94828-2 RAA Outer Seas TEXT R1 Proof

The Outer Seas

The Court of the Collector Queen T here are so many mysteries and wild personalities across the endless waters of Ryn. Because of the ever-changing tides and the boundless horizons, those who have any kind of fame or infamy outside a fleet community, island kingdom, or raft city are few and far between. There are certainly grand organizations like the Black Tower Buccaneers, who conduct strange experiments in their monolithic citadels, or the Hermetic Order of the Crimson Hand, who sail the waters of Ryn providing aid to all in need. But those are large groups with ever-growing numbers who actively recruit from the ranks of seaborn and those who find themselves adrift on the tides. So for an individual to be known—and what’s more feared—even in darkened corners of the most dangerous fleet barge taverns, that person’s reputation must be truly legendary. The Collector Queen is such an individual of legendary renown. Known for her unslakable hunger for objects and oddities of power, it’s said that the ruler of the underwater city of Atlas has caused the sinking of tens of thousands of vessels for no other reason than to add items to her ever-growing hoard. The young ruler has only served as sovereign over Atlas for a decade, but in that time she has launched a bloody campaign that has spread near and far, with her seemingly endless forces dragging down and destroying ships of varying sizes, doing more damage and sowing more fear than even the largest of levi athans or powerful of storms. What’s more worrying to all those who sail the Outer Seas is that her moti vations seem to be purely based on acquisition, not needing the things she has her forces claim. She merely wants them to fulfill some kind of need to make the whole of the world above the waves part of her world deep below. Many a merchant lord has found his fortune and fleet shattered to sinking timber as the armies of Atlas have boarded them and laid claim to the cargo—and lives of those who would not bend their knee or pay tribute demanded by the Collector Queen.

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