This atlas details the major settlements, freeports, fortresses, pirate dens, and sacred sites that shape the geopolitics and pearl economy of the Estes Sea. Locations are grouped by region.
Faction Control: Shogunate & Imperial Dynasty
Type: Militarized Island-City
Significance: Western Naval Headquarters
A volcanic bastion carved into black basalt cliffs. It houses the Western Ocean’s primary naval academy, Meito armory vaults, and the personal fleet of Admiral Tetsu-no-Mura. Its sea gates open only on pearl-powered schedule shifts.
Known for: precision weapon-smiths, strict curfews, and pearl-sealed prisons.
Type: Capital Island-State
Significance: Administrative center of Imperial Pearl Law
A floating palace-city built atop chained stone-isles. Every district is arranged around a ceremonial Pearl Atrium, where Imperial regulators classify pearls before redistribution.
Known for: immaculate gardens, political assassinations, and perfect record-keeping.
Type: Sword School (Meito) / Sacred Ground
Significance: Seat of the current Sword God
A pristine temple complex suspended across frost-bridges and cliffside pavilions overlooking a permanent snow squall. Training yields the world’s most refined Meito-style sword saints.
Known for: absolute silence, lethal entrance exams, and the Swan God’s observation tower.
Type: Yoto + Cursed Sword School
Significance: Fiercest entry trials in the world
Commanded by Lisa “Black Teeth” Garnet.
Students eat the monastery’s infamous “dirty rice” and fermented black paste that stains the teeth—an oath of belonging.
Known for: cursed-blade duels, privateer patrol rotations, and ritualized insult combat.
Faction Control: Buccaneer Confederacy
Type: Buccaneer Capital
A port built inside a hollowed iceberg cathedral. Warmed by pearl furnaces and defended by rotating ice floes.
Known for: political knife-fights, Kokuto dueling arenas, and stormproof drydocks.
Type: Floating Captains’ Council
Seven massive Baelwood hulls chained together as a drifting capital. Each hull belongs to one Buccaneer Captain.
Known for: contradictory laws, spontaneous executions, and legendary revelries.
Type: Yoto Archive
An abandoned school of meditation, now half-buried under glacial ice. Yoto resonance still lingers.
Known for: portable tomes that won’t stay still, echoing footsteps, and freezing hallucinations.
Faction Control: Epsilon Commercial Sovereignty + Bounty Hunters
Type: Epsilon Capital Port
A towering trade-plate rising from abyssal anchors.
The richest non-state port in the world, where pearl value is standardized by the Official Ledger.
Known for: ruthless contracts, auction-blades, and the Spire of Arbitration.
Type: Deepwater Military Dock
Built directly atop a trench that hums with Giant Pearl resonance.
Bounty Hunter guilds operate from fortified towers surrounding the Gate.
Known for: trench winds, iron-coded laws, and descent cages that creak at night.
Type: Neutral Sovereign Territory
A colossal stone column-city rising from the sea floor to the sky. Six Chairs maintain absolute neutrality within its boundaries.
Known for:
Residences carved into geometric spirals
Pearlward marketplaces
Mako Redhand’s surgical amphitheater
Nugget Parlor’s Titan-Forged security fleet moored below
No violence is tolerated near the Pillar.
Faction Control: Independent Pirates
Type: Pirate Freeport
An enormous crescent-shaped port maintained by tradition, bribery, and brute strength.
Known for: runaway swordsmen, pearl gamblers, and duels fought on roofs at sunset.
Type: Rogue Shipyard
A lagoon-city hidden inside a labyrinth of salt spires.
Shipwrights here specialize in figurehead repair and smuggling Giant Pearl fragments.
Known for: illegal auctions, brilliant mechanics, and vanishing bridges.
Type: Shipwreck Expanse / Sacred Site
A coral field littered with ancient hulls. Pearls embedded in the coral glow at night, drawing both hunters and beasts.
Known for: silent water, drifting lights, and unpredictable tidal illusions.
Type: Forbidden Island
Home of the Great Monkey Alabasta—artisan, smith, and legendary beast.
His pearl-forged sword rests in a moss-covered shrine.
Known for: strange metalwork, serene wildlife, and absolute taboo against violence.
Faction Control: None
Type: Broken Realspace Hazard
Pockets of time-warped water surrounded by floating voidglass shards.
Known for: ships splitting soundlessly, memories bending, and pearl storms that melt hulls.
Type: Resonance Maelstrom
A permanent cyclone of fractured Meito energy.
Navigators record whispers carried on the wind that mimic lost loved ones.
Known for: false lighthouses, dead compasses, and uncharted islands appearing and vanishing.
Faction Control: Unknown
Type: Abandoned Lunar Port
Ancient stone causeways arc toward a fog wall. Some inscriptions imply pre-pearl civilizations.
Known for: lunar echoes, pearl inertness, and sleepwalking sailors.
Type: Ruined Fortress
A fortress where every sound dies instantly.
No pearl resonance functions within its walls.
Known for: impossible architecture, motion-triggered shadows, and missing explorers.
_Faction Control: Mixed — Neutral Zone*
Type: World Navigational Center
A pearl-powered, multi-floor lighthouse projecting global resonance patterns across the sea.
Used by navigators to track migrations, political borders, and stellar alignments.
Known for: rotating prism floors and oracular tide forecasts.
Type: Pilgrim Island
A sacred place visited by Powder Kegs and Titan-Forged initiates.
Pearlwrights claim the island hums with a Giant Pearl buried under basalt.
Known for: black sands, echoing caves, and visions during meditation.