JoiBoi

The population of JoiBoi has diversified much over the last 100 years, and is now called home by a range of Calidor native species, including:

Tritons (aloof humanoids with webbed feet and fins on their calves)

Water Genasi

Shalarin (similar to Triton, but much more adapted to deep water living, more lithe, more and larger fins)

Tako (large, sentient octopuses)

Merfolk

Yurians (large, lobster-like crustaceans with a very high intelligence, and firm belief in honour and civility)

Locathah (fish with legs and arms)

Seaspeaker

  The Seaspeaker is an elder appointed by the heads of each of the 5 Families. Once appointed, they hold this position until death, or until the 5 Families determine that they are unfit for it. The Seaspeaker is generally chosen from among the wisest and most powerful druids, and they serve as a conduit between the people of JoiBoi and the tumultuous environment around them. They are responsible for ensuring the productivity of the town's natural food sources, and the agreeability of the weather by maintaining the balance with the surround natural forces.   The Seaspeaker is viewed by the town as their spiritual guide. They are the village folk's contact when seeking permission or guidance for an upcoming course of action, ensuring it will not anger the nature spirits the town resides with. They also serve as the town's judge and mediator. They run the day to day of the village, ensuring the population remains happy, while adhering to the established values. Finally, they serve as the town's healer and apothecary. Townspeople can visit for medical aid, the purchasing of apothecary ingredients, and offering divination and spiritual guidance to those in need   JoiBoi's first Seaspeaker established the ring of obelisks around the town, inscribing them with runes gifted to them by the spirits to represent the pact of coexistance that they established. It is said that they serve as a sort of magical ward that holds back the rampant growth of vegetation that would otherwise overtake the village, and repels predators, however the details of the wards have been lost to time.  

The 5 Families

The true rulers of JoiBoi, the 5 Families were the first to take up residence here, and they use this as justification for their authority. They do not themselves get involved with the day to day of of the town's operations, however they serve as the town's Council, electing the Seaspeaker to represent them. If the Families wish something to happen, it is passed to the Seaspeaker, who enacts it. They claim a percentage of all of the villager's produced wealth, generally food, natural materials, and crafted goods. In return, they serve as the town's protectors from external threats, whether fighting off sea monsters or encroaching S.A.C members. They are also the only people allowed to leave the region. Villagers may wander to collect food and resources, but the 5 Families embark on expeditions that are sent off with great pomp, bringing back curiosities and goods from afar, supplying the town with things they could not otherwise have. They are viewed with respect and reverence by the townspeople, who could not fathom how terrifying and dangerous the expeditions must be, and are grateful for the influx of wealth.   The secret of held by the 5 Families, the truth of JoiBoi, is closely guarded. They were called here by the Goddess in the Reeds generations past, coming from all across Calidor. The Goddess offered them a deal. In return for her protection and a peaceful place to live undisturbed, they would serve as her. They would work to maintain the natural balance in the environment, and defend the Devilreed Wilds, and Calidor as a whole, from all exterior threats. And once a year, the 5 Families would gather at midnight during a new moon to present offerings from which the Goddess can draw to continue to protect them. She passed on to them the wards that the Seaspeaker would establish to protect the town, but to them she said that it would also hide the region from the naked eye, as well as arcane and divine eyes.  

Manaboshi Family

 

Barra Family

 

Hihi Family

 

Morwen Family

 

Fera Family

The town has little by way of infrastructure. Each family is mostly self-contained, hunting and foraging for food, and making and maintaining their homes, tools, and personal belongings. Any shortcomings in skills a family has are made up for in the trade of favours or goods to another community member who has what they seek.   The towns largest piece of infrastructure is series of underwater docks. Many of the towns families own some form of vessel, but for most they are simply a means of transportation to Calimport, or for fishing further waters when the catch isn't as good locally. A few larger docks, however, are built to handle large flow of cargo from the few people who range both the surface and Astral seas, returning with large hauls of goods to help sustain the town and to trade.   The ground has been laid with bioluminescent material that marks a sort of system of roads, and 10' tall plants with thin, sturdy stalks and a bulbous, bioluminescent flower at the top provide dim, bluegreen light in various places throughout.

The town is not broken up into districts. Rather, their is a sort of town center, where the hall of the current Seaspeaker is, as well as a community gardens. The rest of the town is made up of scattered shelters constructed hapharzardly throughout the open seabed, with the distance between each homstead varying greatly.

