The Call of Anthem: Surviving the Coarse Sea

The **Call of Anthem: Surviving the Coarse Sea** is a survival book written by Grushmash the walker of skies. The book contains multiple chapters on surviving the Coarse Sea. Including an introduction by the author, a list of equipment to bring. Where to find water. How to find food. Finding adequate shelter.

## Contents

### **Introduction by Grushmash**

Before we come to the core of this book I Grushmash would like to introduce the reader as to how this book came to be. Many readers know that an Orc is required to serve in the Orcish armies from age 16 until 26. Some orcs go home to Hilal but I had found my taste of adventure. This has led me exploring vast amounts of Astrohanasia.

At the age of 42 I found myself in Scorch Gate. An old orc yet still strong. Not afraid of adventure I signed up to join one of the many tri-fan galleons heading out into the Coarse Sea. While a risky job it was quite lucrative.

Here I stayed for 8 years and learned wise lessons on how to survive the blazing hot rough sands south of Scorch Gate. Now as an even older orc at the age of 61 I write this book for any adventure or crew of a tri-fan galleon who wants to head out into the Coarse Sea.

Much of the advise is based on personal experience and lessons thought by fellow tri-fan galleon crew. The crew consisted of many other races, humans, elves. Every race known to us can be found on those ships. This book hence gives general advise for any race to survive in the Coarse Sea.

This book will contain multiple chapters. The first chapter will be about essential equipment to bring to the Coarse Sea. Chapter two will be general advice which WILL save your lives if followed properly. The later chapters will focus on finding extra water (chapter 3), finding extra food (chapter 4) and finding shelter from the scorching sun (chapter 5).

### **Chapter 1: Essential Equipment**

Anyone daring to set sail in the Coarse Sea will absolutely need to bring the following items, no exceptions! Unless you want to find yourself death within the hour.

* Water and plenty of it!
	+ I have seen many bring not enough water. Even my own kin, who after years of time in the orcish armies should know better. I can not stress this enough, anyone race needs to drink about half more water than usual will performing mild activities! Also keep in mind that a Tortle in general will need to drink more than a gnome or dwarf. Keep your race and the race of your crew members in mind when bringing water. Overall I recommend to bring three times more water than when going on a usual trip.

* Food
	+ Food is actually of less importance to bring to the Coarse Sea than water. Eating food will make you actually more thirsty as your requires water to process it. Nonetheless no race can skip on a meal. That is why I recommend bringing foods that will also hydrate you. A good soup can be made ingredients found in the desert (more in chapter 2).
* Protective clothing
	+ Bringing the right clothes will be essential when going to the Coarse Sea. I will have to disappoint my fellow Orcs and also the Dwarves. Heavy armour should not be brought to the desert! It is cumbersome and will boil you up so much that we can cook food on your dead body. You will want to bring clothes made out of lighter materials and cover up every part of your body. While you might keep a bit cooler with rolled up sleeves, the sand, which is as sharp as a finely crafted Dwarven blade, will make you think twice. It is also of importance to wear some kind of goggles around they eyes. If you need more protection than some light cloth can provide you I recommend getting your hands on Sand Shark leather. Expensive but certainly worth the investment, any good captain will equip their crew with this material. This fine leather will make sure you can prevent a chupacabra blade from killing you.

* Compass and maps
	+ A compass pointing to the Stone of Anthem is of vital importance for finding your way around the Coarse Sea. This compass will point towards the magnetic fields of the Stone of Anthem located in the center of the Coarse Sea. Without this compass you will surely get lost and left to rot in the hot desert sun until some Death Worm comes across to eat your corpse. If possible get a map to the area you are travelling to. Most major trade routes are mapped with locations of nearby desert towns (abandoned or not) and locations of underground aquifers.

* Weapons
	+ You might think you do not need any weapons in the fiery desert known as the Coarse Sea. However nothing less is true. You will want to defend yourself from Sand Sharks or occasional chupacabra raiding parties. Stock up on extra bolts and arrows, but do not think you are capable of taking down a Death Worm. Thinking otherwise will get you killed.
* Mirror
	+ One might think a mirror is only useful for the richest of Scorch Gate so they can look at themselves all day. However a small mirror is a useful item to reflect the sunlight and attract attention from a Tri-fan galleon passing by in case you somehow got stranded. Be warned to not have the mirror out at all times, or you might attract attention from chupacabras.
* Way to make a fire
	+ Be it a someone who can cast a spell or someone who has a pair of matches. A fire will keep you warm during the night. Materials to light a fire should be easy to gather. Strip some wood of your crashed tri-fan galleon or find some dry shrubbery out in the wastes.

