The Sea of Ghosts is a treacherous area of ocean in the far north of Eruidór.
Geography
The Sea of Ghosts is the northernmost known body of water on Eruidór. Only two landmasses have a shoreline to the sea, the extreme northwest Headlands, and the island of
Øyånder, both of which are a part of
The Northern Reaches.
Little is known about the sea itself, as travel in the area is extremely treacherous, and usually results in lost ships due to low visibilty, rough and/or frozen waters, and glaciers. Those who have managed to travel far enough north into the sea are stopped by a mass of jagged glaciers known as the Wraith's Teeth. Only few have managed to reach the Teeth over the centuries, and indeed most of what is known of the Teeth come from shipwrecked survivors who miraculously were able to be recovered.
Superstitions about the area abound among sailors, as well as
Reachmen native to the northwest Headlands. Sailors have circulated stories of haunting spirits floating at the waters surface, ghost ships emerging from the fog, and strange creatures beneath the ice that prey on shipwrecked sailors.
Reachmen have reported hearing strange noises far off from shore in the mists at night, and apparitions of dead seamen walking onto shore. Pieces of destroyed ships wash up onto the shores of the Headlands from the sea on occasion, and locals are quick to respectfully see to the remains and any ship or bodies, fearing a curse laid upon them of the remains stay nearby too long.
Rumors and Mystery
Over the centuries, only three recorded individuals have ever claimed to have sighted anything beyond the jagged glaciers of the Wraith's Teeth. One sailor in an unknown year of the early Second Era claimed he could see the faintest hint of a landmass during a rare clear spot in the fog. Another in 3E 2 claimed she could see the peaks of mountains as she lay in a liferaft after her ship had crashed upon the glaciers.
The most interesting report come from a sailor in 2E 482, who claimed that his crew had made it farther into the sea than any ship had done before. He made the claim that the open ocean beyond the
Mistborne Mountains was actually a massive, though unavigable, channel, and that there were mountains peeking through the dense mists. He also claimed that some unknown force had caused their ship to come apart, as they had struck no berg or ice sheets. Of chief notice among his claims, however, was that a large boat of unknown, seemingly ancient make had recovered some of the survivors, and had taken them further north, deeper into the mist. The sailor who made these claims, Ingvar Nillsen, died not long after he was initially recovered and gave his claims to the party that pulled him from the waters after he had drifted south for a number of days.
This testimony sent researchers into a frenzy for a time, and a number of ships were charted to make their way into the Sea of Ghosts to try and verify the claims. However, the expedition met with disaster. Of the four ships sent, two were confirmed to have been wrecked by eyewitnesses, one ship went missing, and the fourth ship returned to port badly damaged, with no reports of anything sighted beyond the mists. Ingvar's claims were dismissed as hallucinations or mistaken sightings of particularly large icebergs due to injury, malnutrition, and the extreme cold of the environment.
Comments