Floatresses

All sorts of objects can get caught up in the invisible currents of The Gray Sea. Flotsam, jetsam, driftwood, animal carcasses, all get bound together with seaweed, mycelium, and other marine organic material. There are other stranger things that The Gray pulls in that get drawn into these hodgepodges; everything from old ships and docks, ruined fortresses and citadels, sea-beasts both alive and dead, and even whole parts of islands can be found. These masses are not uncommon to mariners and have been have been given the name of ‘Floatress,’ a portmanteau of float and fortress.

Most Floatresses are small, rarely more than 100 meters in diameter and made from sea wrack, but the largest can be massive, exceeding well over 100 kilometers in diameter. Due to the unstable temporal nature of The Gray Sea the debris that makes up most Floatresses can be both from the very far past and from the very far future. Many fantastic devices and artifacts have been pulled from Floatresses and many an adventure has found their fortune on a Floatress, however; many more have found their ends among the wrack.

At first glance an untrained eye might pass a Floatress off as nothing but junk but Floatresses are home to strange and complex ecosystems. Sea birds deposit seeds in their droppings that grow into mighty forests. Sea creatures of all sorts are attracted to the nooks and crannies of a Floatress. Floatresses also play home to the strange creatures that inhabit The Gray serving as both lair and transportation. Yet, not all Floatresses are organic in nature, and a sub-set of Floatresses are man-made and known city-fleets.

These wandering islands are the scourge of the seas. Large enough to pose a navigational hazard and home to dangerous creatures a Floatress is rarely ever a good encounter. However the most dangerous factor of a Floatress is the fact that they wander. While Mist Islands may change locations, they do not move around rather, they stay in one place, even if that place changes location from time to time. Floatresses however, seem to follow the invisible currents of The Gray Sea. This makes Floatresses unpredictable, changing speed and direction apparently at random and even worse these currents may pull Floatresses into the Known Seas posing a major threat to the civilized lands. These Floatresses that get pulled into the Known Seas pose major threats to not only shipping but can occasionally make landfall providing transportation and a layer for dangerous creates and malevolent organizations from The Gray Sea.

Known Floatresses

The Wandering Forest
The Wandering Forest is a forest made of impossibly large pines, the trunks of which extend down deep into the waters below. There does not appear to be a bottom to this Floatress, just the roots of this forest getting more and more dense and twisted upon one another until impossible to thread through. The trees themselves are lashed together with great vines with large purple flowers that give of a faint luminescence. The verdant canopies hold host to a staggering array of wildlife, birds and insects of all types find home among the needles. The treetops are also home to a number of small settlements, made in the tree themselves.

Corsairs and pirates have long known of this forest and have used this Floatress as a respite, harvesting the lumber for ship repairs and hunting the wildlife that live in the canopy proving some much needed variation from their rations of hard tack, salt pork, and thin watery grog. The most dangerous inhabitants of this Floatress however are a branch of The Tangleroots, the violent eco-terrorist group. They are rumored to have a large village centered on a vast pine tree. The sap from this tree is said to be able to extend one’s life and is also said to be the source of much of the Tangleroots funding.

The Iron City
The Iron City appears to be a number of small islands lashed together with large iron chains and covered in tall iron towers. Little is known of the city as no contact has ever been successfully made with the Iron City. Ships that approach nearby are fired upon from the iron towers and find themselves ripped to shreds by fine iron particles shot from large turrets near the base of the towers. Everything that is known of the Iron City has been hard earned and many lives have been lost trying to crack its secrets. The city is populated, faint reddish man sized things can be seen at a telescopes distance. There are shimmering shining gardens of metal at the bases of the towers along with the city’s main defense its vast cannon system. Some artifacts have been found from the city, advanced clockworks, complicated gearing systems, and plant matter, particularly roses, made of brass.

