For centuries scholars and sailors alike have theorised about the origin of the unusual islands that bridge the western Poriya, but still no one knows for certain. The fact of the matter is that they exist, and they serve as a highway and haven for merchants and travellers seeking to cross the treacherous waves.
The vast expanse of the ocean is home to many spirits of wave and wind, and equally many sea-folk who would sink any ship that infringes on their waters. But the atolls, a chain of hundreds of islands, spanning thousands of miles of hostile ocean, grant humanity shelter and harbour. Ships set anchor at the islands to wait out storms, crews hide caches of supplies for future trips, and in recent years small towns have even been erected on the larger atolls, taming their lands to aid the travellers.