Sociology

Fashion Regardless of Form

For some reason, there is a persistent notion that an aquatic race would not wear clothing, that fabric adorning the body would impede their ability to function in their natural surroundings. This is a mistaken assumption.

Just because a species evolves in a specific environment does not automatically make them immune to the effects of that climate. We see this seeming contradiction to be true in nature. When the sun goes down for the night, many animals cluster together for warmth. Others build shelter to protect them from the elements, despite having adapted to their biome through evolution.

Geography

Ewer on the Confluence

Lost in the mountainous wilderness, the party spies a black dome not too far away, perched near the cliff edge of a deep trench. It is a large building with a stone frill around it. Oval and long in shape, it is made of obsidian, with the front 40′ smooth but the rest of its 200′ length covered in a latticework of chevrons, also of obsidian, that point towards the other end.

Theology

Suminarae, the True Lie

Suminarae is a contradictory Goddess that makes sense.  She is Goddess of beauty and peace, the lie of the outside belying what is within.  Not all that is beautiful on the inside is reflected on the outside, just as inner peace does not quell the unrest of others.  That is where the trickery comes in, the subterfuge, the lies.

She espouses the lies that heal, the passing falsehoods that make up idle talk.  The perfect false self protect the flawed true self from harm.  This is the image of substance, the protection of deceit.  This is why She believes in keeping the populace ignorant, as ignorance is blissful peace.  The romantic metropolis as opposed to the true city, the beautiful seascape versus the monotonous blue, there is ugliness in the truth, and balm in the lies.

It was Suminarae that found the world of Elqua for the Pantheon, that slaughtered its indigenous pisceans to make room for the Pantheon’s immigration.   The race that loathed itself, that denied their own worth, beckoned to Her from across the planes.  They were practically begging for sweet release, and it is Suminarae that now lies about that horror, that covers it up with the lie of omission.

But the Insidious Doubt has more secrets that define Her.  Perhaps the most unexpected lie of Suminarae is that She is not whom Her flock worships.  She is, in fact, the shard of Trishna known as Tornesh, the male twin/face of the Binity of Desire.  Be it the seduction of lies, the lust for the beauty, or the luck of random chance, Tornesh is now a twisted falsehood of His former half-self, a fully free Goddess at peace with Her lies.

Suminarae, the Omission, the True Lie, the Hidden Truth, Insidious Doubt, She Who Knows, Malvy of the Deceit

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Symbol: Pearl clenched in a scorpionfish’s mouth.
Domains: Chaos, Healing, Luck, Travel, Trickery.
Preferred Unguis (weapon): Spine
Clerical Unguis of Choice: Spear
Cleric Alignment: Chaotic evil, Chaotic good, chaotic neutral, true neutral.

Archaeology

Dark of the Spurs

The Spurs have been a mystery for eons to the Known World, but the Aboleths have knowledge passed down since the Cardinal Epoch.  They were there when the Spurs were erected by the Icht, the self-loathing precursor race that the Pantheon wiped out, supplanting them with the pisceans we know today.

The fingernail sized, teardrop shaped indentation on the Spur?  What a strange shape — or for that matter, name — when tears disperse under the water like blooms of algae.  And why are these indentations always on the side of the Spur that faces towards the Spine of the World?

Sociology

Societies Submerged in Shadow

Just as there are great dangers lurking in the dark of the ocean abyss, there are conspiratorial organizations hiding among the pisceans of Elqua.  Spoken of in hushed tones, these manipulative groups seek power and wealth for their own purposes, and are quite willing to sacrifice anything, or anyone, that tries to impede them.  They are the shadow societies of the Endless Blue, the moving dark that works for its own sake.

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The Icht of Elqua

As the Fluid Nations spread out and established their territories, they began to utilize their surroundings to meet their individual needs.  This consumption of natural resources has led to the discovery of anomalous artifacts that have cast some doubt on the established view of Elquan history.

Archaeology

The Tantalum Mask of Icht

The Tantalum Mask of Icht is one of the few remnants of the Icht Dominion left in the hands of modern pisceans.  Little is known of the race that once held sway over so much of the Known World, and what is known is actually vague supposition based on assumptions about this relic.  The artifact is a full face mask with a hinged strap covering the bottom lip and chin.  Two very wide and widely spaced  rhomboid holes serve as eye sockets, with the space under bridge between the eyes and the upper lip sweeping out about two and a half feet to a blunt point.  It is otherwise unadorned, showing the strange bluish-grey, lustrous metal that comprises its nearly spherical shape.  Around the back flares a conical lip, extending perhaps half a foot outwards and upwards, forming a collar.  It too is made from the same strange metal, though how any of this piece of antiquity was made has been lost to the silent depths of the Shelf.

Archaeology

The Icht:  The True First Ones

Common wisdom tells that the Orcans are the oldest race, that their precursors, the Cetacean Barbarians, rose up first and formed the basis of society while the other races still swam mindlessly in schools.  But there is evidence to challenge this notion — scant, dispersed, and teasing — that there existed intelligence, fully formed and functional, when the pods of Cetaceans began their unification.  These rumors, forgotten memories of a time when life meant surviving until the dawn of the next day, tell a different story that the one the Orcan’s lay claim to.  They speak of the ones before, the Ashamed, the great civilization known as the Icht Dominion.

Geography

Spurs: Gemstone Bones of the Ocean Floor

Perhaps one of the most anomalistic occurrences in the oceans, there stand the rare crystalline outcroppings known to only the most invested of historical sages as the Spurs. The lack of knowledge about these icons among the learned is nearly absolute, let alone any rumor that a laymer may have half-heard.  Most common pisceans will look slack-jawed at anyone asking about these enigmas, with the more facetiously pernicious spilling  great fonts of mercurial information for the price of one more cuprei lucrum.