Breakwater Walls
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.
What the hell is that?" Onydea cried, stumbling to right herself, reaching blindly ahead for the tunnel wall. "Watch your step down here, Dzona. Looks like there's ice or something on the floor."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 'Breakwater Gates' were window-like entrances built into the walls with huge sloping paths of Ice-Glass upon either side, so that once the 'Deadwater Turn' storms died down, the Gates still above sea-water could be opened, and normal trade could resume. There have been many occasions in which the Breakwater Walls have been raised throughout history, with the first known being during the time of the Thousand-Years War.
"Not ice," Dzona said. "Glass. Thousands upon thousands of miles of it."
And then, entirely to Onydea's utter shock and horror, she began to cry.
A flooded city in ancient Meddlemark after a Deadwater Turn by Pfeffermin (Using Microsoft Designer)
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.
Access & Availability
Even in its Imperial Gylarusian hayday, where the knowledge of the Breakwater Walls and gates allowed the small island country to become a global empire, the lifting of the walls was a closely guarded secret, only trusted with a scarce number of Gatekeepers, who trained their whole lives learning all the sparse knowledge and mechanics there was known about the things. After the empire collapsed, so did the Organisation of Gatekeepers, and the knowledge was passed down from Gatekeeper to heir in various countries across the world until all knowledge had died out. The title of Holy Gatekeeper remains a ceremonial role in some countries, even after the knowledge was lost.
Notable Gatekeepers include:
Gerwyn Auliobris
Elim Zayukharbibaat (through his father, though his father was killed before he could pass on the role)
Dzona Abodetye, (through sheer tenacity)
Discovery
Though it is not yet known how the ancient civilization that built the Breakwater Walls fell upon the material of Ice-Glass, or the method of building such great structures with it, the Walls were rediscovered in modern times after tunnels built beneath several Meraqian towns and cities were uncovered, made of the same strange material as several old structures built by the ancient civilisations that once lived on the Toreworld, like the Tomb of Sandios Pethunas in Gylarus, and other ruins of the Gylarusian Empire.
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