Thousands of broken islands, drowned fortresses and crowded sea lanes that became the heartland of the Seven Ports.
Overview
The Shattered Coast is not a line but a labyrinth. Great sea arches link islands at low tide, reefs of green glass distort compasses and deep channels run close enough to shore for the largest ships.
No chart remains correct for long. Earthquakes raise new rocks, storms remove old ones and certain islands appear only under one phase of the moon. The coast rewards local pilots and punishes empires that assume water is empty space.
History
The islands were once the outer heights of a larger western country, broken during the Shattering of Earin. Later kingdoms established forts but found them expensive to hold. Independent harbours grew between those failures.
Seven wealthy ports eventually turned mutual defence into a maritime league. Their rivalry survived the alliance and erupted repeatedly, most catastrophically during the War of the Seven Ports after Gizmagrad became an island power.
The present record
The League polices the principal channels and licenses maps that may already be out of date. Smugglers use the tide mazes, while scholars dive on drowned towers whose windows still shine at night.
The Cartographer's Needle is said to point toward the coast's missing mainland. Every century someone follows it and returns with a different answer.
Notes and record
This article combines campaign record, spoken lore and the mythic account preserved in the Earin archive.