Authored under directive of Malrix Morvain, 1st Chair of the Pearlwright Collegium
The world is mapped in seven concentric maritime regions, each defined by resonance behavior, climate, and political occupation. Traditional cartography fails due to shifting islands, migrating biomes, and vertical ocean structures; thus the Collegium employs a Three-Axis Mapping Standard:
Axis I — Horizontal Sea (surface geography)
Axis II — Substructural Sea (Mid-Sea Labyrinth)
Axis III — Abyssal Descent (the Cradle)
All official maps must display all three axes. Any navigator using a single-layer map is considered reckless.
Listed from West to East, then North to South.
Governance: Shogunate & Imperial Dynasty
Seat Cities: Kayo-shima Fortress, Imperial Pearl Court
Primary Threats: Privateer fleets, volcanic Meito surges
A dense archipelago of volcanic islands, defensive straits, and fortified channels. The Western Ocean remains the most politically rigid region of the world, its ports patrolled by state-funded Privateers and its waters saturated with elemental Meito dust. Trade is reliable, travel is dangerous, and outsiders are watched.
Governance: Buccaneer Confederacy
Seat Cities: Frosthold Anchorage, The Seven Prows
Primary Threats: Ice Leviathans, Yoto storms, resonance mirages
Floating ice-shelves and shattered tundra rocks form a jagged crown around the northern world. Buccaneer strongholds overlook abyssal cracks where pearls freeze in crystalline clusters. Travel is limited to reinforced hulls and skilled helmsmen.
Governance: Epsilon Commercial Sovereignty
Seat Cities: Highport Ledger, Abyssal Gate
Primary Threats: Kraken migrations, trench cyclones, trade-war blockades
Deep-water trenches cut this region into winding channels. Bounty Hunters operate under Epsilon’s sanction, controlling sea lanes with brutal efficiency. Merchant fleets fund extensive pearl extraction along the trench walls.
Governance: Unclaimed / Pirate-Dominated
Seat Cities: Rum's End, Sea-Thief Haven
Primary Threats: Great Pearl Beast breeding zones, meteorological instability
A chaotic expanse of tropical islands, broken reefs, and vast warm-water stretches. Pirate domains rise and fall weekly. Pearl-biome diversity peaks here; nearly every pearl type can be found in the region’s shifting currents.
Governance: None
Seat Cities: None
Primary Threats: Pearl Hurricanes, drifting stone-islands, resonance fractures
A global equatorial line of destruction. Weather systems collapse on themselves. Resonance storms tear open temporary voids. No settlement survives more than a season.
Governance: Unknown
Seat Cities: Lost or mythological
Primary Threats: Spherical fog-walls, dead resonance zones, vanishing islands
Sailors describe this as a place the sea “swallows sound.” No major faction holds territory. Ships that enter frequently vanish; those that return report time dilation and memory distortion.
Governance: Shared by all factions
Seat Cities: The Collegium Pillar (Neutral), Lighthouse of Vess
Primary Threats: Diplomatic tensions, pearl smuggling routes, territorial contests
The central trade nexus of the world. The Pearlwright Collegium maintains strict neutrality and enforces no-violence statutes within a defined radius of the Pillar.
These regions exist directly beneath surface coordinates but must be mapped separately due to vertical displacement.
Beneath the Western Ocean.
Caverns of blue-glowing Meito vents. Navigation relies on resonance markers embedded into cavern walls.
Beneath the Southern Archipelago.
Kokuto-saturated rivers create unpredictable aggression in fauna and pearl hunters.
Beneath the Polar Ocean.
Sound behaves erratically; communication systems fail without pearl dampeners.
Central intersection of the three layers.
Used by Great Pearl Beasts for migration; ships require reinforced hulls.
Mapped only by inference, never directly.
Resonance readings imply pearl formation occurs here.
No human descent recorded without fatality.
Massive fossil beds of unknown species.
Pearl clusters grow in spiral patterns out of the remains.
A region where resonance collapses entirely.
Weapons, pearls, and tools become inert.
Believed to be the birthplace of Giant Pearls.
Activity patterns suggest tectonic structures with artificial geometry.
Every official world map must include four overlay layers:
Political Overlay – faction borders, naval patrol zones
Pearlflow Overlay – directional mapping of pearl-biome migration
Beast Migration Overlay – patterns of Great Pearl Beasts
Hazard Overlay – storms, fractures, regions of ongoing conflict
Failure to maintain updated overlays is grounds for suspension of navigator license under Collegium law.
Pearls migrate across the sea according to resonance currents. The strongest migrations originate from:
Polar Ocean → Yoto Coldflow
Western Ocean → Meito Fireline
Southern Archipelago → Mixed drift
Abyssal Cradle → Uncontrolled upward surges (rare but catastrophic)
Pearl biomes never remain static.
All maps must be renewed yearly.
Observed patterns include:
Kraken Routes → Northern Abyssal → Everfall
Golden Kingfish Ascents → Mid-Sea → Sunlit waterfalls
Glacial Elk Drifts → Polar Ocean → Whispering Vaults
Brass Starling Orbits → Western Ocean → Shattered Belt perimeter
Any sighting of a Great Pearl Beast requires immediate chart revision.
All navigators must adhere to the following:
Cross-layer travel requires Collegium certification
Ships must carry at least one pearl-dampening slab
Weather anomalies take priority over political borders
No vessel may cross the Shattered Belt without resonance anchors
Maps older than 18 months are considered dangerously obsolete
This primer defines the foundational structure of the world.
The seas shift. Islands move. Pearl biomes breathe.
No cartographer captures the exact world twice.
Those who navigate must know:
the map is a living thing, and it forgets those who misunderstand it.