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| - To survive in such waters requires great skill, but the Elves of Cothique are the finest sailors in the world. Sleek, alabaster war-catamarans prowl the coast, their lookouts ever alert for deep-spawned perils. Sky-ships, their timbers infused with magic, scout the reefs and archipelagos in search of Dark Elf raiders, while messengers mounted on the giant flying fish of the outer isles carry news landward.[1a]
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| abstract
| - To survive in such waters requires great skill, but the Elves of Cothique are the finest sailors in the world. Sleek, alabaster war-catamarans prowl the coast, their lookouts ever alert for deep-spawned perils. Sky-ships, their timbers infused with magic, scout the reefs and archipelagos in search of Dark Elf raiders, while messengers mounted on the giant flying fish of the outer isles carry news landward.[1a] In these dwindling days, most of Ulthuan's realms are inward-facing, concerning themselves with the wider world only when not doing so would invite disaster. Only the nobles of Cothique look to the wider world as a source of opportunity. This is why the later voyages of Finubar the Seafarer were conducted on ships from Cothique, for no other living mariner on Ulthuan could match the breadth of knowledge found within that realm.[1a] Cothique's cities and fortresses are more practical and of much sturdier build than those found in other realms. After all, they were designed primarily to survive the weather, rather than serve as aesthetic examples. Indeed, the realm's true treasures can be found underground, amidst the network of caves and caverns that honeycomb the region's cliff faces and valleys. It was to here that the folk of Cothique retreated during invasions of times past and, over the centuries, that which was born of necessity became a way of life.[1a] Now, many of Cothique's palaces lie beneath the surface. Their walls are the land's alabaster rock, brilliant polished and decorated with a web-work of finely wrought silver and star sapphires. No shadow falls here, for darkness is a fit companion only for Goblin warrens and the grim redoubts of the Dwarfs. Instead, Cothique's grottoes and halls are lit by the most accomplished mages of the realm. Anywhere else in the world, underground halls such as these would be under constant threat from the Skaven -- but to Ulthuan, which rests not on bedrock, but is rather held upon the waves by magic, the ratmen can make no subterranean passage.[1a] Alas, as glorious as the halls of Cothique are, the finest were lost during the dark days of the Sundering. The waters of the Eastern Ocean rose up in a mighty wave and flooded the palaces nearest to the sea. Though the waters mostly retreated -- as it did not in Tiranoc and Nagarythe -- no Elf will lightly enter those chambers, for the bitter tang of the sea and the stench of the wave-rotten dead hangs heavy about them. Indeed, Cothiquan mariners tell that the spirits of the drowned still haunt those passages, holding court amongst tapestries of tangled kelp and hoards of tarnished treasure.[1a]
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