Shalessa
The Great City beneath the Waves
East of Estivall and the Trackless Wood, a great body of water is found. It’s called the Santhrian Ocean. Scattered islands litter its surface, mainly containing small fishing villages and little port towns, stopovers on longer journeys. Sea’s Reach is one such village, located on the western edge of the island of Winnion. Nothing would strike the eye as particularly out of the ordinary in this place, until one saw a large metal device or strange bubble breach the surface and show the travellers departing onto the shore.
Sea’s Reach is the biggest stopover for most Folk who wish to travel to Shalessa, the great City Beneath the Sea, which is the Capital of the Kingdom of the same name. Couriers offer services to those without gils to travel back and forth, both magical and mechanical.Shalessa welcomes air breathers and works to make accommodations to help them be comfortable and survive beneath the sea.
This was not always the case. For hundreds of years, Shalessa was only inhabited by aquatic Folk: sea Animals, Merfolk, Merrow, Nixies, a few Selkies, and many others. Merfolk travelled back and forth between Shalessa and the surface, selling special crystals and plants that are only found beneath the sea. Those from beneath the waves were met with distrust, regarded with suspicion and a lack of surety, for few surface dwellers could survive within their realm.
In those days, the one thing that Shalessa was known for was its Hunters. In the depths of the ocean, many dangerous beasts can be found wandering the depths, as can stranger things. The city proper is protected by wards and the ways are lit with special glimmering strands of kelp. Outside of the city there is an infamous conclave of Atavists all devoted to the visages of Beasts from beneath the waves. They are rarely seen.
The buffer of the Santhrian Ocean afforded Shalessa a surprising amount of insulation from the outside world. They were spared the worst of the major wars, and the worst of the political strife. Shalessa has no standing army and has only seen one major conflict.
The conflict came several hundreds of years ago. A horde of undead who had drowned at sea rose up and had to be quelled. The Legends say that the Atavists found the first surge of undead and rallied the city to stop them. They managed to force the Undead into a siege, and then held out for a year and a day before the Gods themselves intervened, sending nameless champions from the surface to turn the tide of battle before they melted into the waves and vanished. Since this event, many Shalessans hold a special reverence for the God of Death and believe that they failed him in showing proper vigilance. Now, once per year they have a holiday to show their respect for those whom the sea has claimed and special care is kept to keep The Drowned from rising again.
Of course, it’s more than wars that can force a place to change, and since the Ancient Times, Shalessa has seen two great influxes of outsiders that have changed its landscape forever.
The first Great Time of Change came to Shalessa hundreds of years ago when Samara LaNoct, called the Lady of Phases and seen universally as the head of the Church of the Moon, responded to an attack on one of the great libraries by calling upon Umbra’s strength and sinking the library beneath the Sea to deny it to those who sought to burn it. Lady Lanoct and the most powerful of the Faithful who followed her worked desperately to ward the Library, and keep all inside from drowning. When it settled upon the bottom of the ocean, it had landed right near the outskirts of Shalessa. The Surfacer Faithful met with Queen Thanar of the Depths and negotiated. Despite there being very few who had ever walked beneath the waves and on the surface, they found common ground, and the Merfolk worked to reinforce the seals made by the Faithful.
Thus was the first surfacer dwelling brought to Shalessa. Within some of the rooms, the wards were allowed to lapse and special scrolls written on special reeds with special ink were brought and housed. The librarians and the locals worked together, and through their combined efforts the Library of Tides is seen as the grandest and most sprawling library in Ariath (with perhaps the exception of whatever texts the Kudarr keep in their colonies, few know the true depths of the knowledge they possess).
With the fall of the Library of Tides, Shalessa adapted. So came the first magical shuttles to and from the surface. So came the warded houses, the charms that allowed temporary waterbreathing. Two cultures hesitantly merged and began the path to understanding.
The second Great Time of Change came when the Kudarr brought a whole new perspective to the People of Shalassa, a few decades ago. A small group of Kudarr and humans arrived at the outskirts of Shalassa wearing breathing apparatuses and greatly wounded. They were brought in and cared for and, as they recovered, they marvelled at the new raw materials they hadn’t seen. Word was sent through dreams to their superiors and, within days, others like them arrived to see what strange new world they had found. No one knows what they were doing under the water in the first place, but their arrival heralded another swarm of newcomers, along with metal contraptions and breathing apparatuses that run off vapour instead of raw magic.
Today the world of Shalessa is a hybrid of all of these things. They are still mostly isolated from outside politics and live with little to no threat of invasion. The royal line has been unbroken since its founding, and currently King Malekkan rules alone. Scholars study in their library. The Kudarr study the underwater occurrences of Vapour. Tourists travel through accompanied by machines or charms. Merchants bring in imports and take out exports. The world turns.
The People of Shalessa
About three quarters of the population of Shalessa are aquatic, but the other quarter are a mixture of scholars, scientists, and those who simply seek to escape the surface world. Faithful of the Moon, Death, and Life are all common, as are hunters and witches who tend underwater gardens. Outside the city proper, there is one of the largest known gathering places for Atavists, called the Conclave of Salt, which has an uneasy truce with the ruling nobility of the city itself. They say life is quieter in Shalessa, and that attracts a certain type of Folk.
Of course, there are other rumors as well. They say that Shalessa is a haven for those on the run who can manage to get their hands on an underwater breathing charm. It’s far enough away that it’s easy to disappear from anyone hoping to find a fugitive and the already eclectic make up of Folk make it easy to disappear. They say there is a thriving black market through Shalessa, granted a certain amount of immunity from scrutiny due to its distance and isolation.