they make as primitive spikes. Their weapons are equally crude, are often just large pieces of scraped sharped to a rough edge. Most Gnolls are armed with a shield and either a sword or a spear. While Gnolls prefer melee combat, slashing with their swords and spears and basking with their spike shields and armor, they also keep a sling and a small pouch of rounded scrap shot. They mostly use their slings to hunt prey or to harass when inside one of the many noxious clouds that roll below the smog line. Gnolls prefer hit and run tactics, darting in and out of poison clouds and ganging up on a single target, preferably the weakest first.

The noxious vapors and the many colors of the Fumigated Sea form the basis of the Painted Gnolls spirituality. Gnolls believe that vapors, smokes, and clouds are spirts. They also believe that the spirts must be cleansed within the bowels of the earth, before escaping to the sky to become white clouds. When a Gnoll dies, or whenever they encounter a mummy in the Iron Hail, the Gnolls will ritualistically flense the corpse in one of the many geysers and hot pots that dot this sea. The then cleaned bones are then laid to rest within the great fumaroles and smoking chimneys so the spirit may descend into the underworld to be spiritually cleansed before they can ascend to the sky as hot white vapors. In other words, steam. Steam is one of the few vapors that will rise above the smog line. The noxious vapors and poisonous clouds that dot the landscape are impure souls that are seeking a new host to lie in.

Color also plays a large role in Gnoll spirituality. Each color has a complex set of meanings and emotions tied to it. For instance, white is the color of death, bones, finality, purity, and escape. Red is the color of violence, food, vision, and hiding. Transitions from one color to anther make for nuances emotions and ideas. Gnolls also believe that the spirts leave colors on the surface of the ground during their purification process. These substances are not minerals or bacteria in the mind of the Painted Gnolls, but are comparable to the human concept of ectoplasm. They also believe that these colors bring protection and good luck. Gnolls harvest this material and dry it out to make dyes and powders. Gathering large handfuls of the colors the Gnolls with blow the dyes on their arms and armors before battle, on new born pups, on homes and on fortifications, on just about everything that possess. Most notably they rub the dyes into their fur giving them a blotched rainbow appearance; it is from this appearance that the Gnolls earn the painted moniker.

Very few Painted Gnolls exist outside of the Fumigated Sea. Given how deeply engrained the pack is in Gnoll culture there are very few individual Gnolls who are willing to leave. Most of individual Gnolls found outside of this sea were either adopted into another culture at a very young age or are outcasts. Given their preference for color Gnolls make surprisingly good artists, if they can learn technique. Their hearty constitutions and nigh immunity to most noxious vapors has made the Painted Gnolls a particular target for slavers for use in mining.

The Fumigated Sea

The Fumigated Sea is a geothermic active sea dominated by hot springs, fumaroles, mud pots, geysers, sulfur fields, thermal vents, and volcanoes. The only thing that matches the hellish inhospitably of this sea is its vast pallet of color. Vast systems of caves belch out various color smokes. Coral like chimneys spew pastel smokes, rainbow striped tufas dribble boiling water rich in dissolved minerals and heavy metals into pools of boiling kaleidoscopic sludge. Metal rich waters have dried into yellow sulfur, green coper and red iron fields. The Fumigated Sea can be best described in two words: Technicolor nightmare.

These raging hot spots spew out gasses, fogs, and smokes that merge into vast clouds of strange colors and chemicals that flow through valleys and lowlands and move from island to island. While some of these are just warm humid fogs that smell like rotting eggs, some are rolling waves of boiling acid death that can turn the exposed into a melting and blistered mass within moments. Worse yet these clouds move fast and can change course unpredictably. Some days a bright and blue, while others are chaotic nightmares of swirling clouds. These clouds often engulf everything below ten meters. This ten meter mark is referred to as 'the smog line' and only the territory above that line is considered safe to the residents of this sea.