Hoarfrost
This floatress appears to be a castle hone out of a massive iceberg. The temperature surrounding the castle is always well below freezing and can kill the exposed in moments. The castle itself appears to be made from blueprints from an architects fever dream. Spiraling stare cases lead to nowhere, balconies and walkway lacking railings connect to needle like towers hundreds of meters in the air. Everywhere light dances through the ice like ten thousand prisms bickering. It is silent here, save for the stinging wind, unnerving reverb screams of cracking ice, and distant slow footsteps. Something stalks the halls. Something cold. Something hungry.

The ice that the castle is made up never appears to melt and is hard as steel, even when removed and exposed to high temperatures. This Never Melting Ice fetches high prices in the Known Seas both for its use in industrial and alchemical applications and as source of refrigeration. Like all strange products of the Gray Seas this ice only melts after being exposed to the Sun of the Known Seas for too long.

Occasionally small portions of Hoarfrost will break off. While much smaller these hard-to-spot ice chunks that are the bane of many sailors are known as Frostbergs. Frostbergs are dangerous and malevolent things actively seeking and freezing whatever life it can find. Each seems to have a will of its own and will seek out ships to ram almost out of spite. Creatures of all sorts can be found entombed in a Frostbergs icy clutches, their faces locked in a state of fear in the heart of the ice, their hearts still beating, albeit very slowly. Frostbergs bring their captives back to Hoarfost. How Frostbergs can find Hoarforst no matter where it and they are in the Gray Sea and just what it brings those captives back for are a mystery.

Honu Turtles
The Honu Turtles, or ‘The Islands that Wander’, are mountain-vast turtles that wander the Known Seas and the Gray Seas and are considered the traditional homeland of the orcs. The Honu superficially resemble sea turtles with a few main differences, most noticeably their size. Roughly each is about the size of a small island, typicality no smaller than a few square kilometers and no larger than a thousand square kilometers. They have six large fins, spotted with brown patches that they use to slowly push themselves in the waters. Each Honu has grown differently to its own needs, so no two Honu look alike. Their backs are covered with a stone like shell are relatively round and flat and are covered in lush rain forests that are pitted with holes and divots. Most of the shells have a gentle slope leading to a ‘peak’ typicality no higher than thirty meters above the ocean’s surface. Their heads have a think bony horn that resembles a tusk with the point end cut off.

Much like regular sea turtles Honu are unable to hide in their shells. The flesh of a Honu is very tough and can regenerate quite rapidly but their underbellies are home to vast beds of parasitic shellfish. It is not clear if the Honu eat anything, as they do not appear to prey on anything, despite consuming large volumes of water through the beak like mouths.

The Honu are so vast that they provide their own weather patterns. The Honu are massive creatures and therefore their bodies give off massive amounts of heat. This heat produces a constant updraft and cooler air from the surrounding area is drawn in on all sides. The incoming water vapor that comes in on the cool winds meets with the warm air and falls around the Honu as frequent rains. The result of this is that the Honu and the surrounding waters around them are in a year-round tropical climate, no matter where they are.

In addition to making their own weather, the Honu are also their own self-contained ecosystems. The undersides and the fins of the Honu are covered in shellfish and barnacles. Long strands of seaweeds find home on the underbelly as well. This has turned the waters around the Honu as a veritable oasis in the desert of the vast oceans. Abundant schools of fish find home in the seaweed and oyster beds. These fish, in addition to being the basis of most of the diets of the shell dwellers, attract a variety of predators. Sharks stalk among the seaweeds, seals bask in the sun on the slow moving fins with bellies full of fish, and pink dolphins frolic, chasing fishy bullets of silver in the wake of the Honu. Just like the underside, the top of the Honu have their distinct ecosystem. The shell of a Honu is thick and hard and is far more stone like than it is bone like. Years of guano and detritus has formed a layer of black soil on the shell backs about 50cm deep. This soil along with the constant rains and high humidity means that the backs of the Honu are rainforests. This forest is made mostly of tree ferns, moss, vines, dwarf shrubs and broad root trees, like coconuts. A number of mushrooms and tubers can also be found scattered in the back forest, of particular note the purple yam and the taro root. The shell back forest is irregular and hard to navigate and are also home to numerous colonies of birds, the cawing and chirping of which can be heard all across the great turtles.

