underwater paper making

Both the Oshamni Empire and the predecessors of the Haiyang Empire independently invented bright squid ink but it is unclear who invented it first because of Scaraquans are not great at keeping track of dates.
All the civilized powers under the sea have access to clay tablets and bright squid ink with vellum, but only the Haiyang Empire has figured out how to make high quality underwater paper, relatively quickly and relatively cheaply.

Utility

Haiyang paper is lighter and more longer lasting than the widely available vellum that most other undersea nations have to make due with.
Haiyang paper can easily be made into bound books whereas the more widely available vellum is a bit too thick to do that conveniently meaning most others rely on scrolls.
Unsurprisingly, the Haiyei are the most literate culture under the sea. Even commoners are often at least somewhat literate. Elsewhere in the, literacy is almost exclusively a trait of the upper class, and even then not all of the upper class are literate.

Manufacturing

The Haiyang Empire's paper is commonly called "Haiyei paper" and the manufacturing process is a closely guarded secret by the Haiyei people.

Social Impact

The gradually dissemination of Haiyei paper is helping to encourage literacy under the sea. It is also incentivizing trade to and from the Haiyang Empire causing them to be less isolationist relative to the other major undersea powers.

Parent Technologies

• alchemy

Inventor(s)

The development of Haiyei paper was the result of generations of alchemists making a concentrated effort to make incremental improvements on writing mateirals, so there is no single inventor.
The current empress gives the whale's share of the credit to her grandmother for funding this research. This is a gross exaggeration at best because most of the research was done by the empress' mother's conquered rivals, but who is going to argue with the all powerful empress?

Access & Availability

Widely available in the Haiyang Empire.
Generally limited to the wealthy elites elsewhere.

Related Species

• astalakians
• merfolk
• Ojiongo