Breakwater Gates

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The world of Tore experiences catastrophic flooding approximately every five-hundred years, causing massive rearrangements of landmasses, some appearing for the first time in centuries, some disappearing below the waves. Since long before the first histories were committed to paper, mankind on the Toreworld have evolved to survive these floods, with some through a long period of time evolving to utilise Seleen in tandem with their natural bodily functions, and evolved to become human-adjacent species like the Folk of the Foam, Brasslings, or Mossfolk. Others, however, created technology to withstand these floods, with the most successful being the thousand-foot-tall walls of Ice-Glass, that can be raised or lowered at whim, to enable the settlement within to remain free of the flooding. These walls are known as Breakwater Walls, and while they might keep flooding at bay, they do prevent settlements from trading with others. After a few Deadwater Turns, and the experience of the chaos that comes with five hundred years of isolation, huge gates were built into the walls to allow traffic from other countries. The 'Gates' were window like entrances, built into the walls with huge sloping paths of Ice-Glass upon either side, so once the storms died down, the Gates still above sea-water could be opened, and normal trade could resume.
There have been several famous Breakwater Gates throughout history, with the most notable being: the Midnight Gate, the first built, and the largest, that served as a major strategic hold during the Thousand-Years War.

Procedure & Tradition

As time has passed, the great, towering structures of the Breakwater Walls have become increasingly mythologised. The term for the raising of the walls has been known as Lazaret, after the term for 'Danger!' in Old Gylarusian, as the Gylarusian Empire was the last known civillization to know how to work the Breakwater Gates or Walls, and any history before them has since been lost.