This is but a short list of essential items. Bringing other common adventuring gear for example rope is recommended. You will never know when you might need it. The next three chapters will highlight ways to find water, food and shelter under the circumstance that you either got lost in the desert or your ship got wrecked for whatever reason.

### **Chapter 2: General advice**

Got your equipment ready? Good! If not go back and read first chapter again and get the equipment you zangilaa! You should never ever set out without any careful preparation. I can not repeat this often enough, too many times have I seen ill-equipped crews setting out into the Coarse Sea for there bones, picked clean of any flesh, to be found again.

Always know where you are at any time when setting into the Coarse Sea. Regularly check the map for any landmarks you recognize. You do not want sail by your potential destination to then die of dehydration or starvation if you are lucky.

Strip your mode of transport of some wood. This wood can be used to make a campfire to cook food if you manage to find it. Wood from your ship can also be used to make a shelter (more on that in chapter 5).

See or sense a desert storm coming? Hide you fool, hide as good as you can. The rough sand will shred your clothing and skin to pieces if not protected. Even hiding in the bottom of your sand-botter will provide some protection.

Stay underneath the shadow, a rock or even some clothing can help you protect you from the sun.

Do not drink all the water you have at once! Ration that stuff since water is the most valuable resource you will have in the desert. Instead check what colour you are releasing from your nether regions. Is it piss yellow? Drink some more, as white as the desert sands? You have had enough.

Keep quiet! Talk only with other survivors if absolutely necessary. Talking will increase your energies usages and in turn making you more dehydrated. In general conserve your energy movement.

Stay in a nice shelter. The day time is too hot to travel in, limit your travels if doing any during the sunset and sunrise. Do not travel during the night, the temperatures are too cold and you do not want to encounter any nightly creatures which lurk around in the Coarse Sea.

Are you planning a trip towards hopefully civilization? Mark down where you started and the way you are travelling, this way someone can find you if they stumble upon your old shelter. I hope for you that the people who stumble across your shelter are not chupacabras or goblins. Actually do hope for goblins they might just ransom you. You can also use the markings to backtrack in case that is needed. Also pick a landmark in the desert and use that for navigation.

### **Chapter 3: Water**

This chapter will discuss finding those delicious spare drops of water you need to survive. I hope that you brought some water along because to find water you need water. Without any energy your skin will slowly dry out, not even a crazed person will want to use your skin as leather. If somehow all the water you brought got destroyed you will need to find some.

#### Finding Water

The first step is always to orientate yourself! Have a map? Check if you recognize landmarks. Locate any known water sources on your map and see if you can reach them with your current supplies. Finding a nearby town is an absolute priority! If you stranded just outside a mining camp make your way to it, they will have all the supplies you need.

Now lets say that you foolishly did not bring a map or it somehow got destroyed, here are some tips on finding water in a place you can barely find any. Search for any lower lying valleys or canyons, these will have a chance of containing water. Remember gravity acts on water too so lower areas are important to find. If you find an area with the entrance facing north your chances of finding water increase a thousand fold. Check the skies for any birds or other flying creatures, they might just be flying to a source of water.

Keep your eye out for vegetation. Where plants grow there has to be water. The greener the plant to better, do not go digging around some dried out bushes unless you want to eat sand for the night. But then you might as well do not bother looking for the few dried out plants since there is enough sand around you.

When closer to the Sand Shield Mountains you might be lucky and find a dried out riverbed, just some small amount of digging might net you some water just hidden below the surface.

If you have not been able to found anything of the above you can try and turn over some rocks, just maybe there is some water located under there.

