Tria Archipelaga

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Overview

The Tria Archipelaga ("Three Archipelagos" or "Three Seas") are the three oceanic regions of central Pelithos: the northern Boreal Archipelago, the Thalassa Velos dividing the twin island-continents, and the Southern Isles.

In the volcanic Kyterian Ori the fury-born Azer face the question of whether to keep their old allegiance to the titans, or forge their own path. They clash with the Trident's pirates for influence in the Thalassa Velos, and titancults plot among them. The wild mountains and rocky wastes are filled with wealth and charon, savage titan-born beasts, and the deep paths down to Erebus.

On the coasts of the inner sea stands the Symmachia Velos, the Wreath's alliance of cities. A pillar of the war effort, they are now falling into intrigue and jealousy, abetted by the schemes of the Viper. Rogue pirate lords of the Boreals have begun to prey on their former allies, and the Saltbound kampoi of the Maelstrom are eager to drag down sacrifices for their titan masters.

Mute ruins of the Arcadian neriads dot the barren Southern Isles. The treacherous city of Sidaphos is the only port between New Aletheia in the west and the isles of the Dragon's Tail in the east; it grows rich on piracy and ruinous tariffs. Southernmost of all is Mavros, the Vaultisle of Death, covered with the shadow-haunted ruins of Arcadian cities, its seas teeming with skeletal sea life.

The Boreal Archipelago arcs over the northern end of the Thalassa Velos, a spawling, seemingly unchartable sprawl of isles. They are dizzying in variety, large and small, ranging from the warm Western Reach to the chilly isles half engulfed by the Frozen Expanse. The Trident has proclaimed his sea-kingdom to rule its waters, but he has yet to make this claim stick. This was the heartsea of the Arcadian neriads, and their ruins lie above and below the waves. Their triton descendants are returning, some staking claims to it.

Thalassa Velos (the "Arrow Sea") - V-shaped sea between the island continents - the waters are the crystal blues and greens of the Mediterranean - at the southern tip of the V, where the continents are closest, is the Maelstrom and surrounding vaultsea, a deadly barrier to passage, infested with psarikampoi, elementals, monsters, and titanwrack storms and waves - charon-infused fish, titanwrack beachcombing on the shores - warm Mediterranean climate, often steamy, hot dry summers, mild rainy winters - dotted with small isles, some inhabited, but few large or populous ones

Regions

The Boreal Archipelago

"the Boreals"

• isles curve across the top of the Thalassa Velos's open northern end, framing it, extending away north far out to sea, never really fully charted
• spawling, thick with isles
• shallow cities of the neriads, now laid claim to by tritons?
• climate gradient from west to east, pulled to extremes by the Fire and Ice hearts.
• In the east, the isles are colder, with evergreens, mists, drifting bergs. Bergs are a threat and a resource; they may hold charon "ore" that can be carved free, but also monsters (fury or winter). Glacial satyrs carve them into berg-ships to raid the isles.
• volcanic vault and "hot isles/hot seas" vaultlands, daktyloi realm, iron ships ply the waters
• sultry mediterranean climate in the south, shading colder as you go north and west, the latter due to the proximity of the Opagos, Frozen Expanse

• spread the arc of isles wider, embed some in the Frozen Expanse

• the Straywater Cabal and Kekrymmenos / Gilded Vale's influence are in the isles now (moved from Southern Isles)

History

• neriads arise in the Boreals, they remain the heart of neriad civilization in the Arcadian and Shattered Age

• Pythians control Limani as a satrapy, and exert strong influence on the isles

• in the Titanomachia, volcanic ash, rains of fire, and massive glacier-bergs batter the isles, even mixing in fury chaos in the middle

• after the Fall, the Trident runs amok in the Boreals and Phidion Coast, the Two-Score Storm, until Paraskevi learns to bind it.

• the seas grow saltier. Kampoi are unaffected, but the neriads find it gradually toxic. They join the Great Migration en masse, leaving the isles deserted save for small numbers of other fey and Nor, a scattering of pythians who fled the blood madness. the kampoi overrun them.

• tritons begin to return to join the defense of Pelithos against Acrolon's corsairs, they befriend Paraskevi.

• the Battle of Red Tide sees the death of Paraskevi, massive slaughter of tritons by the Voice of the Wind. the Trident-storm ravages the Acrolonian fleet. Some dead tritons withness Mother Night and follow her, becoming the Vathys.

• Acrolon begins to lay claim to isles, but still faces still resistance from islanders, kampoi, and Azer navy.

• Trident Salicar becomes pirate king, slaps around the Acrolonian navy, raids the Hegemony. Where does he become enthroned?
• Trident becomes king of the isles (not entirely uncontested); his brash style is better suited to leading raids than ruling a kingdom. His hold on his people is loose, they sometimes raid nominal allies, like the Symmachia (goaded by the Viper) and Phidion Coast.
• Trident and Chemaros both claim dominion over Limani, begin to feud.