Traveling anywhere in The Fumigated Sea requires one to be entirely covered head-to-toe in layers thick cloth or leather. This suiting will protect for a small amount of time, just enough for the quick to run to cover or higher ground, before degrading from the acidic fogs. Unfortunately this means that they need to be replaced constantly. If one needs to spend any extended time in the in the low lying areas of this sea a specialized masked is required. This headgear is made from leather, if you are wealthy, or canvas, if you are poor, goggles, and is fitted with container filled with activated charcoal that one breathes through. The cheapest look like a feed bag for animals with eye holes, the best are finely engraved with bird like beaks stuffed with potpourri made from dried herbs, spaces and flower petals.

Below the clouds of poisonous gasses much of the life in The Fumigated Sea is either bacterial or extremophile in nature, each evolved to be well suited to their own biome in this hellish landscape. The bacteria in this sea are incredibly diverse most notably in the colors that they produce. Vast geysers and smoking chimneys will be covered in layers of what to the uninformed, look like paint, but are in fact vast bacterial colonies feeding of the chemicals and heat from the rampant geological activity. Vast areas might be mistaken for strange prismatic deserts but it could not be farther from the truth, as the colors or thick blankets of bacteria and other microscopic life. Greens, reds, yellows, browns, and blues are all common. Smoking chimneys are stripped with a rainbow of colors and large bubbling mud pits look more akin to an artist’s palette than to a geological feature.

Above the clouds of poisonous gasses is a different story. Dotted across this sea are small mesas and volcanic mountains that are safe from the fumes. The constant downpour of chemical rich rains act like a constant fertilizer and above the smog line much of these formations are lush and thick with plant life. These formations are the safest places in The Fumigated Sea and on clear days one can watch the smokes and gasses roll across the painted plains.

Most of the animal life common in The Fumigated Sea bears more in common with deep sea creatures than terrestrial ones. Vast armies of spikey crabs roam the bacterial flats feeding on stone like mollusks. Creatures that look like a cross between a lobster and a scorpion that are the size of wolfs hunt the crabs. Large worms with sharp red beaks thrive in the many holes and cracks in the ground here and attack anything that walks near.

The only intelligent life native from The Fumigated Sea and the only inhabitants from outside of a few small settlements of this hellish landscape are the Painted Gnolls. Gnolls are hyena-shaped humanoids that prowl the fields and islands, hunting and scavenging in cackling packs. Well suited to the hazards of this sea, Gnolls have an additional set of eyelids, keen noses, a tough oily coat of fur, and a robust and especially mucus filled respiratory system that allow them to cross this sea without protection required by the weaker races. This is not to say that they go unarmored. Gnolls wear scavenged plate armor fixed with many spikes, similar to the crabs common to this sea. Color is very important in Gnoll culture, and Gnolls can often be found at the various mud pots dipping their armor plates into the mineral rich sludge to stain them and scraping off the colored striations on chimneys to make into their sacred dyes. Before venturing from their holdings above the smog line, they ritualistically toss handfuls the dry dyes all over their bodies and armor, giving them a chaotic painted appearance. One can tell how long a Painted Gnoll has been out from their holds by how much the colors have bleed into one another.

The strangest phenomenon in the Fumigated Sea comes not from its geology or strange inhabitants, but from the skies. Periodically large metal spheres rain down from the sky devastating vast sections of the landscape in events known as ‘Iron Hail’ to the settlers and ‘Spirit Falls’ to the Painted Gnolls. Inside each sphere is a massive corpse dressed in a white cloth set in a fetal position. If the bodies could be stretched out to their true height they would stand about twenty feet tall. Filled with grave goods like gems, jewelry, and highly advanced tools and weapons and serving as the only real source of metal in this sea, these spheres are fought over by Gnolls and settlers alike. While the setters view the corpses inside as a curiosity as best, the Gnolls revere them and go to great efforts to flense the corpses in geysers and entomb the bones in the caves and smokes they hold sacred.

