The Bay of Sweetness

East of the Forested Sea, beyond the peninsular known as The Finger, a vast wide gulf opens up in the land. Into it flow rivers bringing with them fresh rainwater deposited at the feet of distant mountains in the warm north. This carries the rich fecundity of those lands pouring into the dawn sea and filling it with vigorous life. The waters throng; the peoples living along the coast are richer than they have any right to be given their climate. But this in turn makes them prey for others.

Small city-states cluster all along the length of the bay, supported entirely by the bounty of the sea. Ostensibly human, occasional individuals among their populations are born with appearances betraying an elven lineage; families with a propensity for such qualities tend to form their political and cultural elites. Quixotic madness is also a feature of these families, manifesting as manic episodes growing in frequency and severity as old age approaches. Often these episodes involve a desire to drown, or to descend into the ocean and live on the sea bed. Legend has it that long ago a race of sea-dwelling elves mingled with the human population on the shore; this caused elven blood to be subsumed in that of the more vigorous humans, remaining only to make itself apparent as fortune dictates. Whether this is true or not nobody knows, but what is true is that on the sea bed - often in very shallow places easily accessible to divers - are built forms overgrown with seaweed and coral, resembling overgrown buildings, monuments, or tombs.

Rocky islands dot the bay itself, and here live other beings and other polities. A heptarchy of neogi petty-kings, ruling over their subject semi-aquatic puffin-headed orcs in an archipelago of seven islets. A were-walrus magician on an isolated island crafting golems from sand and seaweed for protection and companionship. Tribes of primitive cormorant-aarakocra living in filthy villages of nests lying exposed on rocks. Mad human noble exiles carrying out bizarre utopian schemes or plotting conquest with their loyalist retinues. Bands of pirates and brigands living from theft and kidnap. And much more besides. Between these islets are the shallow, fertile waters of the bay itself, mother to endless swarming undersea life and, in turn, all who live off it.