Friday, August 27, 2010

Endless Blue - Week 35 - Currency of the Currents

Economy

Currency of the Currents

As groups of pisceans congregated together in the waters of the Known World and developed settlements, they began to exploit the local natural resources to produce products for their personal consumption.  As these ancestral artisans became more adroit at their skills they became more prolific, and as a result they began to produce a surplus.  This surplus would normally go to waste if it were not for the needs of the others in their settlement for that piscean's production.  A farmer that farms enough to feed his family can survive, but a farmer that farms excess can supply for others, freeing those other workers to concentrate on developing other skills.

Expecting an equitable, if not profitable compensation for their toil, the farmers would expect those that benefited from his work to provide something the farmers were unable to produce.  This was trade, and as the settlements grew larger, the cultures more diverse, and the production more widespread, trade grew from one-on-one bartering into a complex system of debts and credits.  The complexity of the ancient piscean trades would eventually become too complex for simple exchange between two individuals.  If a farmer had ricelqua for sale, and the local culinist had kelugen for sale, a trade could only successfully complete if both participants needed the product the other was offering.  If the kelugen needed to eat, but the farmer had no use for kelugen, the trade was not likely to proceed without the intervention of a third part with a product of their own, or the farmer could make the trade in the hopes that later he would find someone willing to take the kelugen that hopefully would not have spoiled by then.  However, if there was some commonly agreed upon method of exchange that would be accepted by not just the traders involved, but any trader the two might come across, then the likely-hood of a successful exchange improves.

This method of exchange began with promissory oaths of repayment, where the two individuals agree that the piscean whom could not produce desired goods at the moment would provide something acceptable at a later time.  As trading methods matured, these oaths became physical in the form of written agreement.  These eventually became tokens which a craftsman would give individuals that he would honor later when presented to him. This was a system of commodity money, where the tokens would become associated with the product promised: a ricelqua token for a bushel of ricelqua, for example.

Individuals emerged that made their livelihood not by producing like standard workers, but by trading goods that they received from others.  These mercantile individuals made their living by trading the products of others, each time with a little bit more benefit to himself.  Usually this required dealing with individuals separated by distance, with little chance to ever meet each other and thus no opportunity to take advantage of commodity tokens.  Again, a need presented itself for a more abstract representation of products and/or services that would be accepted without individual parties to agree to the terms.

Merchants provided the answer in the form of representative money.  These tokens did not represent actual products, but an set amount of value that would be accepted by others because of the confidence held that the merchant that issued them would make good on them.  These are the first coins, and with their introduction in the Fluid Nations began an explosion of economic growth.

But what form would these coins take?  The coins needed to be difficult to duplicate, else the unscrupulous could counterfeit them and lessen their worth.  That meant common naturally grown materials that are easily replenished, like bone, hide, or coral, were unusable.  With a rarer material, the worth of the coin would be bolstered by the value of the substance of which it was comprised.  The problem with this approach was that many times a precious material would become costly than the value of the coinage, and results in individuals scavenging the material for its raw value.

Metals that do not corrode were needed.  Unable to use the primal elements like iron, the traders of ancient Elqua used materials like gold and silver that did not slowly decompose in saltwater.  These precious metals are catalysts, reagents that influence chemical reactions without themselves being consumed in the process.  Instead these materials tarnish, accumulating a layer of discoloration over the metal without compromising the purity of said metal.  This tarnish is the result of the same process that rusts metal, and it protects the inner layers of metal from the ravaging effects of seawater.

Smelting without Fire

The constant retardant to the progress of civilization is the very same thing that gave rise to it -- ever present blanket of water that enshrouds the world.  Surrounded by water on all sides, fire cannot exist in an easily utilized form.  Without fire, the can be no smelting of metal from ores, no mixing of metals into alloys (hence no bronze unguis and nautiluses).

This led to the rise of the alchemists, those curious pisceans that learned the secrets of chemicals and the component elements of the things around them.  The secrets of hydro-metallurgy were theirs to command, and like magic they could draw precious metals from common materials like stone or the water around them.  Their promises of achieving the philosopher's stone were relatively, if not actually, achievable.

This long and difficult process of extracting metal from ores without heat is called leaching, and it uses aqueous solutions based on toxic cyanide slowly dilute the metal throughout the solution, which is in turn processed alchemically to concentrate the trace element.  This portion of the process is repeated over and over until it reaches the consistency of slurry.  At this point pressure can be used to squeeze out the excess liquids, leaving an amount of relatively pure precious metal.

The produced metal was then shaped through more physically demanding methods that a craftsman would understand, with cutting the metal into shape, carving markings onto its faces, and eventually the process of pressing metal, called striking, into coins as we do today.

Eventually the coin as we understand it was invented, a piece of hard material that came to symbolize the trading process.  To be effective, these coins needed to be the same shape, size, and weight in order to be adopted as a standard unit representing trade.  To be accepted ubiquitously, one coin had to be equal to any other of its type, and to accomplish that required the backing of local government establishing laws that made the coinage "legal tender".

Coins of the Known World

Silver is the basis of currency in the Known World, and numerations of this value are the most commonly found amongst the populace.  Gold does exists, is known well and is quite desired, but most pisceans do not encounter it in normal day-to-day activities.  Only in cases of major purchases, dowries, or inheritance would multiple gold coins not draw unusual attention.  That does not mean, however, that prices are expressed in terms of silver any more than we would cite a one hundred dollar price tag in terms of all pennies.  Platinum is not used as a coinage material by Elquans.  Though its existence is known, the hydro-metallurgical process required to leech the metal from ore is exorbitantly expensive and produces such substandard results that it has been relegated to gilding and other foil effects on works of art.

The Coins:

