Tlïvhakk Ocean

The Tlïvhakk (Tilivak) Ocean, also known as the Bülhib (Blip) Ocean, is one of the 5 Oceans in the planet Ólïvarneð. The smallest of the five by area, it is bordered on the east by the continent of Ürŋimrhýn, in particular the Tayzem Region and the Kalzuth Plains, and on the west by the continent of Yulvaheš. Its waters regularly circulate to other oceans through its connections with the Illinodes Ocean in the southwest and the rocky Ŋaraïðúl Strait that it shares with the Ëriðorn Ocean. Despite its small size, it is notorious for being one of the deepest places on the planet, regularly reaching depths below 8,000 meters in a large cavernous trench called the Tlïvhakkian Trench. These trenches give the ocean a distinctive set of convection currents that are unparalleled in size and scale; for this reason, it was the last of the five oceans to be fully traversed and explored in detail.

History

Initial Settlements and Etymology

The first known residents that lived at the coast of the Tlïvhakk Ocean were a few select tribes of the fractured Khólteð Family, who settled all across the Tayzem Region after their expulsion in 24981 AYM. In particular, the tribes of Këhóš-Ýïr, Belúb-Ýïr, Ðïš-Ýïr, and Tóvha-Ýïr all had direct access to the Ocean at the onset of the bloody Khólteðian Wars. During this war, the Ocean was greatly coveted by all tribes due to the water's ability to continuously grow and replenish crops without the permanent damage of other methods like rock mining. As such, much of the early conflicts, including the Ýïrúl War, arose from tribes fighting over control of these coastal areas. Being diverse communities, more than ten distinct names of this Ocean are known to have existed, but as tribes fell to others and the dynamic of power shifted, the words chosen by the victors almost always determined which terms would achieve further usage. It is thought that the modern name 'Tlïvhakk' came from the highly dominant tribe of Rlúýš-Ýïr, who achieved hegemony over large swaths of the western coast during the mid-period of the Khólteðtian Wars before being felled by internal divisions and subsequently swallowed up by other tribes. Although their records and thus their linguistic nuances are lost in history, similar words in other tribes seem to indicate a focus on the ocean as a faultless, godlike entity in its own right.

Another group of note were the few remnants of the Farïnýð Family, who established the tribe of Loðo in 24976 AYM after migrating to the Múhr-Ïúýkóš (Merios Bay) in the extreme northwest of the Tayzem Region. They are where the term Múhr-Ïúýkóš comes from, although this was not the term for the bay but for the larger expanse of water that expanded beyond the edges of the Bay, what would now be called the Tlïvhakk Ocean. That name roughly translates to the 'second sky', due both to the fact that the ocean frequently changed color alongside the sky, and the motion of tw sun and moons rising from the ocean, evoking the image of a dimension within the ocean that these celestial bodies traveled through. Later on, especially after the Tayzem Campaign and the formal combination of the Khólteðtians and Farïnýðians, the term would be clarified to only refer to the Bay.