The Crown of Tides

Sovereignty over water that remembers land

✎ Edit☷ Tools

A salt-dark circlet capable of commanding old shorelines, claimed by the Seven Ports and feared by every city built after the Drowning.

Overview

The Crown is made from metal that remains wet and coral that grows only inward. When worn, it reveals every coastline a body of water has ever possessed.

Its bearer may command water to recognise one of those earlier boundaries. The effect is brief, but a minute is enough to empty a harbour, expose a drowned road or return a flood to land that forgot it was seabed.

History

League divers recovered the Crown from a dry chamber beneath the Luminous Fathoms. It became a deterrent during the War of the Seven Ports, with each power claiming shared custody while secretly seeking exclusive control.

The Crown vanished at the Concord of Soundings. Officially it was destroyed. Unofficially every port maintains defences against it.

The present record

Low tides around Gizmagrad have begun tracing the streets of the old desert city with impossible precision. Some believe a new bearer is testing the Crown.

If used at full strength, it might reverse the Drowning—or force the New Waters to remember an even older sea.

Notes and record

This article combines campaign record, spoken lore and the mythic account preserved in the Earin archive.