"Section 41: The Maker Doesn't Speak Aquarian"

"The Light of the Chantry stretches as far as the eye can see, so they say, but they should then add, in a slightly ashamed mumble, 'So long as you can’t see the ocean'. It's not uncommon for the men and women who live and die on the waves to not pray to Her, instead offering their worship to the Sea itself. Historically this practice began in Rivain, where people have always believed in the ocean as a god — see my chapter about the Shinnoa for more. This devotion spread to all other people who live on the sea, either by the natural osmosis of passion, or by the simple logic that faith demands nothing while heresy costs everything.
Regardless of where it stemmed or why they do it, you would be hard-pressed to find a career sailor who does not treat the sea as a sentient, powerful deity, insane as that may sound to a landlubber such as myself. While I was still grappling with this idea, I had a conversation with a Lord of Fortune, one of — or perhaps the only — Rivain’s privileged groups. A young scholar of historical disposition, I thought someone as worldly as he might have a more reasoned take.
'Of course the Sea is our goddess,' he replied easily. 'I understand Her as Saveasu-Txulo myself, but many words can be used to describe the same thing.'
'But it’s… it’s just water,' was my academic reply.
'Sure, and we are just flesh. The ocean moves as we do, She has moods as we do, we have veins and organs sustaining us, She has currents and biomes, all sorts of things keeping Her alive.'
'But She’s not living!' I replied, not realizing I’d already lost. 'Those fish and coral and such make no difference to the ocean! It’s not like they’re there for the ocean’s sake! It doesn’t need them!'
The Lord smiled like I was a child on the verge of learning my first math equation. 'You’re right, but we do. She is immortal, so She creates life that lives in Her presence and Her mercy. We are mortals who rely on that life. Therefore she is the deity, and we are the devout.'
I was starved for a proper response to that, and must confess that I remain unfed to this day.
But it is easy to lose oneself in the pedantic academia of philosophy and theology. But to see that devotion in action, it strikes a different chord.
One ship had the good graces to keep me with them across several voyages. The Sand’s Delight was a trading ship that went all the way from Salle to Gwaren, making stops at every notable port along the way. I noticed a curious trend that some men would stay on the ship at every port, but never the same men. I figured it to be a rotation system of who got to go on land, but some of the sailors never stayed on the ship. I asked my guide — or as the rest of the crew called him, 'the babysitter’ — about this curiosity once while at port in Ostwick.
'Oh, they canna risk it,' he said. 'You must always keep in mind where your sirens are.'
'Your sirens, personally?' I asked, mystified by the inane response given with such matter of fact.
'Aye, the friends, the family, the…' He scrunched his brows, searching for a word that eluded him. I’d found Aquarian had an odd limitation here or there. 'The holy men. All sirens. If you can understand their song, the captain does na like you staying on land too long, and if the sirens already know you, you absolutely must not leave the ship.'
At this point, I was well-acquainted with the myths of the sea, so I ventured, 'What are the sirens luring you to on the land?'
He gave me a quick grin before continuing. 'They’re luring you to homes, the… holy houses. <<Oh come stay a while, eat your fill>>, they sing. ‘Confess your sins to our holy men, so you can go to sea pure of heart.' He shook his head, as if to shake the idea off. 'They can tell, you know, if you understand their song or na, and they’ll sing and sing until you canna resist, until your will is broken, and they think they mean well, aye? But the Sea knows. She knows you’ve cheated on her as if she’s some portgirl, and she is not merciful. And her waves do na sink just one man at a time. Best na to risk it. So those of us who know only the song of the sea get total freedom on land, because we canna be tempted, aye? Na that we could go very far in the first place.'
I mulled all this over, reeling at the piety of the average sailor in their love of the sea, but I am a contentious man by nature, and so very much desired to win a discussion for once. 'But what if some siren sung in Aquarian then?' I countered. 'How would you resist then?'
My guide found the idea so hilarious that he retold it to every bar we hopped in that night. An act that got him into several gleeful barfights over whether absurdist humor was really all that funny or not.
I relay these two conversations to you, dear reader, to convey to you that, from the educated to the common man, their faith in the Sea is a faith of its own, its own philosophy, its own tenants, its own beliefs, this is not the rudimentary misunderstandings of barbarism, this is a well-developed and diverse culture built atop an ocean of history."

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An excerpt from the book The Peculiar People of Thedas by Nathaniel Vearce, in which Vearce details the most interesting cultural facets of life across Thedas. In the chapter ‘Soul of the Sea, Secrets of the Sailor’ he goes over the most unusual things he noticed about life on the high seas.
Meta-note: this article was originally written by Mr. Stableford, with light modifications following.