Ocean Wide and the Breamlands

The Ocean Wide is practically a legendary one. The belief in its existence is however so widespread that very few people doubt it. It is also sometimes called the Ocean of Immesurable Peace. Nobody would ever have navigated its waters except the most famous – but unfortunately legendary – Captain Lamarck. That Pirate really existed a long time ago however and gave his name to an important island between the Archipelago of the Salmon Islands and Guinea. It is said of him that he embarked on his best Ship and, having rushed on to the Great Outward Stream… nobody would have seen him anymore at all. Well… is that so surprising?! He got from that bold act at any rate a worldwide fame…

Others however pretend he would have thus crossed the Ocean Wide and come back through the Great Inward Stream – And it is true that coming in through there seems to be easy for one who would have succeeded in going out through the Great Outward Stream… The one as well as the other are however both considered impossible.

A question for theoreticians, which few people ask themselves, comes out of that legend: the rare researchers concerned by the issue would give an entire life to get the Board Books of the Captain Lamarck and discover in them the « Key of the World », that is, to know whether it is a flat disk circled by the Great Stream or a ball or a bottle of Klein or only – Please forgive us for the expression! – its bottom or again a wired rope, a fishnet… But also: how does the Breamlands look like? Its inhabitants? Are there other lands or even continents? Ad nauseam.

At last, others, yet very few, are convinced (without proof say their contradictors without needing a great effort) that the Captain Lamarck would have discovered (and looted as much as he could) the fabulous Breamlandss – otherwise also called El Dorado throughout the Archipelago of the Curry-Bean Islands. Despite the supposed treasures of that land where « flow rivers of gold and diamonds fall like water » (or wasn't it a story with « rivers of milk and honey »?!…), extremely few are the fools who attempt such an adventure as to try to follow the hypothetical road of the Captain Lamarck…

Many more are those who prefer to believe he returned and set on searching for the treasure he would have brought back to Captain Lamarck's Island – the Treasure Island. But we shall come back to that discussion more completely in the chapter dedicated to the legends of the Known World…

Belt O' Dolly Dreams

In the Known World, scientific knowledge is actually quite limited. Progress is hindered by a large set of natural factors ; first and foremost indeed, it seems that no land rises from the sea, except those that are located on the General Map, which makes the available emerged surface quite small. And to explore it is pretty complicated.

(May I add that Voodoo is a powerful obstacle to technological progress, because it conveys its own techniques, pretty useful ones, so that other developments are less needed for. It may happen that the Lwa purposely intend to hinder technical development, so that they can keep the Known World under control. But we should tackle this question a little bit later…)

Actually, there is a neat dividing line between the Known World and Ocean Wide (if it really exists) : and that is the Belt O'Dolly Dreams. It is a shallow and perfectly still sea area. the air above it is warm and also still : there ain't a slight bit o'wind ! Ships that get lost in those parts, would better have oars and a reliable compass in order to sail back to where they come from, should they want to avoid the large seaweed meadows that linger under the surface. Phosphorescent at night, they tend, when they get in direct contact with the surface, to let loose hallucinogenic vapors derived from their sap. It is reported that those meadows shelter very beautiful creature whose hypnotic songs bring those who hear it to their end. A pretty enjoyable end, would you say, but in some places it is told that those creatures may not exist, that they're just visions inspired by the seaweed's mind expanding vapors. Anyway, very few have returned to testify but it was sufficient to explain - it seems! - the denomination of that sea which surrounds the Known World in the flowery language of the Caldo-Ann Sailors: the Belt O'Dolly Dreams…

This belt starts hundred to three hundred nautical miles from the most remote islands of the Known World (Island of the World's End, Eyr at the World's Edge, Islands of the Last Loyalty, Bermuda islands, etc.). The area that is closest to the shore is therefore sailable, just like the other coastal areas of the Known World's islands, large or small. Moreover, noone knows the exact extant of this belt. What is "known" (would be more adequate to say "supposed") is just that it is only run through in two areas, where The Ey sea and the Dee sea flow.

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