• eastern isles trade with the harpies of the key's city, the harpies can be hired to overfly the sea and warn of bergs and raiders
• in the south, warmer seas, steamy/balmy as you close in on Kyterios; dactyloi claim many of these isles
• pythian influence from the shattered age?
• volcanic vault and "hot isles/hot seas" vaultlands, daktyloi realm, iron ships ply the waters
• sultry mediterranean climate in the south, shading colder as you go north and west, the latter due to the proximity of the Opagos

story

• Trident vies with Chemaros over Port Limani and with the dactyloi who claim isles. His nation is young and fractious.
• lots of weird isles with unique stuff, scars from the demonic invasion

• Red Tide (large for a small isle, not on the macro map): had an older name, but no one calls it that anymore. It's where the mass slaughter of tritons and defeat of the pelithine navy happened. ship graveyard and watery barrow to many great chiefs and captains with all their arms and gilt, rife with strange dead, maybe demons too, vathys "holy" site. The isle is abandoned by the living, home to ruins (perhaps it too was once wealthy?) and desolation, Strange phenomena, and demon goo stains (void oozes drifting on the tide?).

Geography

• shallow cities of the tritons
• volcanic vault and "hot isles/hot seas" vaultlands, daktyloi realm, iron ships ply the waters
• hidden isle of the trident, core of seafaring nation in the archipelago
• volcanic isles held by the daktyloi
• island topotheos

forest and fertile land long isle

forest (borderline jungle) mountain isle

• not part of the trident's nation, dactyloi influence, push pull, getting rich as an intermediate?

fertile land and grasslands

Esyrmos

• mountain and hill isle
• trident's home isle, capital of his nation
• Esyrmos - an island in the boreals, birthplace of the current Trident

evergreen forest isle

evergreen hill isle

evergreen mountain isle, coldest and closest to the opagos, awash in its flow, hit by chilly storms

Oveliskon

oh-VELIS-kon

• Oveliskon - another isle

Chasoura

• current Trident's secret base of operations during the invasion, magically concealed in some fashion (who set it up that way?)

The Frozen Expanse

an eternal icecap off the coast from opagos, blocks a lot of travel from eastern antolikos to the boreals/velos

• western isles are colder as you get closer to the ice floe from Opagos
• there's an arm of the boreals that is heavily icelocked

The Thalassa Velos

Napahu

• Napahu ("fired pottery")
• molten isle, glob of magma spat out by Kyterios near the height of the (first? second?) Titanomachia.
• rich with charon, metals, jewels, rare stone. mostly integral, but with some significant fury-touch
  • its riches make it a target for pirates
• Aabirtu -the Thousand Teeth dactyloi fortress-city colony, hub of their fleets

Naos - big isle near the Cypress Coast, and city of the same name, one of the richest and most influential members of the Symmachia Velos (having eclipsed the Wreath's home city of Ilion during the war) - legendary shipwrights, build with the cypress, strong and buoyant - lots of trade across the sea and with the boreals - the interior of the isle is towering Mount Omika, rare woods come down from those heights, mountain is the city's mascot its slopes rough and beautiful, like japanese landscapes - atop Omika are sprawling, enigmatic Elysian temple ruins guarded by seldom seen guardians; the Lighthouse, the High Temple of Day - the Vipers have set up shop here and are prying this city away from the Symmachia. The Viper is playing on the ego and greed of its rulers, while stirring up trouble in the other cities as well (he's made deals with boreal pirates, maybe titan-inclined dactyloi too, to disrupt cross-velos trade to distance the western members from the eastern. he must be cautious, as the Net's spies teem in the Symmachia, and can't be allowed to catch wind

The Maelstrom

The Maelstrom - when the Titanomachia came, the Maelstrom drew in waters so forcefully that ships could not cross the Thalassa Velos or to the south. It vomited forth tsunamis, crashing upon nearby shores, scattering strange things from the depths. Kampoi rode its waves far inland, laying waste and salting the earth.

The Southern Isles

• scattering of smaller isles, sparser than in the Dytikan or Boreal archipelagos
• taciturn fisherfolk, pirate coves, psarikampoi/titancultists
• south of the Maelstrom in the open ocean, lightly inhabited, remote

History

• colonized by neriads by the end of the Arcadian age. still kinda remote
• with the Godswar and the growing Maelstrom and kampoi threat, most neriads decide to withdraw back to the Boreals. Wreath Hekuba inspires her followers, the Unyielding Seven, to stick it out. Goes poorly, spiraling into obsession and Strange death. Isles largely abandoned to the Strange and the kampoi
• later in the Shattered Age, as the Aphxanamos and Frozen Expanse make it tricky to sail from Dytikos to Antolikos, the isles begin attracting colonists from Epolosia and the Dragon's Tail/Bay of Pearls, and some from Aletheia. Some clashes and rivalry, and frontier battling with the kampoi.
• The Maelstrom batters the isles in the Titanomachia. Death star falls on Mavros, black ships sail.
• The Fall brings disruption to the Bhrygan temenos and an Archon comes to manage it, is eventually captured and tormented by the Fathomless.
• Titanwrack and tree-ship sailing leukrotta from the Aphxanamos begin to show up in the isles. Kampoi remain strong.
• islanders cut off from their homelands, grow lean and hard, piracy spreads. Sidaphos becomes a hive of scum and villainy, Deadwater forms. Mastigos adopts them as a major market.
• Acrolon conquers Sidaphos as part of their effort to envelop the continents, gives them a waypost on the way to Calcaria and a place to launch attacks against the Epolosian coast.
• As the Asphodel spread in Epolosia, some refugees take to the isles.
• With the fall of Calcaria, the Hegemony pulls out of the isles, back to Aletheia, leaving the pirates in charge of Sidaphos again.
• Vasileian / Bay of Pearls nations send an expeditionary fleet to break the pirates and make trade through the southern isles more viable.