The Mer were the first race to adopt coinage that had more worth than the material from which it was comprised.  After the subterfuge that tore apart the last Fluid Nations Accord, the Mer currents devised a system of keeping their internal economy separate from that of the global trade between bodies of water in the Known World.
The main internal coin of the Merfolk is carved from a specially bred strain of coral that the governments of the Mer Currents keep jointly, hidden away from the populace. When carved into coins and polished to a smooth finish, it has a deep hue of red and a luster unsurpassed by any material except for pearl.  Each current is charged with keeping a cache of precious metals and/or gemstones to back up the value of each coin issued in their body of water.  These coins are meant for domestic use only, and are not to be exported outside the body of water's borders under punishment of law.  As a precaution, the coinage is never accepted by Mer or exchanged for local currency while abroad.
Noble -- 1 copper
Sovereign -- 1 silver
Crown -- 1 gold
The noble is a tiny disc, almost a chip, that is thicker at the middle than along the edges.  As a result, nobles are difficult to stack (a children's game has grown around the very activity).  Sovereigns are thin rods whose diameter is significantly smaller than that of the noble, and the crown is a solid rectangular strip that is wider than the sovereign but thinner.   The shapes of the coinage are cleverly chosen so that the higher denominations cannot be re-carved into more nobles than the original coin equaled.  The sovereign's diameter is less than that of the noble, just as the crown's thickness.  The government of the Mer Currents takes great lengths to ensure that each current's currency is equal to the all the others, and currently those same currents are furiously debating and debasing the economic validity of their neighbor's financial activities.
When indulging in trade with foreign nations, the Mer have a special set of coins, called lucrum, whose worth is based on the metallic content of each denomination.  Each of these coins is scored at every 45 degrees around the center of the coin.  These indentations make it easier to snap the coin into parts, giving the coins a flexibility to take into account times when the value of the metal material rose or fell.  This trade coinage has been quite successful, and is eagerly accepted in most any of the Fluid Nations.  Each coin is comprised of a troy ounce of its respective metal:
Cuprei (pl. cupreium) -- approx. 8 cp
Argei (pl. argeium) -- approx. 8 sp
Aurei (pl. aureium) -- approx. 8 gp
Chelon coinage is tied heavily to their ruling party, and in many ways assists in understanding the races' calendar.  Coinage is minted yearly, with the reigning sovereign on the obverse and some symbology on the reverse commemoration some event or decision made.  As the year goes by, the populace is encouraged to turn in their old coinage in exchange for the new ones, and at this time a portion is kept by the government as a form of paying taxes.  1 rand = 20 gelding = 240 dram, which makes a gelding equal to 12 dram.
Half-dram -- 1 copper
One dram -- 2 copper
Two dram -- 4 copper
Four dram -- 8 copper
Eight dram -- 1 silver, 6 copper
One gelding -- 2 silver, 4 copper
Four gelding -- 9 silver, 6 copper
Eight gelding -- 19 silver, 2 copper
One rand -- 2 gold, 8 silver
Two rand - 5 gold, 6 silver
Lumulus, with their access to thermal vents, can actually smelt ores, and as a result have the finest, purest coinage.  Their coins are complex, with ornate, finely detailed faces, geometric polygon shapes, and comprised of multiple metals that seem to be seamlessly fitted together instead of alloyed.  The true beauty of these pieces, however, is the small inlay of quartz glass that is masterfully embedded through the coin and incorporated into the design.   Similar to the Mer, Lumulan coins are meant for internal purposes only, but in this races' case it is due more for sociological reluctance than for economic stability, though there is practically no worry about counterfieting these coins, as no other nation has the level of technology needed to accomplish the task.
Pa'Anga'tha -- 1 silver
Tlo'Onga'tha -- 1 gold
Tze'Enga'tha -- 10 gold
Orcan coinage is both functional and ornamental.  Each coin has a square hole pierced through its center, where a string of treated leather or ligament can be threaded through to form a necklace, bracelet, or other form of jewelery.  These coins are called dirhem, and transactions in dirhem are renown for the excess number of coins required to complete the sale.
1 dirhem -- 1/4th a copper
4 dirhem -- 1 copper
8 dirhem -- 2 copper
32 dirhem -- 8 copper
48 dirhem -- 1 silver, 2 copper
96 dirhem -- 2 silver, 4 copper
Narrow minded sages of the civilized races cite that the primitive races mostly stay with the barter system, save the Yaun-Teel whom have amassed a significant collection of money from the various other civilized races due to their shrewd trading practices.  If the Yaun-Teel are said to have any currency to call their own, it would be in the form of the collars around their slaves' necks.  Not an exact amount, the torc is an abstract gauge of worth.
Truth be told, all of the races of the Known World posses some kind of "coinage", but perhaps not in the most traditional sense.  The Locanth keep a series of leather strips tied together and woven into a personally recognizable patternas a form of "debt" for services rendered to them, and when the original party has been repaid, the strip is returned.  These redeemed strips become prized mementos, tangible proof of a young warrior's dedication and trustworthiness to fulfill his debts.  A recent trend has begun of trading these debt strips to third parties, who themselves can either collect on the debt or trade off to yet another merchant, making the langeneli the first banknote of the Known World.
Langeneli -- set at time of transfer.
The bulbous eyed Kouton are enamored with translucent gemstones, and use many of these -- cut into distinctly unique but standardized shapes -- as their money.  Clear quartz is their most common gem-coin, with higher denominations made of naturally tinted quartzes like amethyst, citrine, and vermarine.  Referred to as talents, they are
Gloss Talent -- 4 copper
Purpure Talent -- 4 silver
Or Talent -- 4 gold
Vert Talent -- 16 gold
The state of inflation in the Bay of Kouton is very dear, with an increase in prices up to five times that of other nations.  This is due to the natural hoarding instinct of the race, and haggling in any transaction  is to be expected to lessen the cost of doing business with each other.
Talents are difficult to make consistently identical, so every Kouton is well versed in the appraisal skill when exchanging these gemstones.  Make opposed Appraise skill checks when dealing in Kouton talents, with the winner getting the difference in rolls as essentially a percentage discount, representing the loser's error in assessing the gemstones.
The Ceph, with not true homesea of their own and thus no government to issue currency, eek out their lives underfoot of the other races.  In the rare instance they can manage to scrape together any money, it will be of whatever coinage the nationality they live in utilizes.

Remember, even though the in-game method of counting is in base-8, you can simply keep track of character wealth in the familiar base-10 system we are all accustomed with, so long as you are consistent about it.  The moment you begin converting for a single transaction, an imbalance will occur.

The Price of Doing Business

Most money exchangers will keep a nominal portion of the amount of coinage given to for conversion into other coinage as a fee.  After all, they are providing a service, and need to be able to make a profit to feed and clothe themselves.  This percentage can be small to significant depending on what currency is exchanged where, and calculated in 5% incremental steps.  The percentage is up to the game master to determine, with a few guidelines:

- The civilized races treat the money of the primitive races as second-rate economies, and will impose greater fees to lessen the risk of dealing with "volatile funds".
- Distant nations that don't have as much contact as neighboring bodies of water will have a harder time changing their money due to the fact that there are fewer instances that foreign cash can be used.
- Antagonistic races will a larger fee for coinage from their adversary.
The reduction in funds due to exchange rates is the price of doing business in a foreign market, but should not be viewed as punitive to the players.  Only in the rarest circumstances should exchange rates ever exceed 25%.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Endless Blue - Week 34 - The Ages of Elqua

Chronology

The Elquan Ages

The history of Elqua is divided into a spectrum of various Epochs.  There is no set length for an epoch; instead the names are given to periods of history that share a common essence, a theme.  For example, the White is so called due to it being the beginning of the world, just as light is the beginning of color.  The metaphysical egg known as the Source is attributed to that color and to having been the creation of the world, and at the end of the age the water world of Elqua had become frozen over with ice, also white.