The most of the small settlements in this sea are dedicated to resource extraction. The chemical pools common in this sea can often be boiled down to their base elements, particularly copper, lead, mercury and iron. The vast sulfur fields are also mined in large chunks, typically exported back to the Known Seas to be made into gunpowder. The dyes and pigments that stain the landscapes are also coveted, both as paints and clothes dyes. The Painted Gnolls however take offense and will often attack anyone harvesting these materials, as they see this as an act of defilement. They will happily trade the dyes that they collect for metal goods, dried meats, and other exotic goods.

Sites of Intrest of the Sea of Statues

Torso: This settlement is a small town formed in the roof of a hollow in the chest of a collapsed statue. The buildings here are carved out of the stone ceiling of the hollow and are connected via an intricate system of bridges and walkways. The residents of Torso are skilled fungi farmers and the lower half of their cavern is covered in vast mushroom fields which they grow for use for almost everything, from food, to clothes, and to medicine. While only having just over 150 permanent residents Torso is the center of the Glowshroom harvesting industry. A large hole, where the statues neck used to be connects Torso to the rest of the sea, and is one of the safest harbors in all of the Gray Seas.

Cat’s Paw: This small settlement is based on one of the few non-humanoid statues in this sea; that of a great sphinx. It has a population of about 50, mostly Catties and other demi-humans. They survive mostly on fishing and hunting Eisenjagers, and are the only group to have successfully eke out (non-fungal) crops on the statues. The residents sell these fresh fruits and vegetables all across the Sea of Statues and to passing ships for exorbitant prices.

The Cranial Abyss: A set of thirteen heads that look into a blue hole that is believed to be bottomless. Strange currents pull things towards the blue hole, and it is believed that ships that cross it will sink before the end of the year.

The Forest of Fingers: Thickets of fingers jut from the water here like limbless stone trees. Hundreds of hands lie just below the waterline, the palms and wrists of which emerge only during low tides. The submerged statues pose an hazard to ships, and a colony of saughin makes the area even more dangerous. Unfortunately many of the Mistways that feed in and out of the Sea of Statues are located near the Forest of Fingers.

The Scales: This fortress-monastery-prison of The Justices, a vigilante organization dedicated to stopping piracy is based off of a set of scales held afloat by an arm that pokes out of the water. Just a dozen of Justices can be found here at any given time, most are out on patrols in other parts of the Gray Sea.

Flora and Fauna of the Sea of Statues

Stonelouses: Large territorial wingless bugs that infest many of the statues and bore large holes throughout the colossi.

Iouns: A creature or a group of creatures that look like a flying school of fish but are made of shards of crystals that dart rapidly from statue to statue and preform strange mesmerizing dances before embedding themselves into the rocks to rest.

Steinjagers: Large gray cat like creatures with a head like a leech that stalk the ruins for prey. Their coats at a distance look like shiny fur, however; close inspection shows that they are made of very thin and hard crystals. Incredibly hard and very beautiful, their pelts go for high prices in the Known Seas.

Chamelion Bats: Small winged creatures similar to bats in the Known Seas but with horns and can change the color of their fur to best match their roosting stones. They hunt Stonelouses, large fish, and the occasional person in large swarms.

Flintbergs: Large iceberg like creatures that appear to be made of interlocking boulders that extremely territorial. They are thankful slow. They communicate with one another with loud cracks and rumbles that sound like avalanches.

Visage Eels: Muddy green docile eels with baby like human faces. While edible, consuming or even touching the creatures is considered taboo by most.

Glowshrooms: While are found in many other seas, grow here in great number. It is not clear why the Glowshrooms grow so well here but speculation is that the abundance of god metals in the statues plays a part.

Sauhagin: The shark like fish-folk, have mutations that set them apart from their cousins in other seas and that make them particularly dangerous. Their scales are a dark gray which allow them to remain nearly unseen is the crevices and are covered in poisonous spines. They are mostly concentrated in the Forest of Fingers.

