Steaming Sea

COLD AND ROCKY SEA

Temperature: Cold and temperate waters
Hazards: Dangerous creatures, storms, Ulfen raiders
Resources: Fishing, light trade
The unpleasant stretch of water known as the Steaming Sea may not be an actual sea in cartographical terms, but its presence impacts the land and water around it. The sea is home to the elves of Mordant Spire, who have taken it on themselves to guard the ruins of ancient Azlant.

Geography

Sea Characteristics

The Steaming Sea is the rockiest of the large waterways. Fortunately for navigators, most of the rocks protrude above the water in the form of jagged islands that make up the Ironbound Archipelago, making them easy to avoid. Hidden reefs and crags do exist, of course, and ships must take care when crossing the sea. The threat to hulls is not the only danger the rocks present. Any ship passing through them must tack and change course multiple times, slowing its speed and making it more vulnerable to pursuit.
The southernmost reaches of the Steaming Sea are a bearable temperature, but most of the sea is bitterly cold. Icemelt from the Crown of the World chills the water and creates a constant light haze and clinging fog that gives the sea its name. Occasionally, sailors discover currents of warmer water threading through the cold waves, an unusual phenomenon known as the "sunset’s trail." A common folktale is that when the sun sets every night, it traces a line across the Steaming Sea and warms the water. Sailors generally consider it good luck to encounter a sunset trail, but some sailors see it as an omen that the end of their ship—its sunset—approaches.
The Steaming Sea experiences its fair share of storms, usually summer squalls and freezing rain that do little harm. These storms can threaten ships, of course, especially those with inexperienced crews, but not more than on any open body of water. Occasionally, though, a more dangerous storm arises. Dangerous weather events called ice columns form only during the fall and winter months, and some years pass without a single ice column spotting. Other years see as many as a dozen ice columns, but such frequency is rare.
An ice column forms when warm water from a sunset trail collides with the ice belt known as Thremyr’s Shield. The temperature difference causes a storm to develop. Most of the time, this storm is an ordinary squall. On rare occasion, though, the storm turns into a whirling cyclone that picks up shards of ice that spiral like dagger blades along its length.
A ship encountering an ice column must contend not only with the heavy winds, but also the slicing shards of ice that can sever ropes, destroy sails, and tear through skin. No one has determined why ice columns form in the Steaming Sea, but most sages agree the cause must be magical. The nature of the storms, filled as they are with thousands of tiny stings, has led some elves who live in the area and worship Calistria to view ice columns as tools of divine retribution.

Thremyr’s Shield

This ice belt sweeps down from the Crown of the World, forming a solid barrier between the Steaming Sea and the Songil Sea. For most of the year, the ice is thick and stable and can be crossed on foot. During the summer months, though, the ice wears thin and narrow channels open between the two seas. Exceptionally bold captains can attempt “Thremyr’s Run” at these times by steering their ships through the open channels. The ships risk getting trapped in too-narrow channels halfway to their destination, or even becoming ice-locked in an unexpected cold snap. Those who succeed, though, can bring their trade goods to the other sea’s ports months before competitors.
Polar bears live on Thremyr’s Shield, feeding on seals, fish, and unwary travelers. The polar bears are not the only threat on the shield, though; for this also belongs to the winter wolves. The shield is home to the largest specimens of winter wolves found anywhere on Golarion, and the most intelligent. The wolves travel in large packs that can tear a polar bear to pieces in minutes. The wolves use cunning tactics and easily hunt down any traveler they encounter. Sages have theorized that these wolves are descended from the first winter wolves created by Thremyr ages ago.
Fierce frost giants roam the length of Thremyr’s Shield as well. These ill-tempered giants attack travelers and other creatures seemingly for the sheer sport of it. Explorers have observed that winter wolves and frost giant raiders often hunt with each other while on the ice belt.

