Welcome to the Outer Seas

Across the sea of stars through timeless pathways far more accessible than most realize, is an ancient world of endless waters known by most who sail them as the Outer Seas. These strange tides dance above thousands of sunken kingdoms whose legacies were legend long before the birth of the stars of your world's sky. 

The waters of this strange oceanic world team with countless civilizations that drift above and below the waves in great fleet cities led by merchant kings, atop living islands whose inhabitants consort with gods both living and dead, and across sunken landscapes where the armies of monarchs and monsters clash in bloody battles that paint the seas in crimson hues. 

This is a world of salt and sea, a place of ancient mysteries and forbidden secrets, where the shifting tides conceal the forgotten treasures of fallen worlds and unimaginable terrors that dwell in places even nightmares fear to tread. In this place fickle seas turn against those who dare to defy them, and blood-tinged waves crash against the hulls of ships like the fists of angry gods.

SHOP PRODUCTS

This is a world of high adventure and timeless horror, where sword and sorcery collide amidst a backdrop of sails and seafoam, here the strong survive, the savvy thrive, and those who understand that everything has a price become the stuff of legends. 

Welcome to the Outer Seas.

The Setting

The World Is An Endless Ocean

The Outer Seas cover the world of Ryn with water that ranges from shallow sapphire seas to vast, murky oceans that descend sometimes 20,000 leagues or more. The golden light from the morning star Charon beams down, warming the waves and the three moons Stxy, Syax, and Syn pull upon the endless tides as they move in nearly unmappable currents across the world. 

In this aquatic world cities and civilizations that exist on the water's surface are few and far between. Most air breathing species that call Ryn home live on small, crowded islands, floating shanty towns, or in grand fleet cities that drift with the tides. 

Those who venture away from these tiny pockets of civilization can find themselves away from anything resembling land for months, or even years. The waters between these small islands of civilization are filled with roaming pirates, aquatic beasts, and things from below the waves that are both haunting and beautiful to behold. 

There Was Something Before

Life on Ryn is one of harrowing adventure and endless exploration. While there are boundless horizons to sail toward, teeming with wonders great and small, beneath the waves there are even stranger sights to behold. 

Some of these sunken places are little more than small altars with depictions of star-wandering, otherworldly beings carved into their rocky surfaces, while others are vast cities teeming with new life and haunted by the ghosts of the worlds that were long dead before the waters came to Ryn. The Hakarl deep divers tell stories of massive ship graveyards that lay in strange spiral patterns around glowing pyramids of green stone, while the Black Tide Bards sing songs of hivelike networks of glass that cling to the walls in deep sea trenches and contain long abandoned wonders that defy any known explanation.

Many lucky explorers have made their fortune trading the goods they have found in ancient ruins, and many more have met their end after some horrific fate has befallen them in the strange lost spaces that litter the seafloor.

There Are Gods Both Living And Dead

Venturing across the endless oceanic expanses with little more than your crew by your side and the hope that the winds keep filling your sales can take a lot of faith. Faith in your skills, faith in your friends, and sometimes faith in something greater than yourself. 

In the world of Ryn there are both living and dead gods who are actively currying the favor of those who would truly believe, and in most cases sacrifice something to them. 

The Living Gods are younger forces of creation who feel that glory and awe are the sweetest of fruit and give favor to any who are on the rise to fame and fortune so their stories may spread. This often leaves those who have served them loyally without blessings when they find themselves facing hard times or lacking glory or a platform to share stories of their god's power.

The Dead Gods are relics and refugees of fallen worlds who have found themselves tethered to Ryn, and willingly give their favor to those they see as the best agents to further their goals, be it power, destruction, or some unknowable ends that could boil the world sea or call forth some titanic world-ending titan who would tirelessly hunt all life great and small until Ryn was nothing more than a water graveyard for the countless lifeforms that call it home. They care not for stories and songs and look upon The Living Gods as little more than passing fancies who will soon fall to their own hubris.

Resources Are Both Plentiful And Limited

Ryn is a place full of pirates, monsters, warlords, and fiends all trying to survive from one sunrise to the next. While the endless waters teem with schools of fish and nutrient rich seaweeds and algaes that could make more than a meal for most ocean faring individuals, one of the essential requirements for survival, fresh water, is in short supply. Those who call solid land home typically live in colonies and strongholds built around naturally occurring fresh water  aquifers. These villages and trade posts are based around the bartering of fresh water and the highly valued terrestrial based fruits and vegetables that can be grown from them. These rarely occurring fonts and reservoirs of fresh water also serve as invaluable biomes for strange amphibians and mammals who call Ryn home. Transportation and storage of fresh water is a lucrative trade on the Outer Seas, and those who have the ability to conjure fresh water through magical or divine means are just as sought after by crews and pirate guilds as those who are skilled with sword or sail.

The Clawing Chaos

In this adventure, your players find themselves washed up on strange shores in a world where the stars are unfamiliar and the landscape seems to sway and move with a life of its own. As they explore this new jungle landscape, they will uncover abandoned wizard towers, carved obelisks, haunted shrines, and sunken temples all teaming with rich lore, unique artifacts, and fresh, strange horrors around every turn.

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Val Carter's Guide to Merfolk

In these pages you will find Val Carter’s notes on over 25 new merfolk; their spells, items, and artifacts; and eldrich entities who call the endless waters of the Outer Seas home. Val Carter and his service animal companion sail the endless waters of Ryn on a quest to talk to, catalog, and understand all the creatures who call the Outer Seas home.

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Black Coral Citadel

Behold the Black Coral Citadel, where sunken secrets and saltwater screams collide in a maelstrom of undead mayhem. This is no ordinary dungeon dive, this is a hydropunk plunge into the ruins of a once-proud guard post that now pulses with the eerie glow of witch lights and the vengeance of forgotten souls.

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