The Sea of Statues

The Sea of Statues

Thousands of massive vaguely humanoid stone statues in various states of collapse are the defining feature of this Pocket Sea. Time, wind, and salt have all taken a toll on the colossal figures and very few remain intact or even upright. The few that do remain upright are often missing parts, arms and heads in particular, and are heavy eroded. All of the statues in this sea show heavy erosion and any symbols or tool marks that might have identified the stonemasons that make these colossi have been long lost. Most of the statues are humanoid and are either semi-nude or robed. Some appear to have at one time held objects or weapons but most of these are now lost. The statues are all made of the same stone, a light blue-gray stone, and have large white stripes of efflorescence running down them in many places

The stone that makes up the statues is unique to this sea. This ‘statue stone’ is virtually blast resistant making it an important material for fort construction for the Major Powers outside of the Gray Sea. Unfortunately, when removed from the Gray Sea this stone degrades fast when exposed to sunlight, and any structure made from it needs to be replaced every few years. The statues hold another great resource inside, rich veins of the god metals, Adamantium and Mithril as well as pockets of gemstones. While the statue stone is hard to mine, and extended habitation in this sea is difficult due to lack of supplies, many small mining camps have popped up on many of the ruins. While some are legitimate business or part of an established government there are many more still that are operated by slavers and pirates.

The waters here are dark and green allowing little light to penetrate the water beyond the first few meters. This murky water along with the assortment of stone body parts jutting out of the water makes this one of the most dangerous Pocket Sea for captains to navigate. Despite the verdant waters, there is little aquatic life in this sea. Most of the fish that are caught here are strange and misshapen with spongy flesh and odd lumps. Eels are common in this sea and can be seen swimming throughout many of the ruins. Unlike eels in the Known Seas the eels in the Sea of Statues have human like visages and are very unsettling to look at. Coral and urchins are common in this sea as well and most are venomous or poisonous in some way.

Outside of the waters very little grows in this sea, due mostly to the lack of soil. Patches of moss and fungus draping off of the ruins are the closest thing one will see to verdant fields and forests. Glowshrooms grow all across this sea and foraging for them can be almost as profitable as mining the statues themselves.

Sites of Interest of the Floral Sea

The Hives: Spread all across the Floral Sea are massive Hives the homes of the Bee-Folk. Scattered all across the sea the Hives dominate the skyline. A single hive might have thousands of Bee-Folk residents. While they rarely war with one another, border skirmishes, mostly involving each other’s Wax Golems are common. The Hives are not built for humans, but many have hostels made from discarded ships and driftwood for visitors.

Jerimiah’s Place: Jerimiah Almsworth was a sycophant, pomp, and all around brown noser of the highest order all across the Major Powers. Chased out from the Known Seas for, in his words, ‘entertaining the advances of the wives and daughters of no less than three counts of the United Empire at the same time,’ Jerimiah found refuge in the Floral Sea where his cog ship got beached on a sandbar.

Jerimiah gets by on selling his skills in royal flattery making himself indispensable for Bee-Folk looking to impress their queens. His advice does not come cheap however, and has netted him large amounts of wax, honey, royal jelly, rare flowers, and four of his own personal wax golems. Jerimiah sells the goods to passing ships and this trade has allowed him to turn his ship into a lavish, albeit lonely, pleasure palace.

Anderson Meadery: Ingred Anderson has spent a small fortune relocation her family’s struggling meadery from the Solvang Clan Holds to the Floral Sea but it has all been worth it. Having the first choice of honey and being so close to the raw product has allowed Anderson Meadery to make more, better, and cheaper mead than any other company. The meadery is a vast complex made of white washed stone, stained yellow from the pollen. The facility is built entirely on stilts and consists of the winery, warehouses, docks, and small village for the hundred or so workers. Around the clock squadrons of Bee-Folk and Wax Golems transport hexagonal wax drums filled with honey here for processing. The import docks are sticky with spilt honey. While the meadery is an impressive feat of architecture, it is not Ingred’s greatest construction. Her masterpiece, and the secret to the meadery’s success, is another structure, the Resplendent Apiary.

