Sunday 10 March 2013

Maps of the Drowned Kingdoms 4: The Sunken Citadel of Ebb

What secrets lie hidden within the drowned fastness of Ebb? 

Aspirant wizards of the Widowing Sea are taken by sail to the Lullen, a vast stretch of water where no wind blows. Marooned on its edge, the aspirant must row alone into the doldrums, until they come at last to a place where bubbles break the surface. Quaffing the water-breathing draught given to them by their master, they dive down into the inky depths, where they are inducted into the sunken citadel of Ebb.

Ebb was once the home of a powerful storm giant wizard. By day her tower overlooked a windswept valley, but by night it tumbled through the planes on her command. Powerful wards protected it from the elemental chaos, allowing the wizard to explore the furthest shores of the cosmos. Nobody knows how her tower finally collapsed, or what fate befell the wizard herself, but Ebb had long fallen into ruin by the time of the deluge. Its magic still held though, stilling the wind for miles around its foundations, and holding its walls fast against the crushing pressures of the abyss. Filled with artificial gravity and flooded with fresh, cool air, the sunken citadel was found by adventurers of the Widowing Sea, who turned it into a grand college of magic.

A wizard of the sunken citadel dresses in blue, aquamarine or purple robes, often decorated with wave or tentacle motifs. Their staffs are surmounted by shards of coral or mother-of-pearl, and they typically take oceanic creatures as familiars: crabs, seabirds or snapping turtles. Graduates serve the navies of the Widowing Sea as war wizards, or carry out their studies in solitude from remote hermitages. Others quest in the company of sell-swords and sea reavers, searching for sunken secrets to carry back to their masters in Ebb.

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