Sailors on the Sea of Jars

The Eleven Cities all depend, to one degree or another, on maritime trade across the Sea of Jars, and therefore on the labour of sailors. Sailing is therefore a well-paid - if not always entirely prestigious - profession attracting large numbers of people, almost exclusively men, to the sea. Over the centuries the practice of putting groups of men in confined physical spaces together has given rise to a body of cultural phenomena that, while internally highly heterogeneous, is distinct and cohesively different from that found on land. It is often said, therefore, that the sailors on the Sea of Jars are more of a people than a profession.
The thriving oral culture of sailors is of abiding interest to thaumatologists. In the era when the gods were being actively worshiped any ship likely to venture out of sight of land featured a small shrine to Zargyod, centred around a small idol of the god, usually wrought in copper or brass (tales of idols carved from the teeth of whales circulate but have yet to be confirmed). The provisioning of such shrines was considered an essential part of supplying a ship, and few ship owners were so bold as to suggest sailors take to the sea without them. At various points in the voyage these shrines would receive devotion from the crewmen, either individually or operating as a group. Though no ship sailing the sea today features such a shrine, it seems likely that much of the oral culture of sailors stems from these rites. Since the Jar-born are well-versed in this culture they are often looked to as its custodians, teaching chants and shanties to young sailors and leading the crews in traditional dances. Since these cultural phenomena are thought to contain echoes of the methods used to invoke the power of the god of luck, thaumatologists often seek out the Jar-born and interview them in the hopes of studying ways of manipulating probability.
Such cultural phenomena fall into a variety of sub-categories.

Shanties

The sailors of the Sea of Jars sing a huge variety of work songs and chants, most composed in time signatures designed to impart a steady rhythm to collective labour such as the shortening of sail or the loading of cargo. The subject matter of such songs tends to refer to the life of the sea, often telling tales of the supernatural. For most of history very few of these songs were ever written down, instead being passed orally between sailors in various forms. The Tyrosian thaumatologst Ezynon Moranyad is currently engaged on a long-running project to change this, collecting and recording shanties from sailors who put in at his home city and sometimes travelling to other cities to determine if the songs take different forms in different ports. His collection currently fills several large volumes kept at his home; he declines to publish it until it is complete, but is happy to grant access to the records to those who can prove they have something to contribute to it.

Reels

Sailors produce their own music, though few of them have the leisure to learn to play the stringed instruments characteristically used to worship Zargyod on land or the money to buy the large zithers used in the worship of Hayan. By contrast small musical pipes, made or wood, bone or (more frequently) cheap metal are commonly carried; they are cheap, easily learned, and can be carried easily in a sailor's bundle of personal effects. The folk tunes played on these pipes may well be descendants of liturgical music dedicated to Zargyod and await the attentions of researchers. Maronyad has considered the matter but has no background in musical notation and has yet to include any of these compositions in his collection.

Dances

Many sailors celebrate good fortune or indulge high spirits with jigs, either dancing individually or in groups. Some of these dances are accompanied by reels while others are performed a capella. Tamela Wesyan, an Epalozian researcher into the ritual dances known to have been practiced in honour of Ajqyod, has speculated that these jigs descend from some sort of ritual behavior related to Zargyod, and is in the very early stages of building up a collection of them. It has been suggested that she collaborate with Maronyad, though the two researchers detest each other on a personal level and refuse to compare notes. This is not to say they are not happy to discuss things with third parties, however.

Tales

There is a thriving shipboard culture of tall tales of the supernatural. The tales deal with such matters as Ghost ships, Merpeople and Secret islands, and on most ships it is the Jar-born, if any are present, who do the telling or to whom the crew look for confirmation or denial of the tale's veracity. Though clearly informed by the numinous traditions of the Eleven Cities few of these stories are particularly well-known ashore and Tamela Wesyan has yet to have much success in compiling them, either as records of supernatural activity or sources of insight into the invocation of Zargyod. Part of the problem, she feels, is that sailors have difficulty taking women seriously.

Scrimshaw

Some of the oldest human artifacts found around the Sea of Jars are the teeth of whales etched with scenes of fishing and seafaring. Whales disappeared from the sea over a century ago, but these artifacts can still sometimes be found. Given that they often depict what seem to be scenes of supernatural activity thaumatologists are particularly interested in purchasing and studying them when they come up for sale. Such artifacts are difficult to make sense of, however, since the artistic conventions the etchers evidently followed are quite different from any other artistic tradition practiced in the Eleven Cities. If anybody knows anything about how these pictures are to be taken, it is probably the Jar-born, who tend to treasure examples of scrimshaw as proof of the nobility and antiquity of their chosen culture.