Resplendent Apiary: This large wood and wax structure is lavishly appointed with mahogany and wax walls with bas relief carvings of various queens from the Known Seas and serves as a finishing school designed for the princesses of the Hives. Here stern faced headmistresses educate princesses in proper etiquette, manors, and occasionally academics. The young queens also get something here that they cannot from the Hives, influence and connections, both to the other queens and to forces outside of the Floral Sea. The tuition for this school is high, payed in thousands of barrels of honey, but the Bee-Folk gladly pay it, as the alumni of this school are some of the strongest and most influential queens in the Floral Sea.

Assassins Fields: The Floral Sea is home to almost every kind of flower imaginable. Most of these are prosaic, sweet smelling things like wild flowers and roses, the kind of things you might find in a grandmothers garden. There are, however; patches of flowers more nefarious. Opium poppies, nightshade, black lotus, and other flowers coveted for their sinister qualities can be found in small fields all across the Floral Sea. Unsavory types often jealousy guard these patches, using the crops to their own ends or selling them to the highest bidders. Fiercely protective and territorial these gangs will attack anything that gets close to their turf.

The Bohemian Groves: Scattered across the Flora Sea are small communes established by self-appointed gurus, poets, philosophers, musicians, and counterculture youths, drop outs and ‘mind expanders.’ These settlements are ramshackle, made of mostly sail cloth tens and driftwood shacks. They lack any sort of industry and their diets are based off of the flowers, mostly seeds, salads, and tisanes made from boiled petals. These settlements are more than willing to trade, but will only barter, they, like, refuse to use currency, man. There are two reasons why the ne’er-do-wells of the Assassin Fields have not raided or strong arm these settlements. One, they lack anything of real value. Two, the communes all know the secret to making a powerful narcotic derived from flower petals, that when burned and inhaled invokes a wave of blissful complacency, confusion, and a hunger for junk food. If the communes fear that they will be raided, they just burn large piles of the stuff up wind of their settlements.

Terra De las Flores De La Sol: This island is solely covered in sunflowers that arch their heads to following the never setting sun of the Floral Sea. Considered by the Church of The Lightbringer to be a holy spot, a church and a small monastery have been erected in a clearing on the island. The monks here export sunflower oil and large bags of sunflower seeds that are popular with sailors.

Flora and Fauna of the Floral Sea

Wax Golem: At almost five meters tall each wax golem is an intimidating rune carved sentinel against any threats to The Hives and the Bee-Folk. A single cyclopean black compound eye stands out from the butter-yellow wax flesh of the golem, unblinking and ever vigilant, never breaking from their perpetual scan of the horizon. Each golem caries a quiver of nightshade tipped hooked stinger-spears on their back. Bee-Folk pollen harvests revere these guardians, and as a ward against danger and for auspicious pollen harvests, often adorn them with woven flower crowns and multiple leis.

The process to make a wax golem is not an easy one. Wax must be first melted and then shaped into the rough shape of the construct. The melted wax severely burns the bee-folk constructors and most require amputation of their forearms. Gallons of sacred royal jelly and a specialized larva, who’s body will wither and die so that it grows into the Wax Golem's eye, are implanted in the constructs chest. Finally the runes that give the creation life must be carved into the construct. The same bee-folk that melted the wax for the bee golem are chosen for this task, their stingers used to carve the runes into the wax flesh. This process kills the workers. From the corpses the stingers are gathered and treated with nightshade and other poisons and psychoactive pollens to make the stinger spears that each golem keeps on its back.

Honey Bears: Neither honey, nor bear, Honey Bears are golden predatory oozes. Often covered in petals Honey Bears are one of the most dangerous predators in the Floral Sea.

Root Fogs: Root Frogs are massive and their skin has a knotted green designed to blend into the roots. On the back of each grows a large lotus flower. They strike from camouflage with their massive tongues that can shoot out lightning fast to a distance of ten meters or more. Their preferred prey are the pollen harvesters of the Bee-Folk, so the Wax Golems must stand ever vigilant scanning the horizon for root frogs while out harvesting.

Petal Elemental: Elemental is a poor descriptor of what these creatures are. Their most natural form is that of a gust of wind heavy with various flower petals. They however can take other forms including that of birds, fish, and men, all shaped out of petals. They leave a pleasant scent wherever they go and serve as guardians to the flowers in the Floral Sea

Flutter Swarms: Great flocks of shimmering butterflies that shimmer and change color based on the moods of nearby creatures. Their life cycle is unclear, as no caterpillars exist in the Floral Sea.