The White
The First Verse is uttered.
The time of the Source and the creation of the world.
Elqua is formed from the firmament.
The White ends with the Ice Age, as it completely encapsulates the planet in a thick layer of impenetrable ice.
The Cardinal Epoch
With the world frozen over, gave rise to the Red (rhodoarchaea).
With the land and sea separated, evolution took them in different directions.  The sea gave birth to the sentient races, while aberrations ruled above the waves.
The Piscean Form appears in the oceans of Elqua in an example of convergent evolution, a biological adaption made by at least eight different races.  The first of these races to reach dominance is the Icht, and begin to spread their influence throughout the waters of Elqua.
Red tides are rampant, decimating many of the primitive races each time they come close to achieving civilization -- except for the Icht, whom seem to be conspicuously spared the ravages of the blood bloom.
The Bronze Epoch
Height of the Icht Dominion.  Very aloof, very removed from the rest of the Known World, with advanced technology significantly greater than their neighors.  The collapse of the Icht Dominion appears to have been quick and complete, with little to remain of their existence.  Possibly created the Spurs, whose earliest mention came from the same time period.
The ancient cetaceans begin to form tribes.
The Chelon discover the first simple spells of what eventually became Xanthellae.
Records surface of the discover of what will be come known as the first Spur.
The beginning of the Shellback Wars, a recurring skirmish that lasts to this day. On and off throughout history, even during the Kraken Occupation.
The Golden Epoch
Rise of the cetacean barbarians known as the Orcan Hordes.  In the chaos of frequent invasion into other territories, a newly isolated Mer current is lost to antiquity.
Showing their own brand of mindless savagery, two Mer Currents bring about each others' assured extinction.  In their memory, the document known as the Codex of Piscean Rights is drafted in an attempt to unite the suffering bodies of water into a cohesive collective whole known as the Fluid Nations.  Despite the high ideals espoused, the document is given little more than lip service.
Sightings of Kraken fade into myth as the species begins a clandestine base of operations hidden in the Maw.  At the same time, the Icht Dominion seems to fade into history with little notice.
The Verdant/Verdigris Epoch
Originally touted as the new Green Age of peace, prosperity, and plenty, with the warring bodies of water reaching a cessation of hostilities.  Unfortunately, events unfolded to make this period in Elquan history one of the most tragic and cancerous ever known.
Seamus Lorwinn, future evolutionist, was born in the Mer Currents.
The movement known as the Godless begins.  It is a direct reaction to the class warfare between the ruling parties (the various religions) and the working masses.  It begins the formation of the middle class.
A series of betrayals among the Fluid Nations, starting with the resumption of the Shellback Wars.
The normally avoided Maw explodes with activity, and the Kraken Occupation begins.
Believed to have made dark pacts with their eldritch gods, the Kraken Empire stretched across more of Elqua than even the Icht.  Known for their Behemoths, domesticated gargantuans of the deep.  Secret of their enslavement is lost.  Either punished for some transgression or simply abandoned, the degeneration of the huge beasts into the Ceph of today over a few millennia is a source of bias that the Kraken still have to endure.
The Kouton some how broker a deal with the Kraken to maintain a façade of independence, while instead becoming Kraken sympathizers.
The Kraken successfully wipe out a Mer Current in a systematic racial clensing what has been dubbed "The Wash".
A ceasation of hostilities orchestrated by the Ocrans that allowed Chelon ultravision magick and Lumulan dearthsteel to be married together and set in motion the end of the Kraken Empire.
The Epoch ends with the fall of the Kraken Empire.
The Cerulean Epoch
The Maw is cordoned off by the Olyhydrans, displacing many Mer and causing another current to become lost.  A propagandistic campaign by the church ingrains fear of the area into the populace.
Rise of the Mer Currents as the dominant race.  The Narwahl succeed from the Cetacean Oceans and the people relocated in the Sahaguin Lagoons.
The Church of Olyhydra, boosted by popular impression of their efforts during the Occupation, becomes the major religion of the world with alarming speed.
The Kelpygmies begin to appear, scattered throughout the Known World.  It is uncertain if the tribes had just now sprouted, or had existed previously but in hiding.
Ongoing border skirmishes with the primitive races that have penned in the before-now expansionistic civilized races.  With increases in population and a limited area of water to live in, eyes look to usurping space from the Periphery by faith or by force.
Rumors of Indigo begin to spread in the primitive races and are mostly dismissed by the civilized races as superstitious nonsense.
Anti-Ceph sentiment rises as fear mongers remonstrate the degenerate Kraken do not follow the piscean form, therefore are not to be regarded as equals or afforded those rights.
Today, the current time period of the Endless Blue Campaign Setting.
The Indigo Epoch
It becomes increasingly clear to most diviners that the Cerulean Era has been cut short with the appearance of Indigo.
The Violaceous Epoch
Where as the precursor diviners once alluded to this age, current Cerulean mystics can no longer sense this time's potential existence.
The Livid Epoch
Foretold as the beginning of the end. with vibrancy drained from the world, leaving behind only extreme paleness, a colorless, ashen rock without water.
The Black
With the collective pronouncement of the Last Verse, the prophesized end of the all will come about.
Cycles Unseen, Yet Seen


Day gives way to night, which in turn becomes a new day.  The cycle repeats itself, over and over, unending, uninterrupted, with the mortal races of the world little more than flotsam on the current of eternity.  To comprehend this, to understand the nuances of seasons, the lessons learned from history, the probing minds of primitive pisceans began to create a method of marking the passage of days.  They created the calendar.


Sample day showing the moon phases of Elqua's three satellites, Urowes, Ymaris, and Oberus.
Sample day showing the moon phases of Elqua's three satellites, Urowes, Ymaris, and Oberus.
The most basic division of time on a calendar is the day, which is easily identifiable to native pisceans as a single period the Shore goes from dark to light, and then to dark again.  It is the rotation of Elqua herself that determines this 28 hour period, and the planet's innermost moon -- Urowes -- orbits the world in the opposite direction.  This results in this small dark sphere rising and falling in the sky twice per day.  But since the religions of the Known World have long painted the Vastness as a place of horrors and suffering that no pious piscean should enter, why would the existence of a moon matter to the masses?

The answer is the tides.  The gravitational pull of Elqua's three moons affects the waterworlds oceans, increase high tide, lengthening low tide, altering the dynamics of the sea currents on a constant basis.

Daily moon cycle of Urowes as seen over the Prime Meridian.
Daily moon cycle of Urowes as seen over the Prime Meridian.
The next division of the calendar is the month, and it is determined by the tidal effects of the world's second moon, Ymaris.  This is a twenty day cycle, with the main phases falling on the second day of each week and the waxing/waining phases follow for the rest of the week.  Each week is named after a basic phase of life: Auxesis for Begining and Growth, Cyesis for Birth or Harvest, Crisis for Toil and Work, and finishing with Gnosis for Rememberance and Grace.

Equivalent of a month on the Elquan Calendar
Equivalent of a month on the Elquan Calendar as defined by Ymaris' phases.
The final division of the calendar is that of a year.  If the above pattern were to progress normally, it would be expected that an Elquan year was delineated by the cycle of the planet's third moon, Oberus.  However, even a cursory glance at the largest satellite's 192 day cycle is enough to prove that hypothesis wrong.  An Elquan year instead is measured by the classical definition, being the amount of time it takes Elqua to orbit her mother sun.  But again, with the populace avoiding even glancing into the Vastness upon fear of damnation, why would a year be defined by such an alien object?

