The seas to the south of the Continent are free of the terrible storms that regularly roll in out of the Stormwrack Ocean.

The few islands in the region, all exclusively volcanic and fairly small, are surrounded by small reefs and were fashioned out of the living rock to be nearly perfect harbors to shelter ships. Though they aren’t able to support large numbers of people for long periods of time, they are the only available locations to collect water, food, and repairs on long fishing, serpent-hunting, and trading voyages into or through the Seas.

While the region is home to some terrifyingly large sea creatures, it can still be safer than sailing through or near the Jadefang Archipelago, and so some merchant captains with expertise in deep-water navigation prefer to sail from island to island instead of risking an opportunistic pirate spotting them from the Archipelago.

The ancient Stormbreakers, standing a mile tall on the edges of the Sea, are responsible for the relative calm of the Southern Seas. Crafted by the Old Gods eons before the Godswar, the titanic monoliths jut out of the sea like enormous spears, constantly surrounded by a swirling nimbus of fog and clouds. When the terrible hurricanes of the Stormwrack approach, the nearest Stormbreakers begin to glow a bright sea-green and the nimbus of air around them swirls faster and faster, eventually reaching flesh-rending speeds as the monoliths siphon energy from the hurricane. What eventually passes through the ring of Stormbreakers is still a true storm, but no longer one that guarantees devastation for anything in its path.

Before the Godswar, the Southern Seas were the naval playground of the Old Gods, who sent fleets of mortals to wage pointless battles against each other in a cruel form of wargame. During the Godswar, the few ships that were south of the equator were left to their own devices, their crews eventually settling on the sparse islands scattered across the Seas.

The Stormbreakers around the Continent were all destroyed during the Godswar, leaving the mortals who survived the fall of the Old Gods to find ways to survive the hypercanes that blew in off the Stormwrack Ocean. While some study of the surviving Stormbreakers has been made over the millennia since, the best that mortals have been able to manage to replicate their function are Stormwall rituals, which require significant investment every month during the hurricane season in order to deflect and disperse hypercanes into something more survivable.

The five islands of the Seas were raised out of the seabed and shaped into harbors to support the Old Gods’ fleets, and though the millennia have not been kind to them they continue to provide a haven to small populations of mortal sailors and fishermen. Though they are critical hubs in maintaining a naval presence in the Southern Seas, their isolation and small size means that the nations who lay claim to them (usually the Vauldan Empire, whoever is occupying the Jadefang Archipelago at the moment, or the Cerulean League) have only a tenuous grasp on them at any given time.