Bee-Folk of the Floral Sea

Bee-Folk In-Depth

 

what all the buzz is about

The Bee-Folk are tall humanoids that roughly compared to centaurs, with the top half of a man and the bottom half of a bee. On average the Bee-folk are about seven feet tall, covered in bristly fur with alternating bands of black and yellow. Their bottom half are similar to a bee's with a thorax, abdomen, compete with four insect like legs, and a stinger. The upper half is like that of a human with a pair of arm with digits but with a pair of translucent wings. Their heads look roughly like humans, but have long spindly antenna and black multifaceted eyes. The wings of a Bee-Folk are too weak to maintain flight for extended periods of time, however they do allow for long assisted hops. If a Bee-Folk uses it stinger, there is a very good chance that it might die so they will only use them as a last ditch effort if their queen is under attack.


Bee-Folk live in vast wax hives. Each hive is constructed from numerous stacked hexagonal towers made from wax ruled by a singular queen. Towers can be over a hundred feet tall and a single hive may house thousands of Bee-Folk. The Hives lack windows and staircases and are difficult for any non-Bee-Folk to navigate. The Bee-Folk strictly forbid anything that may burn, generate heat, or explode from entering the hives. As such they are a paperless society, and their only form of communication is carved wax tablets.


Bee-Folk society is very rigid with little ability to change station. Most Bee-Folk are pollen-gathers and work the vast flower fields that surround their hives. At the top of the Bee-Folk social order is the queen who rules with an iron fist and honeyed tongue. The Bee-Folk live and die for their queen and the queens live and die for their hives. The greatest honor a Bee-Folk can get is to be selected to become a member of the Queen's Court; an elite inner circle make of a menagerie of the hives best and royal sycophants.


The castes represent the amount of individuality a Bee-Folk has. The queens are full-fledged personalities; one might say hyper-personalities, as their personality that imprints on all of the lesser Bee-Folk beneath her. Princesses are slightly lesser queens, while having their own full-fledged personalities they cannot imprint theirs in the presence of another queen. Nobles have strong personalities but are best seen as aspects or fragments of a queen’s personality. As one might have various inner voices or dialogues the queens have nobles. Every hive has their own system and ranking of nobles each with different titles and honorifics but the common trend is that the higher the rank the more of a personality they have. At the bottom the pollen-harvesters have next to no individuality. They cannot even grasp some of the basic concepts of individuality like ‘I’, ‘Me’, and ‘Mine.’


This personality imprinting makes it imperative that hives have the best most capable queens they can have. A Bee-Folk can never be more capable than their queen. While a noble may seem to be more knowledge or capable at a certain subject or task this is less of being greater than the queen, then it is as removing the distraction from other parts of the queen’s personality. Princesses are educated from a young age and no expenses are spared to give them the best education. Many tutors and educators are hired form the Known Seas to come and educate princess, often at the cost of thousands of gallons of honey. There are however, exceptions. Some Bee-Folk go rouge and develop their own personalities. Too much time away from the hives or exposure to too much royal jelly or psychoactive honey will warp a Bee-Folks personality.


The Bee-Folk believe that exchanging money for honey cheapens both. Only a queen may give out honey on behalf of the hive. They do this quite often, but not as exchange or commerce, but in the form of patronage. The queens long for nothing more than legitimate royal power and are quite easily charmed by anyone treating them as actual royalty which is usually done by referring to them with long winded titles and deep genuflexion, or presenting them with the trappings of royalty. This said the queens when presented with a tiara cannot tell the difference between one made from platinum inlayed with cut jewels to one made from tin with polished glass. Their court however is a bit quicker to catch on.