Phases of the moon Oberus over a 192 night cycle.
Phases of the moon Oberus over a 192 night cycle.
It is due to the effect the solar orbit has on the world, giving the Known World its seasons.  The proximity of Elqua to her sun bathes the world in light and heat.  Closer to the sun, waters are warmer, seasonal jet and tidal streams strengthen, and ocean life is plentiful.  Further from the life-giving star, and the waters grow cooler, the polar ice caps expand, and ocean life recedes in an effort to conserve energy in times when its supply is low.

Oberus' 8 main phases each last over seven days each with the exception of the full and new moons lasting only a week -- 4.9 days each.

Beasts Within
Were- creatures do exist on Elqua, and are not only extremely powerful due to the influence of three moons, but are insidiously common due to the speed of Urowes’s orbit.  It appears in the sky twice a day, reaching full moon at night and new moon during the day.
Lycanthropy works somewhat differently on Elqua.  Instead of the full moon triggering the transformation into a were-beast, it is the new moons that seem to dampen the process. Without the world’s moons, lycans would exist in beast form at all times.
While Urowes will affect a lycanthrope, the transformation will be subtle if not undetectable.  Consider were-creatures to have all the special abilities of a transformed lycanthrope without the visible changes unless two or more moons are full.
Despite all this, the prevalent distrust of the world above the waves has hindered the study of the skies.  The link between lycanthropy and the phase of the moons has yet to be discovered, and instead the current theory is that the tides are to blame for triggering the malady, if that is what the condition truly is...  It could just as easily be an eldritch curse, or the natural form of some strange changeling race.
Whatever is true, the most prevailent form of lycanthrope is the were-shark, and it is statistically a more common affliction among the Sahaguin tribes.  The morphology of the lycanthroformes is the basic piscean form of arms/torso/tail, but instead of a roundish head on an articulated neck, the creatures feature the arrowheaded, neckless shape of a true shark.
The Calendar Proper

The most widely recognized Elquan calendar is that used by the Mer, and consists of a series of sixteen months, each divided into four weeks of five days each.  At the end of each year-of-months, an additional week is added to the calendar to represent the time it takes for the Maelstrom -- the massive never-ending gyre that meanders the surface of the planet -- to cross over the sacrosanct basin valley known as the Creche of Civiliation.  This produces a 325 day year.

In turn, each year is grouped into a set of a dozen, or an “Age”, named after one of the constellations.  These dodecades seem to coincide with the solar cycle of the planet’s star, despite the natives’ basic avoidance of the surface world.  A cycle starts with the solar maximum (when the sun is at its most active) through solar minimum and back again.  Hence the first five years of a decade are called Ascendant and another five are called Descendant, with a year known as the Zenith before the Descendance and another known as the Nadir before the next age's Ascendance.

So reading the formal Elquan calendar is thus:

# Day of  Week,  Month, # Year of the # X Age Stage
(1st day of  Cyesis, Ulmec, in the 3rd year of the 65th Aquarian Age Ascendant).
However, this is a clunky and longwinded pattern, and since the average person rarely refers to events over a decade away, the Godless have tried with a modicum of success to impose a lest archaic system of dating. The Godless, a growing movement of non-deists, have tried to strip away the religious connotations associated with the monthly calendar by stripping away the names of each week and numbering the days from 1 to 20 (or 24, see Counting By Eight below). Thus the calendar is simplified to:

# Day of Month, # year of Age
(1st day of Ulmec, the 3rd year of the Aquarian Age).
Calendars of Other Races:

Chelon -- The Chelon calendar is a long, convoluted system of dating based on the reign of the monarch in charge at the time.  Years are identified not by name, but instead by events in the ruler's lifetime.

Locanth -- The migration of animal herds across their territory symbolize the calendar of the Locanth, measuring time periods in terms of their activity levels.

Lumulan -- The strange Lumulan mindset seems to not need the groupings of months, and their time-telling measurements are measured in either days or years, sometimes both to emphasize accuracy.

Orcan -- The mighty cetaceans use a long standing system that dates back to their barbarian roots.  Like their language, it is based on sound, with day, month, and year expressed in terms of a chord, and the epoch denoted by octave.

Counting By Eight
In the Endless Blue setting, the counting system is base 8, meaning there are eight succinct digits before the next place is needed.  For us, using base 10, this is easy to understand: the Ones place, the Tens place, the Hundreds place, etc.  Each place is a rise in a magnitude.  On Elqua, that rise is not in steps of ten, but in steps of 8.
0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,21,22,23,24, etc.
Immediately you will notice that there is no use of the zero to signify no "ones".  While the concept of zero(or "no amount") exists for piscean mathmeticians, its adaption as a place holder in the numerical system has not yet been adopted.  This missed discovery has kept the art of mathematics stagnating at a primitive algebraic state.  In this stunted state, extensive math is more memorization than calculation, and the Church of Olyhydra wishes to keep it that way.  Extended education other than apprenticeship is rare on Elqua, and falls into the province of the rich.  The Church has the resources to invest in teaching math to its higher clerics, and by preventing the lower classes from learning the Church expresses power over them.  Most Olyhydran clerics are also clerks, touting their numerical skills for a price to the working man as a means to skim a few more gold from the already tithing masses.

In this system, the Fibonacci sequence upon which most buildings and natural shells are based upon:

1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34...
...would be written as this:
1,1,2,3,5,8,15,25,42...
When In Elqua, Count as the Elquans Do
In real terms, there is no difference in the number of coins stated in decimal or Elquan octal, just different numerals are used to express it.  "9" and "ll" are the same amount, and converting from our familiar base 10 system is unnecessary to prevent "short changing" on either side of the DM screen.  But for those that have a knack for numbers and a compulsion to use "in game" terminology, here is a basic guide to converting numbers.
To convert a decimal number over 9 into an Elquan number, divide it by 8 and put the quotent before the remainder.  For example, decimal 17 in Elquan octal would be 21:  17/8 = 2, remainder 1.
If the remainder is 0, subtract 1 from the quotent and make the remainder 8: 16/8 = 2, remainder 0.  2 becomes 1, and the  0 becomes 8.
If your quotient ends up with multiple digits, repeat the process:
89/8 =11, remainder 1.  _ _ 1
11/8 = 1, remainder 3.   131
If the quotient ends up with multiple digits and ends with 0, subtract 1 and make the remainder 8 before repeating.
80/8 =10, remainder 0, becomes 9, remainder 8.  _ _ 8
9/8 = 1, remainder 1.   118
"Beyond the gentle currents, beyond the ancient tides, beyond the rolling surface of
our idyllic oceans lie forces beyond our comprehension..."
-- Both an inspirational and precautionary vision of what lies in the Vastness.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Endless Blue - Week 33- Writing So Words are Not Washed Away

Linguistics

Writing So Words are Not Washed Away


In the prehistory of Elqua, when the primitive pisceans were still little more than grunting savages, a strange few began to scratch marks in stone and coral.  These innocuous mars, little more than chips and streaks, were the first neanderthallic attempts at one of the most inspired and far-reaching developments in all civilization -- the beginning of written language.


