The Deep and the Dark
The seas of the Sundered Realm are not empty. They are not safe. And they do not forgive.
What Lurks Below
When the Sundering tore the world apart, it did more than reshape the coastlines. It opened passages to places that had been sealed since the dawn of creation — abyssal trenches that connected the material world to planes of darkness and hunger. Things came through. Things that had been imprisoned beneath the earth's crust for eons. Things that had been forgotten because remembering them was too dangerous.
The sailors of Fort Valiance have a hundred names for what lives in the deep: drowners, tidecallers, the eyeless, the always-hungry. The Sarathi have a single word: zha'keth — the devourers. They do not speak it above a whisper.
The Warlock of the Deep
Among the most feared figures on the Shattered Coast is the one known only as the Warlock of the Deep — a figure of uncertain origin who is said to have made a pact with something in the abyssal trenches. Some say the Warlock was once a Sarathi scholar who delved too deep into the ruins of Sserathis. Others claim it is something older, something that wears mortal form the way a hermit crab wears a shell.
What is known: the Warlock commands creatures of the deep. Ships that cross it vanish without wreckage. Coastal villages wake to find strange symbols carved into their sea walls — symbols that the Sserakai elders refuse to translate, saying only that they are invitations.
The Warlock has been sighted near Fort Valiance three times in the past decade. Each time, the waters of the strait ran black for a full day afterward.
Third Eye Warlocks
The Warlock of the Deep is not alone. It has... disciples. Or perhaps servants is the better word.
The Third Eye warlocks are mortals who have accepted fragments of deep power in exchange for service. They are identifiable by the vertical slit that appears on their foreheads — not a true eye, but a mark of their pact that allows them to perceive things hidden from normal sight: the currents of magical energy, the presence of deep creatures, the thin places where the world's fabric has been worn away by the Sundering.
Third Eye warlocks are hunted in most civilized places. In Fort Valiance, they are tolerated — barely — because their abilities are occasionally useful in navigating the treacherous waters of the strait. More than one merchant captain has quietly employed a Third Eye warlock as a navigator, preferring the risk of abyssal corruption to the certainty of running aground on a reef.
The Valiance Guard keeps a registry of known Third Eye warlocks within the city. The list is publicly available. It is also, everyone agrees, woefully incomplete.