Editing Fading Sea (section)

=== Exploring the Fading Sea ===
==== The Buoymen ====
One of the most respected guilds is the Buoymen; a name so honoured, the locals don't even notice the mocking tone outsiders often bring to it. Tasked by some elder Prince, the guild maintains the Capstan Buoys. These floating capstans are tethered to the seafloor out to a distance of almost 50 nautical miles (the furthest one can see out across the fading sea, from the top of the ol' 5000).

Ships leaving the Galg will hook their ropes around the capstan buoys, to ensure there are no tangles within sight of the shore, and to make it easier to haul them in when the time comes.

There have never been records of two ships' lines being entangled with each other, out beyond the horizon. If you get snagged while out on the Sea, you drop anchor and send a boat back along the line, hoping your crew can deal with whatever is holding the line.

==== The Reclaimers ====
"We found them on the tenth day. Ten days of crawling along the four foot thick ship-rope, praying it wouldn't go slack while we were over the water.
But the ship was a month overdue and stuck too hard to be pulled back : surely it would stay that way for just another few days?"

Such is the gamble made by every Reclaimer Agent of House Al-Rathalaad. Theirs is the wild hope that by buying the ropes of overdue ships which cannot be pulled back, they will finally find a way set a truly stable anchor in the Fading Sea.

To date they have been unsuccessful, but they have found several treasures capable of anchoring a ship-rope. Three coral formations large enough to trap a ship and strong enough to counter a mid-sized Wheel, one small island whose Sorcerer-King could freeze items in time, and even a live Roc with the indestructible ship-rope suck in its talons.


Lord Al-Rathalaad considers them a risky but potentially profitable investment. But to the Reclaimers themselves? This is the greatest gamble of all: death alone in the Fading Sea or a finder's fee large enough to guarantee lifelong luxury. They are desperate, skilled, and utterly insane. For how could man defy reality itself and hope to win?

==== Descent ====
A few artifacts exist that grant the ability to dive under the Fading Sea. Some are suits off bronze that are filled with precious air through a hose on the surface. Others are great heavy steel balls with tiny windows that can withstand the deepest depths. Rumours exist of a whole ship, sealed and able to dive into the sea like a great whale.
All were brought back by intrepid captains from The Fading Sea. None are replaceable. One might be able to rent the use of such an artifact at great price, but with it comes the operators and their guards. Their tongues cut out to keep the secrets of how their devices operate secret. And the guards heavily armed to make sure their charge makes it home, with or without you.

Descents to the Fading Sea's floor go beyond fishmongering or trinket retrieval. Resources of Thalassic Iron, Leviathan Bone, Kelpwood, and sea scorpion venom fetch a high price and are in high demand.

To this end, the most accomplished of shanty Descenders form guilds which routinely fulfill contracts to retrieve these precious resources from the sea floor.

==== Tides and the Moon ====
Just as the moon controls the tides, so also is it the harbinger of the Fade. Hazy unreality waxes and wanes, advancing and retreating with the water in the eerie hinterland where stands Galgaleth. Twice a day, islands distantly visible in the haze swim slowly from view, and twice a day, they reappear - not always the same.

A spring tide closes Galgaleth's port. As the water laps high against the ancient seawall, to venture without a rope a stone's throw into the thick miasma brushing against the harbour's stone is to risk being lost.

The moon brings the Fade and the fog; the sun stands for solid reality. It is when these two bodies are opposed overhead, the spring tide, that the battle between the Fade and reality is most pronounced, and rages furthest this way and that. The sun god, Obon, the male god of light, order, logic, truth, authority, definiteness; the moon goddess, Suthi, the female deity of darkness, confusion, madness, lies, treachery and unreality - these two do all the people of the World worship, in various guises - even atheistic ones.

But it is not only the Sun and Moon that the Fade obeys. It pulses to stranger rhythms, too, that some whisper can be read in the stars. Certainly, nobody can predict when and how it will mount or ebb; or when there will be a Fadestorm that sends the people of Galgaleth huddling indoors around bright fires, knowing that when the oily rain abates, the town - and their friends and neighbors - will, in some unquantifiable way, no longer be quite as they were before.