Language is the medium in which civilization flourishes.  Without some method of communication, tradition, innovation, and comprehension vanish.  This language need not be verbal (as the ceph ambushers' tentacle cant attests), but some method of putting ideas into form and transferring that idea-made-form to another individual so it in turn may become his new idea is intrinsic to the creation and growth of all society.


Aquatic Tongues


Most of the modern languages of the Known World have their roots in Ichthian, the language of the lost civilization called the Icth Dominion.  Since this ancient civilization died out so long ago and so few relics remain that insist upon their previous existence, the exact pronunciation of the language is unknown.  But the etymology of the words of most of the modern Elquan languages shows a lineage back to this mysterious tongue.

Ceph pidgin -- The universally reviled Ceph have no homesea to call their own, so they are force to eek out what squalid living they can in the forgotten corners and dirty allys of the other races.  There, the untouchables pick and forages in the trash of their hypocritically egalitarian "betters" for not just sustenance and shelter, but also language.  The Ceph speak a pidgin language, a seemingly nonsensical jumbling of disparate words from the native tongues of the surrounding settlements, and weave them into a patchwork language.  As a result it is difficult, even for another Ceph, to speak with a Ceph who grew up any significant distance away; it is practically considered to be a different language. 

Cetacean -- Perhaps the most beautiful language in all the world's oceans, the mighty and massive Orcans speak a sing-song language called Cetacean,  Cetacean evoled to be a basiclly simple system of creating complex language perfectly suited for the stunningly plyant vocal flexibility the produces whalesong, a language that at its root puts more emphasis on the pitch of each phoneme than on the actual words spoken.  It is not a Icthian language, and instead traces its roots back in time to their barbaric ancestors and their symbiosis with the wordage known as the Verse, the very language of creation. 

Chelon -- The weak-jawed speech of the Chelon is soft and well-mannered, heavily punctuated with short pauses as the speaker refreshes his breath.  This has lead to the race being called "mouth-breathers", as they must gulp in water instead of utilizing their solidly encased diaphragm suction in liquid over their gills.  While easily learned, writing the language is exceedingly complex, with an over abundance of symbols to represent the "breathing pauses" of the speaker.  Non-Chelon races wishing to learn this self-indulgent system of notation need to devote an additional skill point to the Speak Language skill to truly comprehend the intricate script that Chelon used to eventually delineate the eldritch arts. 

Elquan -- The common tongue of the Known World, and most closely associated with the Merfolk., who themselves have at least a dozen variations of script to record the single language.  One of the secrets that has led to the success of the language's popular use is the simple use of phonemes -- bits of spoken sound -- to give them a larger palette from which to create words and paint ideas.  This is the defacto language of the Endless Blue campaign setting, and the most likely language to be heard in the civilized bodies of water. 

Locanthic -- A much and undeservedly maligned language that has been the gibbering squaks of a small delphis, the Locanthic tongue is notable for its short, clipped syllables that have the same duration regardless of stress.  Neither the language nor the people are as bestial as is racially attributed to them, and can be truly beautiful to hear when a native speaker with a silver tongue begins to roll is r's and drawl its paired ns and ls.  Many think it the most simple language for a person to learn, with conjugated verbs kept to a logical minimum and a consistent dichotomy dictating noun gender. 

Lumulan -- Lumulans speak their own complex language, guttural in nature and punctuated heavily with clicks and chirps.  Learning the language is so difficult for non-Lumulans that they must spend two skill points each to learn how to speak and write it, but will be utterly incapable of becoming fluent as the manner in which Lumulans converse is cryptic and obfuscated.  A Lumulan can always tell when a non-native attempts to communicate in this tongue, and it is a dead give-away for individuals trying to disguise themselves as a Lumulan. 

Koutonese -- Koutonese is a strange, gurgling language punctuated with wet, bubbling noises from their loose lips.  It is the antithesis of cetacean whalesong, crude and cacophonous, like the gurgling of a clogged pipe.  Its written style is pictographic, with a large lexicon of symbols to draw from.  More complex ideas are expressed through the combination of characters around each other in the ordinal directions, with the smaller symbol call the "directional" signifying the base pictogram's tense. 

Krakonian -- The tongue-tying language of the Kraken, as cruel in sound as it is in the act of speaking it.  No one ever becomes fluent in the language, even the monastic orders that dedicate generations of scholars on the study.  This cypher-like language was of great help to the invaders during the Occupation, and while a few concepts have been translated over the centuries the code has never been cracked well enough for the secrets of the Kraken Empire to be revealed. 

Pygmy -- A simple name for a simplistic language, the kelpygmies of the wilds use a limited lexicon of words that, even among themselves, requires repeated speaking for emphasis and comprehension.  Bastardization of the language through contact with other races is rare, but in the few instances it has happened, the assimilation of the new term seems to take place quickly in all tribes, no matter how far away the other settlement is located.  The spread is accomplished far too quickly to be attributed to word of mouth, so it is hypothesized that kelpygmie shaman distribute the fresh knowledge by some means of communal consciousness. 

Sahaguini -  Sahaguini is a robust tongue, loud and proud, well suited for battle cries and death wails.  It's written form uses a system of logograms -- a system of symbols derived from basic pictures to represent ideas.  Unfortunately, as a strange by-product of the Sahaguin trait of  pugnacity, over the generations these symbols have drifted from their original meanings and new ideograms have been added.  At the present time, there are numerous variations of the lexicon, varying sharply regardless of distance between settlements.  As a result, reading Sahaguini requires a Speak Language check at DC 15 unless the item was written by the very Sahaguin reading it. 

Verse -- Thought to be the language of creation, the Orcans claim it to be more ancient than the Kraken, more primal than the Icth.  It is said to be the words spoken by the Source itself, the egg at the core of all existence, the beginning of life and the nurturer of the natual order.  Only single words, with the potency of the boiling firmament, are known to exist, and there is no single collection codifiying the extent of what is known.  With no knowledge or even evidence that there is a system of syntax or nomenclature, it is impossible to actually speak or write fluently in this elemental voice.  The Verse is often incorporated into Chelonite rituals of magic, in order to heighten the conjuration beyond anything a normal spellcaster could accomplish with a hundred schools behind him. 

Yaun-Tish -- The Yaun-Teel speak a soft, lilting language with its roots in Old Elquan, perfectly suited for whispering.  It projects well, and surprisingly rarely requires a raised voice to get a point across.  Whether it is the intimidating reputation of the species or the unsettling sound of the language itself, speaking in Yaun-Tish has been said to make the speaker sound facetious and insincere.

 For the longest time, oral tradition was passed down from generation to generation.  Tales were told wrote from memory, and with the intervening tellings began to meander in newer directions and fresher ideas.  Giving in to the new idea of communication, some decided to try and control the ideas through dogma.  But dogma without consistency was impossible with the embellishment sirens would spin into their tales.  A system was needed to put words into permanent form, trapping them in an unchanging state so that those who wished to use words to rule could do so with resolute certainty.  They needed a system of writing.