The hives offer little for public trade, save for wax products and a pollen cleaning service for passing ships. There is a common misconception that the Bee-Folk trade their honey, however; honey has a special place in their society and cannot be bought. The Bee-Folk however are willing to trade the honey. The Bee-Folk do not quite understand the concept of metals or currency, and refer to gold as ‘Man-Honey’ as it seems to attract their attention and they have never seen a man without a bundle of it at their side. While they cannot begin to fathom what sort of flower men gather gold from, they do know enough to keep a cache of it around as it, like no other honey, seems to sooth and pacify man.


Three products from the Hives should be noted. While the Hives produce regular honey they also produce a very potent psychoactive honey as a byproduct. These hones are unfiltered and opaque, coming in strange colors. Consuming this honey causes emotions to be magnified, highs higher, and lows lower. The Bee-Folk do not consider this to be real honey and just throw it away by dumping it into the sea or in pits. A few enterprising individuals have been collecting and filtering this honey, and if rumors hold true, some of the Hives are beginning to sell it as well.


The second item of note is Royal Jelly. This milky white substance is very important in Bee-Folk culture. All Bee-Folk, regardless of station are given this when they are just larvae. How much they are fed determines the caste that they are born in. The more Royal Jelly an adult Bee-Folk consumes the greater the sense of individuality they will have. For humanoids Royal Jelly acts as a powerful healing salve and as a cure for amnesia and memory loss. It is common belief that consuming Royal Jelly extends one life, one dose for one day.


The third item is the Bee-Folks wax. Coveted for use as candles in the Known Seas, they give of a solid and steady light and a pleasant floral smell. They are also remarkably shelf stable and will not melt or warp unless burnt.

The Floral Sea

The Floral Sea

 

kinda like this

The Floral Sea is a vast calm ocean, covered in a vast blanket of every imaginable type of flower. Hibiscus, chrysanthemum, lavender, hyacinth, daffodils, crocuses, baby's breath, tulips, and camellia all flourish in the soft waves. Less pleasant flowers bloom here as well, patches of poisonous and psychoactive flowers can be spotted by the trained eye deceptively bobbing with the other blossoms. More villainous sorts have laid claim to patches of opium poppies and black lotuses.

The soft undulations in the water make the flowers appear to blend into one another, like bleeding watercolors, into thousands of shades of pink, purple, and orange at a distance. Closer up the flowers grow in great patches of singular species and shades. The air here is an olfactory smorgasbord of blooming flowers and while usually pleasant to most, can be overwhelming to those with acute senses or allergies.

There is no distinct night in this sea rather, a prolonged sundown and sunup; the 'nights' here are a period of deep burning orange-red and as such the flowers here are almost always in a state of bloom. The constant blooming discharges large clouds of pollen which can be so thick that they roll like banks of green-yellow fog. Visitors to this pocket sea can find themselves choking to death in these pollen clouds, if caught unprepared. The pollen gives a distinct yellow tinge to the Floral Sea.

The water that makes up this sea is not your typical seawater. The water here is mineral rich, sweet tasting, and has a slight shimmer to it. If poured onto flowering plant life the water acts as a powerful fertilizer allowing the plants to bloom in a matter of days even without access to soil.

Travel in this sea is no easy task, on foot or by boat. On foot many of the flowering plants have thrones so thick armor is a requirement. The dense blanket of flowers obscures holes and quicksand and at what a distance may appear to be roses may be a deadly trap. By boat the islands that make up this sea are sandy and shallow. Sandbars are a constant hazard, and the many petals in the water often obscure the shorelines. Only a few open channels are clear of flowers and petals.

Despite the abundance of plant life in this sea animal life is uncommon. Only those creatures which feed indirectly on the flowers thrive here. Something in the water acts as a natural pesticide so that the many insects that would normally feast in the abundance of petals are nowhere to be found. Butterflies can be found here but not caterpillars. Humming birds, many times the size of those from the Known Seas can be seen darting from flower to flower.

Outside of the Bee-Folk hives and the Anderson Meadery, settlements in the Floral Sea are small and few and far between. Most are communities of outcasts that have escaped the other seas for the bounties of this one. The Floral Sea is rich only in flowers and honey and many traditional trade goods are unheard of here.