Strange Seas (need help designing strange waters)

[Sigurd]

Electrical storms and shifting planes

Electrical charges could be generated by the strange minerals etc in the remaining liquid. The charges might explode as storms of light and colour. Perhaps the very rare soup is being agitated by some random planar activity. Sucking rare elements and shifting parts of the sea into and out of uninhabitable realms.

Ghosts or trapped souls and stranded outsiders might complete the picture.

Sigurd

 

[Ry]

Great ideas - I particularly like the phosphorescent bacteria. But I think the most crucial thing is that the sea isn't just dangerous to swim in - it has to be pratically impassable by boat, since the city in the Silt Sea is supposed to have had no contact with the mainland. This seems problematic if everything floats better in such a sea.

 

[Tonguez]

- it has to be pratically impassable by boat, since the city in the Silt Sea is supposed to have had no contact with the mainland. This seems problematic if everything floats better in such a sea.

non-neutonian fluid
its a liquid if you stay still but as soon as you move (apply pressure) it becomes a solid.

so boats can't move through it, and pedastrians can't camp on it without drowning

 

[Quickleaf]

Tonguez, what a cool idea!
The way I visualize the non-neutonian sea working in combination with the Silt Sea idea is that as soon as a boat (or a character) causes the water to move, it rapidly crystallizes around them into a hard silicate matrix - the boat or character is effectively pinned until the matrix dissolves back into water. Of course, then you've got to move to escape, and you're pretty much stuck. However the salt water is very buoyant, so a character can even get a little sleep if floating on their back with a flotation device.

So, how can you get around this? Perhaps extremely slow or supernaturally graceful movements minimize the amount of crystalization that occurs, allowing one to move through the water, albeit at a very slow pace. Flying pterodactyls might be equipped to face the ocean journey, loaded with flotation devices. Another pterodactyl carries the food & water. When they land in the sea to rest, they get stuck in the silicate crystals. Taking off again, they break free.

This would explain why the island city is so isolated.

 

[Breakstone]

Tonguez, what a cool idea!
The way I visualize the non-neutonian sea working in combination with the Silt Sea idea is that as soon as a boat (or a character) causes the water to move, it rapidly crystallizes around them into a hard silicate matrix - the boat or character is effectively pinned until the matrix dissolves back into water.

Heh. I could see with this some tricky wizard inventing shoes that refuse to stick to the chrystallization. Soon enough, you have people skiing upon the rapidly-chrystalizing water.