The exact founding date of JoiBoi is unknown. The town has existed for a time beyond generational memory. They have suffered their share of bountiful seasons and seasons of hardship, but none who live here can imagine leaving the simple, relatively stable life they have for the chaos of the wider world. Historically, the population has fluctuated only a little, with varying births and deaths, but they have been more or less ignored by the rest of Calidor, making for a very uneventful, stagnant, and peaceful history. No one leaves JoiBoi forever, and no one comes in from elsewhere.

Community Gardens

A place of gathering for community events, most notably the Tidebreak festival. The space contains a multitude of well cared for gardens containing all manner of coral, anemone, sea cucumbers, and a range of sea vegetation. At the center is a large ritual space used by the Seaspeaker during ceremonies, marked by circular stones 30' tell carved into the likeness of various sea creatures. At the center, a perfectly round, smooth stone lies flat carved and painted with a representation of deity from whom the Seaspeaker gains their power; it appears like Oroborous eating its tail, only as a wave.  

Seaspeaker's Sanctum

The hallowed sanctum reserved for the appointed Seaspeaker, this structure holds their residence, a chamber used for meditation, ritual, and herbalist and alchemical works, and an audience chamber, where the townspeople can see the Seaspeaker for advice, medical help, or magical and divinatory aid.   The structure is centered around an impossibly large nautilus shell, some 20' tall and 100' in diameter, lying on its side. The shell is surrounded by gardens growing the plants used by the Seaspeaker, and innumerable totems, rocks engraved with runes and sigils, and various other forms of magic circles and insignia.  

The Docks

Used by the townsfolk to moor their vessels, it is also home to a large number of storage areas, separating goods the people have found, farmed, harvested, or crafted which are meant for external trade, and those which are meant for internal town use, as allocated by the Seaspeaker.  

The Devilreed Gate

It is here that the 5 families go to offer their gifts to the Goddess in secret. The Gate is a gap of 50' in the ring of statues separating the Wilds and the town. The seaweed here seems at its thickest, the darkest of which seems to form the shape of a large, arched doorway, outside of which the colour lightens and the plant matter thins somewhat. Just back from the "doorway", a dais made of stone, decorated with runes and the bones of sea creatures is buried in the silt of the sea bed, and is uncovered for the ceremony.

No one comes or goes from JoiBoi.

The architecture of the homes here vary greatly depending on who built them. Many have found or created caves beneath the seabed, while others have constructed small shelters using rocks and boulders that pile up like a cairn. Others still have cultivated the growth of large seaweeds, knitting them together to create enclosed spaces. Nowhere in JoiBoi will you find a typical house of any kind.   Houses here must be built to withstand the ebb and flow of tides, which can change in direction and intensity rapidly. Functionally, they are built to provide a space for residence to be away from the eyes of others, where they can rest or relax in privacy. The town itself is unnaturally free of predators, making large, durable structures only necessary for the storage of goods, and as a comfort for those who enjoy the feeling they bring.   The docks do feature a series of larger warehouse that house trade goods brought in on ships and these are constructed of stone, with a much larger underground footprint.

JoiBoi is located in a near-perfect circular clearing at the center of the The Drifting Abyss, or the Devilreed Wilds as it's known to the locals. The Devilreed Wilds is Calidor's largest underwater forest at 200 km in diameter, a dense mass of seaweed and other vegetation stretching up several hundred feet from the seabed. The gently swaying forest is dark, filled with less-than-friendly creatures, and is nearly impossible to navigate with any confidence. The clearing at its center is a 15km diameter, mostly flat bed of sand and rock occupied by small crustaceans and bottom feeders. At the boundary between the town and the Devilreed, a obelisks are set in a ring every 10'. Each obelisk differs slightly from the next in the minor details, but the overall form is the same; the bottom a bundle of tentacles partially submerged in a wave, flowing into a whale-like torso, morphing into an amalgamation of small sea creatures all erupting outwards from the central column, topped with the face of a beautiful woman, her face contorted in an expression somewhere between rage and ecstasy. Her hair is carved as though drifting in the current, becoming seaweed around the shoulders, and crawling with crabs. The statues face outwards.

Located in a shallower region of only 100' depth, the water here is warmer than most other places, and it lies outside the worst of the tidal regions, sheltering it from those tumultuous waters.