The Chelonate

"Waves lap the slabby sides of a vast turtle-shell - bigger than any cathedral. Chelonites loaf on wooden docks around the shell-sides, staring sullenly. Lamps hang like decorations in a festive butcher's window. All around you, the sea is rank with scraps of ancient flesh."

The Chelonate is an island-sized zee-turtle corpse inhabited by Monster-Hunters called Chelonites.

Live Bait

"A shell as big as a wild dream?"

The Chelonate is a settlement built on a zee-turtle corpse called the Shell. The smell of rot near the Shell can be so overpowering that it may overwhelm the mind; thanks to its influence, the Chelonites frequently duel and brawl where the stench happens to be the foulest. Despite the fact that it's located near the Gant Pole, where zee-monsters go to die, the Chelonites are very quick to point out that their ancestors valiantly slew the zee-monster they're living on, and they will point this out with whatever weapons happen to be nearby.

The Chelonites' culture is naturally based almost entirely on monster-hunting, and they regularly engage in incredibly violent hunts that can span all across the zee. According to rumor, Chelonites that "die cowards" are not permitted to rest at zee; instead they're buried on any spat of land that will accept their bodies. As monster-hunters, the Chelonites' diet is almost entirely meat-based, and includes viscera from the Gant Pole. This principle includes their beer as well, which is apparently made of eel-blood, zee-fungus, and other ingredients that are perhaps best left unspecified.

According to Chelonite tradition, one may not possess or use a name if they reside too close to the Gant Pole, for reasons unknown.

The Chelonites' violent tendencies tend to bring them into conflict with other factions of the Unterzee, including the Khanate, and they may extend these tendencies to unfortunate visitors of the Shell. They also seem to have an enmity with the inhabitants of Polythreme, and the Chelonites use agents called Sniffers and Sounders to root out any potential spies. The Chelonate has an interest in conquering Aestival, but the sunlight there naturally makes such a campaign incredibly infeasible.

The Bone Men

"The Bone Man awaits you. His face and chest are streaked with white clay. His forehead bears a glyph, in the deep code of the void. Long ago, his mother ritually severed his littlest finger."

Storm

The Bone Men are well-respected Chelonites responsible for maintaining an important temple dedicated to Storm. These warrior-priests are covered in white clay, have sigils in the Correspondence etched into their skin, and are missing their littlest fingers, which were severed by their mothers at a very young age. The Bone Men are infamous for their violent temperaments, and seem to have a direct connection with Storm himself, worshiping the god of the Roof with violent, bloody rituals. They are also extremely skilled butchers, and they can reduce almost any meat to cutlets with mind-boggling precision.

The Bone Men are responsible for hoarding the various treasures of the Chelonate within the Great Shell, including the heirlooms of Monster-Hunters deemed to be Doomed. They do not give up their treasures lightly, not even for further wealth or other hunting trophies, and they often strive to reacquire any artifacts stolen from them.

The Eater of Names

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"Zailors tell tales of the great zhip made of bones. Bones of those who are lost to the zee..."

The Eater of Names

A formidably armed priest-ship called the Eater of Names patrols the waters of the Carrion Sea near the Chelonate. Drawn by enormous worms and manned by seventy-seven Chelonite zealots, it is apparently built from the bones of the creatures it has slain. The Eater has plundered decades worth of zee-treasures, fighting endlessly in the name of the Shell and Death; in fact, each time the Eater is destroyed, a new one will inevitably rise again.

The Eater of Names' figurehead is made of gant, the color that remains when all others are eaten; its figureheads are apparently sourced from the nearby Gant Pole.

The Glory's Tale

"I've long sought the tale of the Glory's end - Glory's what we call this beast. None still live from those days when we slew her. But the saying is: the tale still lives on history's beach. Bring me that tale, zee-captain. Please."

"I broke my first shell. I roamed to the Unterzee. I feasted on monsters. I battened on whales. I grew city-vast. I sickened. The Gant Pole drew me, and there I died of age and weariness, turning on my back to rot until the hunters found me."

The Chelonites are ever proud of their ancestors' achievement in killing the Glory, the zee-turtle that would become the Chelonate. In fact, they're so proud of this feat that they occasionally host historical plays in Scrimshander depicting the great hunt. The Chelonites have bargained with the Fathomking using the event as leverage, though they are not exactly model vassals of the Fathomking and occasionally refuse to pay tribute.

The Gant Pole

However, this tale of strength and bloodshed is a fabrication, concocted by historical revisionism magnified throughout generations. The Glory was born in Parabola, where it hatched from a massive, violet egg. It later roamed throughout the Unterzee, growing more and more massive with each passing year. As it feasted on zee-beasts and hunted down entire whales, it eventually grew sick and weary, and soon found itself near the Gant Pole, where zee-beasts go to die. It turned over onto its shell to finally lay at rest, and a starving hunter later arrived at the morbid scene, founding a settlement there. The Chelonate's false pride is as vacuously empty as the Shell itself – the tribe is full of mere tomb-robbers, not champions.