Hundreds of Shipwrecks Line the Northern Shoreline
"The crews destitute, Gods we came all this way... The coordinates are correct, there should be a city here but damnit there's nothing at all. The ports, the vessels, everything's missing, there's only this wretched cliff for miles across, of course it's too tall to climb. We'll need to start rationing more than we have, no more medicine either, if this cold keeps up I dread what might happen if anymore grow sick, there's barely enough capable men to operate the ship as is. Only hope we have I suppose is sail along the peaks, hope the Elves are still out there somewhere, that the sea I loved won't be my grave." -Diary of Captain Jaina Leone, found sealed in a safe on the wreck of the SS Swimming Fortress, entry date 19th of Opal, 1146 LA
In the chaos after The Fall , thousands fled their broken homelands in desperation, guided by half-burnt maps and rumors whispered across trembling empires. One such tale promised sanctuary to the north, along the coastlines of Chikara, what was soon to be Everwealth, spared from the apocalyptic floods that had swallowed nations whole. But when the battered flotillas arrived, they found not salvation, but sheer cliffs that rose like mockery from the depths. Where bustling ports and fertile valleys were once marked with certainty, now stood lifeless stone walls stretching for miles, The Battlement Cliffs. Storm-tossed and sickened, their crews had no strength to turn back, no charts to guide them onward. Hope became hollow as their dwindling stores of medicine and food soured in the cold salt air, and the realization set in: the world they sought no longer existed. Many ships, haunted by that slow revelation, met their end in quiet horror, adrift and forgotten, their crews withering into pale-boned ghosts among blood-slick decks. Others, desp, rate to land, made for seemingly calm waters near the cliffs, unaware that the seabed had been razored by seismic upheaval. Jagged peaks, hidden just beneath the surface, tore hulls asunder like parchment. Survivors, if there were any, were dashed against the rocks by the mocking laughter of the sea. To this day, sailors still whisper of ghost vessels drifting the coastal fog, derelict reminders of those who trusted old maps in a world that no longer cared for memory. It is said that the sea here has grown fat on desperation. Treasure Hunters who comb the cliffs report splintered masts caught in the rocks like broken teeth, rigging tangled in the gnarled hands of skeletal mariners, and seabirds feasting on hollow sockets. Cartographers now leave these waters blank, as if ashamed of what they once promised. And while the cliffs stand silent, unmoved by the blood shed at their feet, the tides below continue to pull at shattered planks and ragged sails, carving epitaphs into the salt-stained bones of fools who dared to believe in safe harbor. Here be Monsters.
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