Words Made Permanent

Writing with a true alphabet is one of the benchmarks philosophers use to gauge the level of maturity in a race.  The division between the civilized and primitive races of the Known World strongly emphasizes this distinction, relegating species to either side of the divide in part by the advancement of their system of writing.

The first writing beneath the waves was little more than carvings on the local rocky shoals and coral reefs, primitive pictures comprised of little more than stick figures of hunters and the hunted, warnings of danger or signs of succor.  As this strange activity of "defiling nature" grew despite the greatest efforts of the supersticious and fearful, the variety of graven images grew exponentially, portraying most all walks of life into permanent form.


From there, certain common concepts became represented by simplified images, and the pictogram was created.  These specific images came to represent the idea behind them more than the image itself., such as the iconic jaws of a shark coming to represent danger far more often than the presence of sharks themselves.  Many races ended the refinement of their language here, keeping the basic "symbol = concept" system, but burdening the literate with the task of memorizing overly-long plethora of icons in order to effectively communicate even the simplest of speeches.


Others continued the development of their lexicography, simplifying, codifying, eventually giving birth to true alphabets where each symbol represents a phoneme -- a portion of sound.  This method of chopping up a word into its most basic of sounds allowed the creation of more complex words by their mixed arrangement of multiple symbols.

But what to write did not solve the very stymieing obstacle that moving currents erode everything, from the permanence of coral and stone, to the transience of soft marks on flimsy materials.  Penciled words on lined paper could not exist under water, where the seeping fluid would reduce the material to pulp and dissolve the pressure-transferred traces of a stylus into the currents.  More hardy methods of recording knowledge were needed to pass down the wisdom of ages to successive generations.


The earliest of these methods was stone carving, but this proved a bulky and heavy system that prevented the dispersement of knowledge except when meticulously planned beforehand.


Carving evolved into the art of scrimshaw, using the bones of slain animals as carving materials.  The relative lightness of bone over stone spurred the spread of knowledge, but still had the basic drawback of being an extremely slow way of recording information.

It was the introduction of tattoos that began the literacy revolution.  Packbreeders often needed some method of telling their chattle from that of another packbreeder, so the tradition began of "branding" their animals.  This was accomplished by using the protective hollow needles of various creatures like anemonies that normally would inject poison into the creature's attackers, but instead had the packbreeders blowing ink and other pigment into the skin.  If the needle penetrated the epidermis sufficiently it could deposit coloration deep enough so that it would not wear away like chalk on stone, but not deep enough that it proved poisonous to the host.

Soon after this system began, the packbreeders noticed that the skins of these beasts, once slaughtered, continued to contain their owner's marks even after the curing process into leather, and more markings could later be added (with much more ease and less worry of harm.


Flesh That Talks
Tattoos are in most cases permanent, requiring the healing process of the bearer to granulate the pigments and encase them in a calogen-like cells forming connective tissues.  The tattooing of dead flesh does not require this because the skin is not longer shedding old cells and producing new ones, so the stain from the ink remains intact.


Tattoos are now a mainstay of Elquan culture, and almost every walk of life has its usage of the art of inking.  The more primitive races of the Known World emphasize tattooing as rites of passage, making permanent the achievements of the recipient, while the civilized races use it more for cosmetic and identification purposes.  The Yaun-Teel may have fostered the art form of tattooing beasts before skinning and tanning the hides into leather, and to this day use this system on beast and slave alike as part of their cruel conditioning styles.

Ceph Tattoos
Like other tattoos, these are permanent.  When a Ceph uses his camouflage pigmentation, it intersperses with the trapped ink of a tattoo and gains the appearance of  semi-translucency on the faux texture the encephalopod is trying to mimic.  For example, a tattooed Ceph camouflaging itself against a coral reef will make it appear as if the coral reef has some kind of markings or stains in the shape of the tattoo.  As a result, tattos prevent cephs from enjoing the full benefits of their natural camouflage ability. 

Shell Tattoos
Contrary to first impression, it is quite possible to tattoo both Lumulan and Chelonite shell.  They are, after all, biologically created layers of cell, however hardened they may be.  In the former case, the tattoo only lasts until the Lumulus molts, usually in about a year; but in the latter the tattoo will slowly wear away as thin layers of skin are sloughed off throughout the Chelon's life.  This makes older tattoos appear as if faded or scratched away.  Since Chelon lead such long lives, it is not unheard of to find layer after layer of tattoos on his shell, fresher ink laid over older, faded images.

 Not all tattoos are as obvious or as permanent.  Some types of tattooing are transient in nature either by design or by result.

Blood Ttattoos
All the pain; none of the permanency.  These are literally tattoos without ink, using needles to pierce the skin.  Similar to scarification, the epidermal trauma lasts for about a year, whereupon the healing process eliminates any trace of the tattoo.  Blood tattoos are used mainly to show indentured servitude, where the term of the debt is resolved when the tattoo fades away.

Algaeic Tattoos
The ink of these tattoos is a slurry of phytoplankton with natural bioluminescence and a food medium to keep the injected colony sustainable for a period of time.  The algae feed on the transparent food while supply lasts, giving off a continuous bioluminescent light until their sustenence runs out and the colony dies.  The light given off by theses tattoos does not even scale to candlelight, instead appearing as just a glowing patch on the bearer's skin.

 Luminescent Tattoos
Similar to an algaeic tattoo, luminescent tattoos are inks that shed light when agitated, mixing tiny amounts of liquids trapped in the connective tissues.  Rigorous exercise is enough to trigger the luminescence, but it quickly fades in minutes when the muscles are still.

Phosphorescent Tattoos
These tattoos work on chemical reactions to give off their light.  These tattoos are notoriously fleeting, but while they last they are the brightest of all the luminescent tattoos, even giving off a modicum of heat as the chemicals flare through their exothermic reaction.

Ultraviolet Tattoos
While these are as permanent as any normal tattoo, the ink used is normally invisible until the skin is bathed in ultraviolet light.  Some of the more retributive of pisceans have repeatedly championed initiatives forcing Ceph to submit to ultraviolet tattoos as a manner of humanely curtailing their camouflage abilities, but so far the Ceph have escaped this fate.

Tools of the Trade

Tattooing Kit
Harvested from numerous sea animals, a range of needle sizes can be collected to provide varying line thickness and color intensity.  Other materials are used to reinforce the needles, and the kit includes sanitary materials to sterilize the needles.  Regardless, the needles are single person use, and need to be replaced after each time the kit is used.

Greasemarker
The defacto tool of the civilized races for writing, the greasemarker is a compressed tube of dyed wax that liquifies slightly underpressure only to solidify once that pressure has been lessened.  The waxiness of the material is water insoluble, so the mere flow of water currents will not wash away whatever is written down.  Formulae for making greasemarkers vary from culture to culture, even between craftsmen, but most are always comprised of at least two components: a pigment and a medium.  The pigment is the coloration of marks left behind by the marker in use, while the medium is the material that allows the transferrence of pigment from greasemarker to a surface.  The possible mediums available underwater is extensive, not least among which are bodily lipids, animal and/or vegatable waxes, melon-produced parmaceti, and even ambergris.

