Omi

Omi is an important and ancient merfolk city in the western Endless Ocean, in the deep waters west of Apporia and Tamaro Bay. Surface sailors know it chiefly through Apporian songs of the Jade Garden, but among the merfolk it is an important city of kelp forests, coral craft, manta rays, and communal memory watched over by the Sentient Ocean.

City of Kelp

Omi is built in and around a vast kelp forest. Its buildings are woven from living kelp, coral, shell, and stone, with roads and clearings winding through the undersea growth. Like other western merfolk settlements, Omi has little contact with surface peoples. The merfolk of Omi do not use a conventional land-dweller alphabet, but do record history and lore using pictograph glyphs, mosaics, and other visual signs.

The city is associated with a sacred kelp and coral garden mentioned in Apporian song as the Jade Garden. The Ballad of the Jade Garden places this garden west of Tamaro Bay, where merfolk tend jade and grow names beneath the waves. Luminastra’s Gift draws on the same rumors of merfolk who could grow names in a magical jade garden beneath the sea.