“The slightest breeze stirs up a silvery pall of dust that
clings to the surface like a fog. It becomes impossible to tell
where the silt-laden air ends and the dustbed begins. When
the wind blows more strongly, as it often does, the Sea of
Silt becomes a boiling cloud of dust, the edges tinged with
crimson sunlight. On such a day, a traveler near the sea
cannot see more than a few feet in any direction. The dust
coats his clothes, his face, the inside of his nose, and even
his lungs. He cannot see the ground or the sky, and when
he walks, his feet drag through inches of thick silt. He grows
disoriented, and it becomes an easy matter for him to
wander into the sea and disappear forever.”
—The Wanderer’s Journal
The Sea of Silt is a great dust sink that extends for
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles eastward from
the shores of the Tyr Region. Long ago it was a great
sea of water, vast and deep, but now the shore slopes
down to meet what looks like an endless plain of gray
dust. On a calm day, it seems that one could walk out
onto the plain as if it were fine sand, but the silt is
too light to support a human’s weight and too deep to
wade for any distance. The Sea of Silt is an impossible
barrier to travel, passable only along its margins by
silt skimmers or waders that remain in shallow dust.
In addition to natural hazards, those who brave
the sea must contend with the monstrous creatures
that dwell in and around the silt. Tentacled silt horrors prowl the deeps, and giants roam the shallows,
walking on secret roads only they know. Even the
islands in the Sea of Silt offer as much peril as safe
haven. Their isolated locations make them ideal
hideouts for unscrupulous types who don’t want their
activities to be observed, and the austerity of life on
the islands turns many inhabitants to savagery.
Like the Ringing Mountains to the west and the
Southern Wastes to the south, the Sea of Silt forms
one of the borders of the Tyr Region. For most people,
the sea effectively marks the end of the world; no traveler has crossed its emptiness and returned to tell the
tale. Attempts to circumnavigate the silt are likewise
perilous—far to the north, a traveler faces impassable
fjords and chains of active volcanoes that bar the
way. To the south, the traveler ventures into desolate
regions of salt flats and sandy wastes, bereft of life or
shelter. In that direction, the sea appears to continue
for thousands of miles without narrowing or coming
to an end. It is a daunting barrier, to say the least.
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