Shale Slate
Slate (a form of shale) is a type of striated  rock that can be flaked into smooth sheets of relative tensile strength.  These surfaces are strong enough to endure the pressure put upon them when using a greasemarker.  However, slate is on the brittle scale of rock resiliency, and a modicum of care must be taken to prevent the medium from shattering.  Usually slates are stored in hardened containers, stacked evenly and protected from jostling.  It is also a heavy material, and more than a few sheets of slate will begin to laden even the most hale of pisceans.

Leather
The main venue of writing in modern Elqua is the use of hide and leather sheets, depilated and treated to resist the corrosive effects of saltwater.  The material remains supple enough to be rolled up or folded away for storage, but resilient enough to remain intact under the pressure of greasemarkers.  The benefit of treated hide as a recording medium is that data written in greasemarker can later be made permanent by over-writing the text as a tattoo.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Endless Blue - Week 32 - Senses Despite Darkness

Spectroscopy


Senses Despite Darkeness


While life may have genesised from the water, it could not have begun there if not for the light bathing the world of Elqua from its sun.  Without that energy, the most basic link in the food chain -- namely photosynthesis -- could not metabolize, and sans a method of creating food the earliest phytoplankton colonies would have died from starvation.  Sans light, the smallest creatures of the oceans could not survive long enough to evolve into the immense and varied ecosystem of today.

In order for life to flourish, light had to be available for it.  On land light is plentiful, and even the most passive of biological constructs can soak in its bounty.  However, water is much less forgiving medium for transmission of light than air is, and some unique situations developed from the water's special qualities of reflection, refraction, and absorption.


Layers of Water

Just as there are vertical zones in the bodies of water on Elqua -- colloquially known as the Shore, the Shoals, and the Shelf -- there are also horizontal layers.  These layers are defined by the amount of light that can penetrate the depths.

The uppermost layer of the ocean is where almost 75% of all photosynthetic life on the planet exists.  Named the euphotic layer, it reaches about 300 feet from the sunbathed surface of the water.  By definition, the Shore is always in the euphotic layer.

Below this layer of life is the disphotic layer, it stretches downward to about 3,000 feet deep, and is dimly lit.  Animals can easily survive here, but it is rare for any botanical life to survive due to the inadequate amount of light to complete photosynthesis.  The Shoals reach from the disphotic layer up through the euphotic layer to the surface of the water.

Finally is the aphotic layer, where no light penetrates at all, and this layer accounts for a stunning 90% of the entire ocean area of Elqua.  The Shelf includes all three photic layers, the euphotic, disphotic, and aphotic layers.

Elqua's zones and layers intersect in a step pattern:
The Euphotic Shore The Euphotic Shoals The Euphotic Shelf

The Disphotic Shoals The Disphotic Shelf
Elqua's Sea Floor
The Aphotic Shelf


The layers of Elqua's ocean and the absorption of light spectra.
Color absorption roughly to scale; water depth is not.

That is a lot of water for light to shine through to reach the life living at the bottom of the sea.  But before the light can even start its journey through liquid, it has its first obstacle to overcome: reflection.
The water's surface has a property called albedo, which effectively reflects a varying amount of the light shining down onto it back into the atmosphere, affecting the planet's weather and climate.  The shape of the water's surface determines how much sunlight can penetrate through its surface into the depths below.  Rough waters reflect less light while calm seas reflect more.  It is the rolling tidal motion of waves that results in the wavy light effect that can be seen in shallow costal waters -- the wavering bands of light that dance along with the rise and fall of the waves.

Once the albedo barrier is pierced, light then has to penetrate through the optically more dense medium of water.  It is here that the individual portions of light -- the eight colors of visible light -- begin a process of attrition.  As light penetrates lower and lower depths of the oceans, the more difficult it becomes for white light to filter through the water.  Called refraction, it is the natural tendency of water to break up light into its component colors, which are thereby absorbed by particulate matter and the blue wavelenths are bounced off water molecules' own intrinsic though subtle shade of blue.

Colors with shorter wavelengths – greens, blues, and violets – are able to penetrate deeper into the water than those with long wavelenghts.  While eventually all color fades to darkness at the aphotic layer, the various colors can reach different depths.  Under the best of conditions (i.e., clearest water, sun directly overhead, etc.), red is the first color absorbed by the fluid surroundings; at a mere 15 feet red looks at best as a muddy sienna or burnt umber.  Orange is faded at 25', while yellow peters out at around 45 feet down.  Violet is absorbed at nearly 100 feet, followed by green at 135'.  Blue, curiously enough, is not absorbed until significantly deeper -- at about 300 feet.  This anomaly in the pattern is due to water's inherent blue tint, which scatters the blue wavelengths of light instead of absorbing them.

Note that these distances are measured from the surface of the water directly to the colored object.  The distance from that object that an observer views from is cumulative for determining what color wavelengths can be discerend.  Thus:

Object's distance from surface + object's distance from observer = total distance of color absorption.

For example, a Mer gazes at a goldfish from ten feet away from him, and they are both ten feet below the surface of the waves.  The light from the sun penetrates the water's albedo and travels 10' to bounce off the goldfish and then travels an additional 10' to reach the Mer's eyes.  That's a total of 20', which is coming close to orange's maximum absorption point.  The goldfish's color would appear muddy and bland in the surrounding blue.  Had the goldfish been green, however, its coloration would still have maintained its vividness to a point where the distances between the Mer. the "greenfish", and the surface of the ocean equaled approximately 135 feet.

This demonstrates the benefit of portable sources of light beneath the waves.  Bioluminescence is a poor but unfortunately the sole viable source of light generation under the sea.  Shedding light barely greater than a lit candle, it can barely illuminate the immediate area with its weak radiance.  Stronger light sources can be achieved through alchemy, and these light sources make discerning colors much more practical, and the distance light travels would use these alchemical lamps as the starting point to measure color absorption instead of the surface of the water, effectively exposing color to layers of the oceans that cannot normally be appreciated.

With vision such an integral sense for exploring one’s environment, other methods of “sight” evolved to fulfill the role of the primary sense.  Such established methods like infravision still exist in Elqua, though in this case infravision is severely truncated due to the light- and heat-absorption properties of water, and so is only useful on the surface and in Shore areas where light is barely refracted.

Dive deep enough, all color eventually disappears, leaving most creatures in the dark without any wavelength of light to stimulate their optic receptors, save for the ultraviolet.  Water is perplexingly transparent to ultraviolet rays, which can reach down to almost the aphotic layer.  What this signifies is that even though these depths would appear as an almost inky blackness to our eyes, there is still enough light to see with eyes that can peer into the ultraviolet range.  Perhaps the most successful adaption to deal with this depth-blindness was the evolution of ultravision.