Fauna & Flora

Sea Denizens

The most notorious of those who live on the Steaming Sea are the elves of Mordant Spire. These elves consider it their duty to protect the artifacts and weapons of ancient Azlant from modern hands. The ruins, they claim, are too dangerous for any outlander to explore, and they ruthlessly drive away anyone who attempts to enter them, though they are willing to issue warnings first and give such trespassers the chance to leave on their own accord.
The heart of the elves’ home is the Mordant Spire, but no outsiders are permitted to come ashore. Though the elves keep the secrets of their cities close, they don’t hide their presence from travelers. The elves strive instead for the opposite—their ships are a common sight on the water. Most travelers know that the elves of Mordant Spire are the protectors of this area and don’t engage with their sleek, dark-hulled cutters. For their part, the elves leave trade and passenger ships alone as long as these ships don’t sail too near the ruins of the ancient empire.
Explorers and pirates do attack Mordant Spire ships on occasion, usually because they intend to scavenge the Azlanti ruins. The most famous of these ships is the Mistmourn, a pirate ship that sank over a dozen Mordant Spire ships before it met its own watery end. Though the Mistmourn’s story is well known—that of a ghost ship that still sails the Steaming Sea in search of its lost plunder—there are many other ships that have fought Mordant Spire elves and lost. Their wrecks lie on the ocean floor, some filled with lost treasure and relics of ancient Azlant. The families of crew lost at sea sometimes offer bounties for the return of their loved ones’ bodies.
A hidden threat of the Steaming Sea is found in the aboleths who lair in the deepest trenches of the sea floor. The aboleths of the Steaming Sea are some of the oldest on Golarion, save only for the truly ancient ones in the Sightless Sea. They lived during the golden years of Azlant and know details of the Azlanti civilization that have been otherwise lost to time. These aboleths work their plots on the surface using skum and dominated agents captured from passing ships.
Communities of aquatic elves live in the Steaming Sea, completely disinterested in land-dwellers. They rise to the surface only to maintain relations with their cousins of Mordant Spire. A surfacer with the backing of a Mordant Spire elf could, perhaps, make friendly contact with aquatic elves—but this would require a great deal of trust on the part of the Mordant Spire elf, and great displays of trustworthiness on the part of the surfacer.
A group of gillmen, aware of their origin as aboleth experiments, maintain a secret settlement in the Steaming Sea where they thwart the efforts of the Mordant Spire elves to protect the remains of old Azlant and raid other ships that sail what they consider their sea. They do so not just for their own cruel satisfaction and the nominal amount of wealth gained from raiding the elves and others who sail this sea; the gillmen also strive to garner the attentions of the alghollthu who remain in depths among the shattered continent, in hopes that the aberrations will once again welcome them into their deep embrace.
Many cecaelias, locathahs, and merfolk also make their homes in the Steaming Sea. Some live in reclusive communities, while others are more willing to speak and trade with passing sailors. Cecaelias in particular enjoy speaking to surfacers, learning their stories and offering their own in trade. The cecaelias of the Steaming Sea have a reputation for offering unique relics and salvaged goods for sale, but also for swindling their customers.
Above the waves, residents of the island Kalva paddle around the islands hunting for people. They raid nearby communities and farmsteads, kidnapping humanoids to sate their cannibalistic urges. These Kalvamen, as they are known, are easy enough to avoid and they don’t threaten large ships, but adventurers in a canoe or skiff could find themselves boarded, restrained, and bound for a cook pot.

Natural Resources

Treasures of the Deep

Somewhere on the vast stretch of ice known as Thremyr’s Shield is rumored to stand an icon as wide as a house, an image of a blue gemstone rising from the ice in profile. This icon is the emblem of the shield Thremyr supposedly wore when he fell into the Steaming Sea and the frost giants were born. Frost giants consider the icon to be a sacred place and occasionally make pilgrimages to it, particularly frost giant shamans.
Legends tell that anyone who climbs atop the icon and makes a bloody sacrifice of a powerful creature, then skins the creature and fills its hide with salt, will receive a blessing from Thremyr. Such a supplicant will transform into a larger, more powerful version of her original form and develop the characteristics of whatever beast she chose to sacrifice. Any frost giant at the icon would likely try to kill anyone of a different race attempting this ritual, though.
Other, less well-known legends claim a different ritual can be performed at the icon. A good-hearted individual who willingly allows himself to be sacrificially burnt atop the icon will cause it to shatter into a thousand pieces, greatly weakening Thremyr and his giant followers. Any survivors who participated in this ritual would surely earn the instant and undying enmity of the First Jarl.

Type

Sea

Location under

Arcadian Ocean