Salt

Out here, a captain needs all the help he can get. Even from sad strange gods of farewells. [...] That night, as you stand on the foredeck, a soft breeze comes out of the East, the Salt's direction; tousles your hair; passes.

Salt is one of the three gods of the Unterzee.

The Traveller

Of the gods of the Zee, Salt is the most elusive, said to dwell beyond the horizon. It is the god of farewells, and may be the embodiment of the Zee itself. Its speech is a light across the water, a sea breeze, a splash in the distance - always from the East, calling fellow travellers toward it. It is always approaching, but never arriving. It can provoke an intense sadness as it passes, and those who anger it might find their families driven to violence.

Where its voice sings, a white zee-bat might follow. Where its influence is felt, a message is often found: TRAVELLER RETURNING.

Salt is feared and worshipped by zailors, who give it their stories and secrets, and call its wrath upon those who wrong them. It also punishes those who steal from shipwrecks.

Who is Salt?

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Salt is a Judgment. It is now in exile in the Neath, but before it came here, the White asked it a favor: to find what the Sun had hid (probably his daughter Stone). It promised a treasure at the end of the search, and perhaps something else. Salt accepted because it sought something it could not find between the stars, and entered the Neath, at a terrible cost. It saw Stone's light and found it appetizing, but she was too far away, so instead it sated its hunger by corresponding with her. At some point during this time, but long before the Bazaar came to the Neath, it made a treaty with the Presbyterate. Eventually it made the castle of Frostfound to record its story,, shed its past and future in the place now called Kingeater’s Castle, and went East to change further and shear itself.

Amid the forests and the mountains of the East, it dreams of the stars it left behind, and and forget that it no longer is by cotemplating the land there. It is now perpetually in movement and yet standing still, calling those who wish to explore the last horizon. One day, it will rise to fight the White - but there is no happy ending.

Salt is sometimes called the Sun-Beneath-the-Sea.

What lies East?

"We will sail East, and the islands will fall behind. The zee will be troubled by greater waves. The false-stars will pale, until the Neath-roof grows invisible above. New scents will prickle the air: something like spice and something like pine."

They say the zee turns from peligin to a deep green, brightening further as one goes. They call the place on the edge of the East the Deconstruction, where all sound becomes deafening silence thanks to Salt's light. Even the false-stars do not go this far; indeed, all light here is bent by the weight of the roof, until it reaches a breaking point and time penetrates into space. They say that the land that lies beyond the silence is a land of golden beaches, verdant forests, azure rivers, and great mountains with snowy caps; the winds that blow westward from this place carry the scent of pine trees. This is the Last Horizon, a land that a lucky few may glimpse while looking East; but no one knows whether it truly exists, let alone whether it may be explored...