Ultravision

The Kraken’s innate camouflage abilities, while formidable, would make it difficult to find others of their own kind if they did not possess a form of vision that enables them to spot each other despite their best disguise.  This sense -- known as “ultravision” -- works on the principle that while camouflage tends to be uncanny in the visible spectrum, the chemicals used to duplicate the natural coloring of the surroundings do not share the same make-up as the surroundings.  While skin tone can be recreated in a painting, the pigments used in both complexion and paint are not the same compounds, expressing different properties when exposed to the proper stimuli.   In this case, light.   When exposed to a special light source, these chameleonic pigments fluoresce whereas the natural coloring of the surrounds remain unlit, making detection as easy as looking in the right direction.  However, ultravision is a passive medium. meaning it is dependent on an outside source to function correctly.  Ultravision would be a useless quirk of vision without special illumination, and such sources are immediately detectable by those that have ultravision as if it was a normal light source of the same size.

It wasn't until the historically antagonistic Chelon and Lumulus both realized the Kraken Occupation was a greater risk to their survival that either one of them were to each other.  The despite that propelled the Shellback Wars to wage over and over had to be put aside for the greater continuation of piscean life.  Only the Chelon's mastery of mystic might and the Lumulus' expertise at smithing metal could come together to form the ultimate tool for freedom -- ultraviolet enchanted dearthsteel.

Unguis/Nautilus Abilities


Ultraviolet
– An item with this quality gives off the kind of ultraviolet light that enables ultravision to work.  The magical bonus equivalent bestowed on the item by the enchantment varies according to the intensity of light shed: from +1 for a glow of a candle to +5 for the pure amount from full sunlight.  Further, an item’s size also limits how bright a glow the item can cast.  Tiny items such as daggers can only shed the weak +1/candlelight equivalent amount of ultraviolet light, with the capacity increasing by +1 for every size type larger an item from there.

Unguis/Nautilus Bonus Illumination Level Illumination Range Unguis/Nautilus Size
+1
Candlelight 5 ft. (Shadowy) Dagger, bracer, buckler
+2
Lamp 10 ft. Short Sword, halmet, cestus
+3
Dancing lights 20 ft. Longsword, half-spear, shield
+4
Lantern 30 ft. Spear, quarterstaff, large shield
+5
Sunlight 60 ft. Polearm, Lance, double weapon *, tower shield
* -- Except quarterstaves.

Ultraviolet Burst
-- Upon a successful hit on (for an unguis) or hit by (for a nautilus) a target capable of camouflage, the striking/struck item releases a massive momentary burst of ultraviolet light that stuns the pigment producing cells and temporarily stuns them for 1d6 rounds.  In order for an item to be enchanted with ultraviolet burst it must already possess the ultraviolet ability before it can be give ultraviolet burst.  It is a +1 bonus equivalent ability.

The magics needed to permanently enchant ultraviolet abilities seem unable to anchor themselves to xanthellae, so the war ravaged Chelon needed some other source to attach their spells.  Conversely, no Lumulan has shown the ability to coral shape, so they lack the mental discipline to cast the ultraviolet spells into their own metal, dearthsteel.  Through espionage and betrayal, threats and machinations, the Kraken had for the most all of the occupation kept the two shellback races at each other's throats.  It was finally the Orcans that mediated a cease fire if not peace long enough for the two arts to merge into the last chance the Known World had for freedom.  So unprecedented was the merging of these two quarrelsome factions that the alliance had as much to fear from internal back-stabbing as it ever had from their encephalopodic enslavers.


Echolocation

The aphotic Shelf, where the water is so deep that no light reaches, requires other senses to take up the slack from the now useless sense of vision.  The foremost among these is echolocation.  Most notably expressed by the cetaceans, it is an active system of vocalized “pings” that radiate out through the water and are reflected back when they come in contact with objects.  The reflected sound will sound slightly different in each ear as the soundwaves bounce back to the caller, and it is this stereophonic effect that gives the creature the ability to envision his environment around him in full three dimensional perspective.

The primary organ used in echolocation is the melon.  This is a roughly ovoid shaped organ found in the forehead of such creatures that can located by sound.  It is the melon that gives the Orcans their broad forehead and prominent brow.  The interior of this fatty organ is coated with a waxy oil called parmaceti, which is used in biosonar as both a focusing apparatus for the initial sound and as a receptor for the reflected sound when the consistency of the fatty tissue matches the surrounding environment, aiding in the transfer of sound vibrations to the inner ear.

Since sound travels better in water than through air, this is an effective method of vision.  However, since it requires the possessor to actively create sound pulses, creatures with echolocation can be detected by any creature through a simple passive Listen check with a Difficulty Class of 15.  An interesting side effect of this is that any creature with echolocation themselves can use the pings of active echolocation to determine the distance and direction of the sounds origin.

This curious discovery was frequently used by the Orcan barbarians, whom would spread out to surround an enemy on all sides, then a single warrior (usually the pod alpha) would make a whalesong that all others in the pod used to determine the whereabouts of the pursued prey.  From this, the Orcans learned that their whalesongs need not be the source of soundwaves detected by their melons, and have adapted to using other sources of sound as their "ping".  This takes a Listen check at a DC of 20 to succeed, with a modifier of +1 for every mile distance the original sound is made.  A failed test cannot be rerolled, but new rolls can be made if the sound lasts for more than a round or is repeated.

Rumor has it that some special Orcans have learned the ability to use echolocation without the need to generate an echo, relying instead on the ambient sounds that fill the oceans constantly.  Most like such stories are tall tales told to magnify the cetacean's sense of glory, as no Orcan has ever demonstrated the ability.


Currentsense


Currentsense is similar to echolocation, but disparate in two key areas: First, currentsense works on the sense of taste instead of hearing, and Second, the sense needs only a moving trickle of water to operate.  Without some form of currentsense, it is nearly impossible to track a target effectively in a featureless, three dimensional environment.

The most primitive form of currentsense is called bloodtrace.  This is the sense that sharks possess, the ability to detect even the smallest traces of blood in the current from great distances and home in on their origin.  Creatures with bloodtrace gain a +5 circumstance bonus when tracking a bleeding target.
The second form is called tracescent, and it operates like bloodscent, but can detect a greater range of trace compounds dragged along the currents, like recently consumed food or bodily waste.  The +5 circumstance bonus from this method of currentsense extends to any substance that leaves a residue for the currents to carry away.

The final form, true currentsense, can detect its surroundings purely by the eddies it has caused in the current. The character’s sense of touch has become so acute it can feel the lightest eddy or divergent current around him.  Similar to the tremorsense ability many of the eyeless aberrations above the waves exhibit, it allows the character to comprehend its surroundings completely without the benefit of sight.  These individuals are to be treated as if they could normally see in a well-lit area of sunlight, and enjoy the +5 circumstance bonus to tracking regardless if the target is leaving substance traces behind or not.

None of the primitive nor civilized races of the Known World of Elqua possess a form of currentsense, though they may temporarily gain them through magic or employ domesticated animals that themselves have the skill.  Such animals are highly sought after, and packbreeders have been known to be able to improve the currentsense in successive generations of those species.
"Swim fast; swim silent; swim deep."
-- the best advice for swimming closer to the Source