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.