In the beginning...

Ischyros was always good at harvesting the sea's bounties. After having visited a coastal market during adolescence and seeing the shiny, beautiful objects that land striders were willingly trading for shoddy imitation pearls and week-old fish, he knew that he would be a merchant. He would have all the shinies. Thus, he taught this trade to all of Her offspring.
 
He believed in supporting family-owned businesses and practices what he liked to call "Kind Capitalism," in which those who have valuable skills should take on apprentices from families that do not have valuable skills, and thus aid in the overall improvement of society. He was also a rather generous teacher who would send his students home with meals and allowances on which the apprentices' families could live.
 
It was perhaps for this reason that the Ischyros name began to be known far and wide, such that peoples from all over started inviting themselves into town. They sent their children, their nieces, their nephews, and sometimes their servants and slaves to beg Ischyros to take them on as apprentices or to at least find them an apprenticeship elsewhere that would similarly provide for their families.
 
At one point, the small coastal towns Ischyros frequented became so overcrowded as to harshly pollute the adjacent Sea and overfarm its resources, weakening the balance of the ecosystem to a near-collapse. When She heard of this from the children and the other Sea creatures, She forbade him to continue teaching outsiders to harvest the sea, or to even return to land until the Sea had healed. Eventually, the land-dwellers who had learned directly from Ischyros passed on, and their apprentices also passed on. The knowledge diluted until the Sea finally could fully replenish its strength. Unfortunately, Ischyros was not so long-lived as She, and departed from this plane only a few years later.
 
Despite being exiled from the surface, he still taught the children how to harvest, how to respect the Sea and their Mother. He shared with the children the secrets of trade and diplomacy. She did not object because She also wished the children to live prosperously.
 
Near the end of his time on our plane, Ischyros and She had one last brood. One of these precious little ones grew up to be Archelon.
 
This is where our story begins.