The Endless Ocean
The Endless Ocean
1. The Rust Reaches
Vast networks of oil rigs, derricks, and platforms, lashed together into living quarters.
Over decades, survivors have welded ships, scrap, and steel to them, turning them into fortress-cities.
Entire communities live suspended above the waves—rust dripping, waves crashing against steel legs.
2. Drift Havens
Mobile floating towns made from lashed freighters, barges, and scows.
They drift with the currents, sometimes docking to the Rust Reaches to trade or reinforce their hulls.
3. Stormbelts
Permanent zones of violent weather. Navigators call them “The Howls.”
Within, there are whispers of “graveyards”—clusters of wrecks caught in storm funnels, waiting to be plundered if one dares.
4. Saltspire Cliffs
Former desalination and mining facilities, now crystalline towers of salt and metal.
Dangerous to approach, but the salt harvest is worth its weight in oil.
5. The Black Trenches
Abyssal rifts where whole cities lie drowned beneath.
No one descends too deep—the pressure crushes, and stories of creatures in the dark keep divers away.
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⚓ Culture of the Endless Ocean
1. The Rustborn
People born and raised in the Rust Reaches.
They paint their rigs with bright colors and graffiti sigils to mark clan lines.
They believe “iron above, water below” is balance—steel protects them from the ocean’s wrath.
2. Trade and Currency
Fresh water and oil remain the primary currencies.
Rustborn also prize air filters, working batteries, and diving gear as luxuries.
3. Children of the Deep
Kids are trained as divers early on, first learning in shallow wreck pools before being trusted in open water.
Diving rites mark the passage into adulthood—those who surface with salvage earn their family a name.
4. Faiths and Fears
Storms are seen as omens. When lightning splits the sea, Rustborn say “The Ocean remembers.”
Some worship The Undertide, a mythical current that supposedly connects all waters.
Tales of leviathans keep salvage crews wary of the deep.
5. Pirate Factions
- The Rig Lords: Families who control the largest Rust Reaches platforms, ruling through water and fuel hoarding.
- Drifters: Nomadic fleets that lash multiple ships into wandering islands, never staying in one place.
- Saltcutters: Ruthless divers who strip derelicts bare, sometimes attacking salvage crews for spoils.
- Oil Barons: Control still-working rigs, trading fuel for protection from pirates.
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📖 Backstory of the Endless Ocean
When the seas rose and the last land sank, humanity clung to steel bones. Oil rigs and drilling platforms, once scars on the ocean, became havens. Survivors welded ships to their sides, built bridges of rust, and strung nets and gardens across beams.
Generations later, the Rust Reaches are both home and prison. The ocean rules everything—storms tear down towers, pirates raid for water, and salvage is the lifeblood of survival. Drifters wander, Rustborn endure, and everyone whispers of the day the Endless Ocean will claim even the steel itself.