The Honu are considered to be the traditional homeland for the Orc peoples. All recorded encounters with the Honu make some sort of mention of ‘its green skinned folk’ living on their backs. The life of the Orcs on the Honu is a rather simple one; most of their days are spent foraging, farming, or fishing. The shell back forests and the rich ocean life around the great turtles provide a large bounty and provide the Orc with most of what they need. Their raiding parties provide what cannot be gotten from the Honu.

However the establishment of stable trade routes and advances in sailing technology has led to numerous other communities finding home on the Honu as well. Whole villages and towns have risen out of the shell back jungles. These villages are often home to outcasts and people who don’t fit in well with mainland society. Many strange societies and radical ideas have found roost on the great turtles. The Honu are apathetic to the creatures that live on its back, provided they don’t try to harm or control the beast. The Honu appear to dislike spell casters and using too much magic, arcane or divine, on the turtle is enough to invoke its wrath. If a Honu is unhappy with its current riders, or feels threatened by them, it will just dive under the surface, often for days at a time until the pests on its back have been washed away.

The Honu are constantly moving, albeit very slowly by using their immense fins for locomotion. The Honu appear to follow no set path and are not bound to a particular sea or to the Mistways like a regular ship or a Floatress. Generally the Honu stick to the outer reaches of the seas, in the border of the Gray Sea, only occasionally swimming in to the more open areas of the seas. Their path is slow and winding, like a drunken river, with weaves, wobbles, and horseshoe turns. The Honu don’t general get near major land forms, but will often pass near smaller islands. To date there has been no recovered evidence of a Honu ever crossing a major land form. The Honu will also cross into the Deep Gray of the Gray Sea, but due to their immense size and resistance are able to cross, an act that spells certain destruction for anything else.

Little is known about their life cycle (or if they in fact have one) They do not appear to grow old or die. If they do it must certainly be on more of a geological scale than a biological one. Yes there are younger Honu but they mature fast.

No one has ever been able to successfully control a Honu or even lead a Honu in a particular direction (with one distinct exception). There is no clear set path that they take and the Honu have been known to make dramatic changes in course, slow down, and speed up unexpectedly. Presumably this is due to whatever invisible force it is that the Honu subsist on. A few brave and foolish souls have tried the control the Honu, by both mundane and magical means, yet each have been met with failure. The Honu seem to have a way to reject any sort of control over them, often just by slipping under the waves for some time or trashing about. Some of the native orc shamans are able to predict the course of the Honu with quite a degree of accuracy, but none would dare to think to interject or try to influence they Honu from that course.

Gant
Gant is one of the Honu, the island-sized turtles that wander about the Known Seas and The Gray, that has been taken over by a cult of necromantic parasite-priests. Gant is controlled by seven towers made from its own harvested bones, each run by a different lich-priest. Each tower controls seven rune-cursed harpoons of ever-burning brass embedded into the creature’s six fins and head. The harpoons are connected to the towers by sinew rope and the great turtle is controlled much like a puppet on strings. This however requires coordination of all seven towers and all seven lich-priests, no small task, as each is locked in a violent theological debate with one another over the nature of their vermin-god.

The wounds that the harpoons dig into must constantly be maintained by lesser priests, lest the Honu’s regeneration grow over them rendering them useless. The once vast forest on the creatures back has been clear cut and the parasite-priests vile testaments to their vermin god has been carved into its raw exposed shell. The scripture must also be constantly maintained and the parasite-priests keep a host of slaves constantly chiseling the profane words into the shell. The parasite-priests also use Gant as a host to a small army of ghouls. Great tunnels have been carved into the turtle and the priests keep the ghouls sated on the regenerating flesh of the beast until it is time for them to pick up their bone swords and shell shields to raid in their Jonah-Ships, the undead whales turned into shell-armored dreadnoughts. The pain from the constant chiseling and the ghouls feeding causes the great creature to periodically scream out in pain, a defining bass roar that can be heard for miles. This roar and the smell of carrion on the wind is a dead giveaway that Gant is near.