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Questions/Question 385

Hello mods!

I had a quick question in regards to Water's Edge and the ocean itself. I'm assuming that the water has been cleaned up a little bit since the age of using Katalyth as an energy source, but if a character were to venture into the water there on the beach, what would they expect?

I'm wondering kind of about since there's Katalyth on the sea bed, how far you have to go out until you start feeling the effects of it, if there's any notable fish in the water or if there's some sea creatures that might come up to the coast. Sea-faring monsters are referenced in the FAQ here, so do they ever come near the city? How big are we talking? Are there any smaller monsters in the sea that Karteria would know about or see on a regular basis?

The waters of Water's Edge are ostensibly clean- tidied up from a history of coal/oil usage, and close to shore are free of Katalyth as well.

Fishing does still happen as a profession, though the boats are very small and stick close to shore (never losing sight of land, and remaining close to the Karterian barrier, besides). A character who's a good swimmer could safely reach those depths- and would be able to find fish and assorted sea-life there. It is not spectacularly abundant, but it is there. At the actual shoreline, there is very little life.

Any further out is considered too dangerous to the locals, and proper sea-faring ships are abandoned and rotting in the dock. Once you're out that far, Katalyth presumably lays at the ocean bed, though it's not as though anyone has gone deep enough (and survived) to find it. Were a character to make it to the open ocean, they would feel the emotional effects at the surface- and the further out one ventured, the worse they would become.

Sea monsters don't regularly come close to shore- they were noticed back when sailing was still possible, and blamed for any number of vanished ships. There haven't been any sightings in years, with the last coming almost 40 years back- and it was already dead. It looked something like a cross between a swordfish and an octopus, was almost 30m in length, and washed up on shore north of the city. It appeared emaciated, but unharmed apart from being dead; there's likely to be pictures of it available as newspaper clippings in library archives.

Back then too, there were already signs of creatures out there mutating, of entire reef structures changing, distorting. After this long unattended, it's hard to know how far they've come.