Lake Amsorak
To the west of Akorros lies Lake Amsorak. It stretches about 140 miles east to west (from Akorros to Akesoli), and a smilar distance from Fort Anselbury in the south to Fort Lakeside in the north, and is roughly shaped like a trapezoid.
Lake Amsorak is the main trade route from the west - the spices, silks, carpets, ivory, and other exotic materials transported across [the Sind Waste] to Akesoli by the nomad caravans. Large trader boats constantly ply the lake between Akesoli and Akorros, bringing in the exotic goods and returning with the leather, steel, weapons, armour, wood, tea and coffee which sell well in the west. Many of these are Umbarth House ships, based out of Akesoli and shipping to the Umbarth/Pennydown port in the north of Akorros, but there are also rival traders who travel around the lake and put into the main port of Akorros. The two groups generally give each other a wary amount of space when passing, but they have been known to come to blows.
A third group of traders, the Shi’ika, act like the land-based peddlers, travelling from village to village around the lake with the essentials for life, and a few luxuries as well when they have space. They address a very different market to the shipping traders, and so are not considered competition. Indeed, the shippers will sometimes approach a Shi’ika for stores and supplies.
The lake is rich in fish: red snapper, Amsorak trout, the ugly paladinfish with its domed head like a knight’s helmet (considered a delicacy in Akorros), shoals of oily herring and sand swimmers, white fleshed sohar flatfish, dogfish and sharks, freshwater tuna, octopus, squid, eels and lampreys, crab, freshwater mussels and oysters. The islands which dot the lake teem with bird life which swoops and swirls, diving into the shoals, then returning to their nests in the stacks, streaked white with their guano - particularly the Amsorak puffins, the long-beaked shearwaters and the black-feathered cormorants (often kept as fishers by the raft people).
Underneath the waters is a whole different world. Merfolk and sauaghin rule the waterweed forests and spires, and the squid grow to enormous sizes. Sailors talk of strange monsters which can swallow up a vessel in a single gulp, and of waterspouts and whirlpools which can appear out of nowhere and tear a ship to pieces. Certainly storms can blow up suddenly, threatening shipping and forcing boats to run for shelter or heave-to or run before the wind until it abates.
Type
Lake
Location under
Comments