The Castrovin Sea lies at the heart of the continent of Casmaron. Its shipping lanes move trade vessels along the coastlines, bringing goods from Kelesh and Iobaria around the continent. Piracy and storms are common, but it is the rocky islets that pose the greatest threat to ships.

Sea Characteristics

Strong winds blow on the Castrovin Sea, furiously kicking up rough waves and swells. Ships that make use of the common trade lanes avoid most of the truly dangerous weather, though downpours, squalls, and thunderstorms still often delay traders.

In the central sea, rock formations make navigation a dangerous business. The floor of the Castrovin Sea is volcanic in nature, and the tips of craggy mountains of cooled lava poke through the sea’s surface. Most of these mountains are basalt, though the fabled Black Glass Peak in the Castrovin Sea contains streaks of pure obsidian running through it. A community of territorial locathahs claim Black Glass Peak as their territory and refuse to allow outsiders to approach it, leading to confrontations between the normally peaceful locathahs and expeditions looking to harvest obsidian.

Sea stacks, smooth-sided columns of eroded stone, rise out of the water along the coastline. Streaks of pale stone layered atop each other show the age of the stacks, worn from headlands into tall columns seen today. Sea stacks can be flat-topped, tapered like obelisks, or even sharpened into wedges like axe blades. While intriguing, the stacks are clearly natural formations. Sailors often nickname distinctive stacks and use them as landmarks by which to navigate. Above the water, birds nest in the crags and worn sides of these sea stacks, while below, fish, crustaceans, and other creatures hunt and hide.

What separates this sea from others is that the Castrovin Sea has a relatively low salinity. Despite this, the sea contains creatures that would normally live in salt water but have adapted to the relative freshness of this body of water.

The temperate waters of the Castrovin Sea are buoyant and pleasant to swim in during the summer along its southern coast. Many coastal settlements have neighboring beaches where villagers can enjoy their leisure time. Docked pleasure craft with brightly colored sails are a common sight, even in the smallest villages.

Sea Denizens

Fish and other marine creatures live in the Castrovin Sea, but in some places these schools are fewer and leaner than one might expect. Fishing is not a strong industry in parts of the sea; the most common species tend to be small, bony, and strongly flavored. The Castrovin Sea, however, is home to significant populations of sturgeon, and their roe is considered a delicacy. The fragile fish eggs are difficult to transport and command a commensurate price. The Castrovin Sea also contains many different types of turtles and tortoises. Smaller communities catch turtles for meat or to sell as pets, and make beautiful dishes and art objects out of their shells.

For the most part, no mundane fish or sea creatures larger than a dozen feet long live in the Castrovin Sea. Sea stacks in open water display carvings that seem to depict larger creatures, but also dolphins and porpoises. Some sages believe these creatures once lived in the sea, but died out ages ago for reasons still unclear. Some who live along the southern coast of the Castrovin Sea believe it’s unlucky to display artwork featuring dolphins in a home, and that to do so is to invite ruin on the family bloodline.

In the eastern waters of the sea, sea cat colonies are known to flourish. In summer months, sailors often spot prides of sea cats sunning themselves on rock formations or beaches. Sea cats rarely threaten ships, and seeing the creatures is more of a curiosity than a cause for alarm. Of course, anyone going overboard in sea cat territory risks encountering one of the ferocious creatures. Tales also circulate about prides of sea cats attacking dinghies and rowboats, usually near fishing villages.

Several intelligent races make their homes in the Castrovin Sea, mainly locathahs, merrows, and scrags. The locathahs are a reclusive folk, staying away from surface settlements for the most part, but willing to talk and trade if the situation demands. In the northwestern ocean, near the sea stack Citadel Allatro, a solitary stack serves as a trading post for locathahs. Every few weeks, locathah traders climb atop the rocky crag and flag down passing ships. They offer nets of fresh mussels and oysters, strings of pearls, and bits of treasure scavenged from the sea floor in exchange for preserved food and metal weapons.

Traders and Pirates

The trader Nals (N female locathah ranger 9) is a common sight at the trading post and knows many captains by name. Nals keeps records of currents, weather conditions, and migratory patterns, and is a good source of information for ships. Nals prefers to trade for stoneworking tools, such as chisels and picks, which are difficult to craft under the water. She uses the tools to record her observations on small stones, using a shorthand only she understands.

The Padishah Empire of Kelesh controls much of the coastline around the Castrovin Sea, particularly the part of the coast that borders their lands, though sometimes their navy extends their patrols—whether their neighbors like it or not. Kelesh guards its waters strictly, with regular patrols by the light cutters of the Keleshite navy.

Piracy is less of a problem near Kelesh, as the heavier Keleshite galleons ruthlessly hunt out pirate ships. Trade is more carefully controlled on the Keleshite coast, though, and import fees are higher, thus some traders prefer to risk the dangers of piracy to obtain a higher payout.

The Razored Labyrinth

Farther from shore, the sea stacks take on a different nature. These stacks are formed from the eroded tops of aquatic mountain peaks, rather than headlands. They often signal rocky formations hidden beneath the surface, ridges that can tear the bottoms off incautious ships. Because these sea stacks mark dangerous waters, countless superstitions have cropped up around them.

The maze of rocky islets, hidden peaks, and sharp-edged sea stacks make the central sea difficult to chart and dangerous to sail. Bold traders and desperate pirates do journey across the Castrovin Sea, but for every ship that makes the trip, three more lie on the sea floor. Sailors call these waters the Razored Labyrinth, and spread wild stories about sunken holds full of gold and jewels languishing on the sea floor beneath the ridges.

One popular legend tells of a ship on which a sailor was murdered, his bloody body found crammed into a barrel. Two crew members had been seen fighting with the murdered man days before and were sentenced to walk the plank for their crime, though both swore innocence. As the condemned stepped off the plank and fell to the waters below, each called out to Iomedae for justice. Instead of plummeting to their deaths, they were changed into twin pillars of stone, one red and one white, each tapered like the tip of a sword. Sailors on the Castrovin Sea call these sea stacks “The Innocents” and consider them lucky to see.

Treasures of the Deep

The most coveted treasure on the Castrovin Sea is an enchanted chart, rumored to reveal safe passages through the Razored Labyrinth. Pirates claim the chart was blessed by Besmara and given to the late Captain Flayed, a notorious scoundrel and supposed favorite of the Pirate Queen.

So named for his favorite tactic for punishing prisoners, Captain Flayed plundered a trade ship stuffed with gold in the midst of a thundering storm, laughing as he cut down the crew. He ordered the enemy captain lashed to the main mast. Flayed whipped his prisoner without mercy, and with each stroke that fell, a map slowly blossomed in bloody lines on the prisoner’s back. Flayed kept up the beating until the prisoner was dead and the map was complete, then ordered the chart cut from the corpse.

Captain Flayed died over a decade ago, but it’s rumored that the most evil and black-hearted pirates find the pitiless chart tacked to the helm when they need it most.

Many of the natural sea stacks in the central stretch of the Castrovin Sea store carvings beneath the water. Both merrows and locathahs have long used sea stacks to inscribe legends, keep records, and detail maps. These records stretch back generations, the oldest ones all but obscured by erosion and age. Researchers specializing in the Darklands believe that 18 of the engraved sea stacks create a map leading to a Darklands entrance at the bottom of the sea, and from there to a treasure chamber in the tunnels below. Most researchers agree the map starts at Casador’s Maw, a sea stack engraved with twisting sea monsters, but no one has traced the cryptic symbols to the end of their trail.