Waters & Ways — Lelien Empire

The Lelien Empire’s rivers, bays, and sea-lanes are more than names on a map—they’re the rhythms of travel, trade, and rumor. Use this guide to picture the water under your keel: where fog eats sound, where lantern bells mark safe threads, and which ports wait beyond the next bend. Spellings and placements are canon-locked to Year 52 AT so your stories, maps, and session notes all point to the same shores.

Rivers (He / Jiang)

• Yulan River — (Chen) Broad, tea‑amber river that runs beside Qinchao. Spring freshets overtop the meadowbanks and lay rich silt on millet terraces; in late season, sandbars appear like stepping stones. Ferries are rope‑hauled between stone piers, and shallow‑draft barges time the bends to the village watch‑bells.
• Yinlong He — (Lin → Chen) The Silver‑Dragon River: cold headwaters and a fast, glassy surface that hides depth. Carved stone weirs tame only the margins; in Hexie its floes grind like millstones. It feeds Saffron Anchorage, where river pilots hand off to sea pilots at tide turn.
• Red Hollow Run — (Chen uplands) Iron‑rich water stains the banks a deep ocher, giving the stream its name. The Run braids and re‑braids after every storm, leaving cutbanks and sudden oxbows. Miners lash timbers into rafts in dry months; in spate, only rope ferries risk the crossings.
• Highcano Wash — (Chen, near Highcano) Clear and quick, with scholar‑mills and training bridges spanning its narrow waist. Students of Highcano test timing on stepping‑stones set by professors, and exam barges practice eddy entries beneath the arches. Mill rights are an honor granted for published designs.
• Harvest Ribbon — (Lin, by Green Water) A barge‑friendly ribbon of water edged with towpaths and low willow groves. Grain depots and granaries line the inner bends; bells mark lock openings during harvest. In winter its levels fall to reveal old cart ruts that once skirted the banks.

Lakes & Tarns

• Cold Lantern Tarn — (Tang, near Whirlpool School) A high, glacial tarn famed for oath‑vigils held beneath mirror‑still water. On windless nights, lanterns appear doubled in the black surface; in deep winter, blue ice lenses form and sing in the frost. Locals swear unseen vents keep one corner unfrozen.

Gulfs, Bays & Bights

• Linfar Gulf — Broad, wind‑steady gulf off Lin whose lee shores host salt pans and orchard towns. Migratory lines of silver gulls follow the inshore current, a pilot’s easy compass on hazy days. Cyclones seldom enter but their long swells turn the outer bars treacherous.
• Huangdao Bay — Court‑favored water facing Tang’s capital approaches: deep anchor, smooth holding ground. Imperial inspectors sweep contraband with lantern boats at night, and a chain‑boom can bar the mouth in storms. Harbor walls echo the Pharos cadence to guide late convoys.
• Tang Bight — (renamed from Chen Bight) A weather‑shifting crescent notorious for sudden fog curtains and wandering sandbanks. Fish weirs and stake‑nets lace the shallows; outsiders miss the channels and ground. Local bell beacons sound three notes when the bars move after a gale.
• Saffron Anchorage — Sheltered roadstead between Lin and Chen, near Green Water, with a broad, sandy bottom and good holding. Yinlong He spreads here into a tidelike lagoon; spice ships wait on the afternoon breeze to clear upriver. Pilot lodges on timber piles post chalkboards with tide windows.

Straits, Channels & Passages

• Scholar’s Sound — (Tang) A fog‑prone corridor between dark basalt teeth, favored by exam barges and couriers. Mile‑bells hang on iron frames and toll across the mist; without them, back‑eddies will spin a hull side‑on. Lantern towers repeat cadence codes at dusk during Proof Week.
• Paleflame Passage — The cold, luminous channel separating Tang from Arya. On clear Yiwang nights, pale curtains ripple over black water, and drifting floes flash like embers. Imperial patrol lines hold to the mid‑stream treaty mark; salvage claims are adjudicated at dawn beacons.
• Haixing Channel (Imperial: “Sea‑Spine”; Western charts: Mariners’ Gate) — The broad, fast lane between the Lelien Empire and Dajjashi, Rihsama, and Nezb. Convoys sail under neutrality charters and exchange lighthouse cadence with foreign pharos. Storms funnel here, raising pyramidal seas; smugglers love the lee of the mid‑channel sandbanks.

Waterfalls & Rapids

• Luòmian Falls (“Caravan Veil”) — Tiered cascade between Green Water and Red Hollow where mist veils the toll‑stairs cut into the cliff. Portage crews run winch‑sleds beside the falls while caravans queue on the shelf road. In late light, spray throws coin‑bright rainbows over the ledgers.