The Brass Tide

"Do you remember that day, Asola, when I was a child, and you were still behind your father's eyes.? When Olo's design was finally real; when the most colossal vessel since the Blood War was brought out of this shipyard? Since that day the Medallion has been the most powerful Guild in the city, free of the Faseles Guilds. Dohralun and the Worlds have never been more linked then in the past seventy years. Don't you fear sometimes, Asola, if we may never make a greater day?"

Lustercrest Brass Tket, privately to her executive manager Kalin Ostel.

The Brass Tide, designed by the late Medallion Chief Engineer Olo Ankibi, is the first of the Equinox Freighters. The freighters use the Starfall, a waterfall in Thyra which receives and sends water through planar rifts at opposite tips of the Dohralun, as their route of transport. With the Brass Tide, suddenly the natural wonders of Pamkxaato and the Heart of Limiore became nodes in the most ambitious trade route ever devised, changing the paradigm of the Worlds forever.

The ship sparkled with coppery luster on its first voyage. The hull entirely enclosed the interior of the ship in an oval shape, long vertically and narrower in width. Around the sides huge turbines and exhaust pipes spewed the glimmering clouds of lumene fuel burn and the stardust winds. When it climbed the Starfall, the water spraying in every direction created a rainbow above the aurora below. For many years, each and every expedition was an attraction for people to go just to see.

The Brass Tide was retired in 1101 after 50 years of service, now obsolete next to the Twilight Class Equinox Freighters. It now remains in the Ankibi Museum in the Wanderer Aurora.

Route

Port Loatona, Pamkxaato

First the Brass Tide would go up to Pamkxaato Bay, pushing itself out of the whirlpool and docking at Port Loatona. With the use of the great trade vessel, the port began to grow to immense size, now one of the largest trade cities in Iketra. This also allowed the dark elves, who were the main inhabitants of the bay, to become a part of the Worlds' network. Previously, Pamkxaato was considered to be a black market, where dangerous and illicit substances and materials were bought and sold from the Spiderdark. The destigmatization of products from the world below furthered innovations in arcanology, engineering, and every day life. Mpxahi Wood began being used for furniture and machines, various fungal herbs began widespread use in medicine, and magical components became more accessible to a wider range of arcanists. In many places throughout the Worlds, children's tales of the terrifying elves of the shadows have begun to fade away.

Verna, Heart of Limiore

Verna is a small independent island city state near the center of the Great Archipelago. Due to its central geographic location, it was already a bustling port when the Brass Tide first struck its shore. Since that year, the local politics of Verna have become steadily more and more influenced by the Medallion. Shuttle ferries are now run across all of Limiore to bring people to the island for trade with and travel to Thyra and Iketra.

Aurora Port, the First Pillar

When the Brass Tide first set sail, the ship would exit from the falls and dock at the Aurora Port in the First Pillar. It was after all the center of the city, where such a large port was already in place, while the closer Second Pillar had no such infrastructure. Later Starfall Tower would be built, completed 1092, and the Wanderer would become the main marketplace of Thyra, as it is today.

Engineering

Challenges

Current Equinox Freighters are fueled constantly by Starfall Tower, which now reaches all the way from the bottom to the top of Starfall. However when the Brass Tide was first designed, it had to be made to be capable of scaling the falls on its own. It also had to deal with the direction of gravity changing as it passed through to Limiore, along with the water that spews out of the sea creating a fountain on the other side. It also had to able to deal with the quick transition between different tiers of the Astral Sea, along with high heat, which could be damaging to most vessels designed to sail across it.

Funding

The research, design, and construction of the Brass Tide was funded mostly through loans and investment the Medallion, a freshly founded commerce guild, received from the Faseles Guilds. With the immense success of the trade route the Brass Tide opened, the Medallion was able to cede from the Guilds, eliminating all debts owed to them as well.

Hull Material

While Ankibi tested a variety of materials, most could not withstand the rapid pressure changes from traveling high speed up and down in the Astral Sea. Eventually, Ankibi discovered a brass-like alloy with an additional small part Styx ice. In later classes of Equinox Freighter, this has been replaced by a much lighter hull, made up of mpxahi wood and Galtimian steel.

Propulsion

The Brass Tide was designed 3 decades after the first ships powered by enriched Lumene, harvested from the Liquid Tier at the bottom of the city. Without that invention, the design would have been impossible. Ankibi invented an engine that could burn the lumene at extreme rates, even in the low pressures of the tiers above Starlight. Huge turbines across the entire ship used the falling water to generate the energy required to compress the Lumene for its fast burn.

Decks

All passangers remained in the central entrance deck. The Brass Tide has a total of 5 decks, 1 for passengers and the rest for cargo. Each deck was connected with tunnels that could be walked when the ship docks on its side. When entering the port, bean-shaped vessel tilts to become horizontal, and each of the decks on the inside rotate within the ship to maintain level with gravity. In later generations of freighters, gravity manipulating spells would be implemented.

Culture

While the Brass Tide and its successors are run by the Medallion for profit, they greatly increased the accessibility to travel for the people of Iketra and Limiore, and Thyra as well. What once would have been long waits and reservations to travel through a gate somewhere in the city was now a ticket on a ship capable of carrying thousands of people at a time. It wasn't everyday you got to travel to the other side of the world, but it also wasn't out of reach. Peoples relationship with things from another world, things from the caverns below become much more open. The Starfall Trade Route is considered to be one of the largest factors in the explosion of scholarship and innovation in this new century.