Geography

Bhryga

• swampy, salt-marsh
• stalked by kampoi; they send mists and currents to draw people to it (or to steer towards the maelstrom) to murder and sacrifice.
• graveyard of lost ships
• ancient neriad stone structures from the gilded days (when the maelstrom began to form, they mostly abandoned the southern isles and kept to the boreals). the swamp has gone nuts since the local major temenos went untended after the fall, life and death warring in the swampy decay (spawning weird critters). servitor (what type?) came to be an archon, was imprisoned/crucified by the kampoi within an old neriad temple. they do alchemy with its blood, trying to further pervert the temenos
• mad shipwrecked survivors grovel to the kampoi, worship the titans?

Ammodis

• desert, miserable isle, few inhabitants, little water, threat of kampoi, salt elementals
• pirate forts/hangouts, a place to watch for passing ships
• neriad structures

Sidaphos

• (si-DAH-fohs)
• grassy hills
• some herding, farming
• pirate haven/seedy port/hive of scum and villainy, its the only half-decent port in the southern isles (and the only sizable/decent harbor on the isle), and thus the only stop on the way between new alethia and the bay of pearls. hefty payments to the port's rulers can buy a degree of immunity to piracy, but their influence is imperfect. port is unruly, full of vice, plunder, slaves, rarities wrested from the jungle coast, asphodel, maelstrom charon, etc
• Sidaphos is often used to refer to both the isle and the city, though the city's full name is The Haven of the Southern Winds (back from Elysian times)
• haven's power is backed by a titancult: ocean/death cult, assassins, seafarers, the kampoi don't like them (often attack), secular and not really interested in the titan's agenda. they have captured one of the Mavros shadow ships, serves as their flagship.
• Mastigos has a standing presence here, buying and selling slaves
• Nighthold Corsairs are a new presence, but they're forced their way in, despite the stigma of being Acrolonian
• ancient neriad structures around and on the isle
• the more powerful captains and merchant/pirate princes have fortified manors dotted around the isle, claiming lesser harbors and coves as their private ports

Mavros

• recast this as a Strange corrupted isle, maybe relating to the Unyielding Seven (maybe Hekuba's capital?)
• can keep the original death vibe, but make it strange death

• Southernmost of the Southern Isles

• Vaultland of Severed Horizon, a stray one of its stars fell here during the First Titanomachia.
• It was originally the proudest, grandest island city-state of the southern isles, the ruins of which remain, rich with its treasures.
• the ruins seem empty, but faint sounds of crowds as heard, and shadows slip over the walls at the edge of vision

• Mavros is now lost, concealed in the misdirections of the titan.
• strange corals grow, turtles swim the seas, succulent flora flourishes, and steam rises form the ocean's surface
• will o' wisps lead ships into the lost sea-paths

• the same of its plants conveys a dreamy lotus-eater vibe. People lose their way, lose their sense of time, just wander, wide-eyed with curiosity through the twists of the realm.

• The Straywater Adepts furycult formed around Mavros, sorcerer-pirates who used the unfindable isle as a base. They are fairly mercenary, loosely aiding the titan for power, rather than devotion.
• They use titan sap are a sacrament, training their acolytes to find their way out / through the wandering daze into comprehension and power, and adepts use it to find their way through secret paths or to desired places.
• they use compasses with coral needles, and make weapons and implements of coral

old stuff

• deathvault, dead Elysian ruins, living shadows, skeletal sea life swarms its waters, shadow ships prowl the waters at times, sometimes sailing far away to terrorize
• port's deathcult comes here at times to harvest power, do rituals, etc
• no asphodels grow, those are authority magic
• when the Titanomachia came, the shadow ships sailed for the first time, gathered in a great fleet. They brought sickness and decay to the shores they struck. They still sail, but have never gathered again.
• there are undead memories wandering the isle, their flesh stripped away, but memory and soul lingering on
• the Mad Caduceus was intrigued with the deathvault, create a flesh giant to explore it who could resist its power. it crawls, naked, blind, and starving across the land still, its flesh calcifying and sloughing off, only to spring up into gibbering flesh-things and roam until the land kills them.
• Mavros is full of Elysian ruins become perfect white marble mausleums. Its waters are patrolled by skeletal sealife, its shores silent and still. The silent shadows of mortals and beasts slip across walls and fields beneath wan sunlight.