Tiqli (Teek-lee)

The Tiqli (Sing: Tiqlia) are the restless dead who drowned in the ocean, supposedly given life by the goddess Kanta. Legends claim that she created them to fill her realm and drag others down to her watery domain. They are hunters that will ambush sailors and ships to create more of their kind.

As members of the undead, the Tiqli are corpse-like in appearance. They often have long, stringy, matted hair; washed out, blueish skin; and blank white eyes. A Tiqlia shows its age in appearance. As fresh corpses, newer Tiqli are more whole, while older Tiqli have begun to rot. The stench of death follows the Tiqli wherever they go.

The very first report of Tiqli came from Ahi, an island to the far west of the Sorvi Archipelago. In the two years previously, many ships had disappeared in that part of the world. These disappearances worried many people of the Western Ocean, and a mission to discover what had happened to the missing ships was sent to Sorvi. The leader of this mission was the famed Captain Keir, from Deniri Island. Captain Kier sent many letters via Spray Pigeon to a scribe on Deniri Island. One of his last letters detailed the encounter he'd had with them.

After sending just one more letter to the scribe, Kier, his men, and seven other ships set off for a portion of the ocean they had called "the Sea of the Dead." Of these seven ships, only one returned, with just forty-two people on board. Among these was Baret, the cabin boy of Kier's ship, who had been given the care of the spellbook belonging to Orif, Kier's Shipmage. Baret would become essentially in mapping the boundaries of the Sea of the Dead.

This effort was rendered useless within a year, however, as the undead began to spread from the Sea of the Dead throughout the oceans. In less than two years, they could be found within all parts of the Western Ocean. This is roughly when they began to be known as Tiqli, from the Arvini words "Tiqya" meaning ocean and "Lialink" meaning corpse.

Within a decade from the first reports, the Tiqli had spread to all oceans of the world. Luckily, their numbers are never large, and no one place has ever had so many as the Sea of the Dead. Nowadays, they are mostly found in packs of anywhere from a dozen to fifteen, which is enough to pose a problem for many ships, but not so many as to be impossible to deal with for an average Shipmage.

The most affective method of fighting Tiqli is with fire. This isn't possible, however, when working with a wooden ship that hasn't been properly fireproofed, or that the fireproofing is starting to wear off from. In this case, many Shipmages recommend using spells created to soothe the undead and put the soul to rest. Some claim that invoking the power of Anthi will break Kanta's hold over them, although this is unproven.

Some reports claim that the creation of a Tiqlia can be prevented by performing last rites over a drowned body. While there is no solid evidence to confirm this, it has been anecodatlly proven to be at least reasonably successful. Furthermore, it's not uncommon for sailors to take Endings with them to ensure that their death is not caused by drowning.