#### Digging for Water

Al right you have found a potential spot to dig for that delicious sandy water. What to do now? Just start digging right? Well yes you could do that like a zangilaa or setup the optimal conditions for getting water. Wait for a cooler part of the day before you start digging. This is to make sure you sweat less and therefore make your body lose less water. You do not want to lose lots of body sweat while digging because it would be waste to lose body water when you barely find any regular water. Your best bet to find groundwater is early in the morning.

Now start digging the dampest soil you can find. First create a small narrow hole just below the surface. Expand the hole a bit do not make it bigger than half a meter for now. If lucky some water might start going into the hole if not keep digging. Now wait for the hole to fill. This might take some time, so get some rest or return later if you have the supplies to spare. If successful immediately store ALL the water in a container. do not let any of it go to waste by just letting it sit there, because sooner than you might think and all the water has evaporated.

#### Drinking water

The final step is to try and purify the water before drinking. Boil it, use magic, whatever works for you. You do not want to drink impure water at the risk of getting sick, before you know it you are throwing up all over the hot sands losing anything you ingested and that would be a waste.

### **Chapter 4: Food**

Did you just crash and thought to yourself I could sure use a bit to eat right now? That is all fine but I have to ask you if you did read chapter 3 about finding water first. Because if not go back and read it right now you zangilaa. Finding water is your biggest priority do not go searching for food unless you have plenty of water and when I say plenty I mean enough water to serve a small town enough to drink for a year! Now lets say you have found enough water. My first tip is to stay generally inactive, because even then you can survive without food for a good amount of time. But in case your stomach does get a little bit too noisy you have arrived at the right chapter.

Despite what one might think, it is possible to find food in the scorching hot sands. Finding a source of water as mentioned above is also a good start in finding edible plants or animals. A common plant found is a Bare Apple. A plant that taste bitter but is edible none the less. The seeds can be cooked to remove the bitter taste, to be then eaten directly or be put in a soup. The flowers also have useful properties, when ground down they can be used to make a nasty laxative. Do not worry about accidentally touching the flower, itself can not give you the need to take a giant shit!

Sandberries are an other common plant found on the coasts of the Coarse Sea. The yellow berries while bitter can be brewed into a soothing tea which can be used as a remedy for insomnia. I do not recommend eating these berries, unless you want to travel the rest of days with a foul bitter taste in your mouth.

Aside from plants that grow in the Coarse Sea one might also be able to find a form of meat. Many creatures call the Coarse Sea their home. One might think that finding a Death Worm will be their grace to some fine meat. First of all good luck trying to kill one and second of all if you find a dead Death worm their meat will long be rotten in under the hot sun. No lets say you somehow find a fresh Death Worm do not even begin to think about eaten there might. It taste more leathery in texture than most leathers and its meat is also very crunchy which you think might be a plus but the crunchy taste comes from the sand it has dug in. Better skip this one.

Speaking of sandy tasting meat, every type of meat found must be cleaned with plenty of water before eating it, that is if you want to avoid the taste of sand. Water being so precious makes eaten meat less useful than thought. However some meats are still edible while a bit sandy just not Death Worm meat. Lets take a look at more edible meat shall we? The Sand Shark provides not only fine meat but even finer leather, if you somehow manage to survive the Coarse Sea and bring back the leather you are in for making a good amount of money. As with any meat cook it before eating it, this should be common practice with anything found in the Coarse Sea. If you were dumb enough to bring full plate armour you can start cooking the meat on that otherwise use wood scavenged from your ship or a spell to make fire.

### **Chapter 5: Shelter**

For once I will not get angry at you for skipping a chapter however if you have not read the previous chapters I highly recommend going back and reading those. Now you might have opened up this chapter because a bloody sandstorm is approaching you. In that case, great news this chapter is for you.

While the Coarse Sea is mostly lose particles of sand, hard cover can be found. The first piece of shelter available to you will most likely be the ship you have sailed with. Tri-fan galleons make for excellent cover and wood to burn to stay warm during the cold desert nights. If the ship is beyond repair consider stripping down part of the ship to reinforce another part and create a strong defensive point. This will provide better protection to attack from chupacabras or an approaching sandstorm. Speaking of sandstorms, cover every hole big or small where ever you might be hiding. You do not want any of the coarse sand coming in. As mentioned before it is bad for your lungs and you do not want any sand in your food or water supply.

Your tri-fan galleon has more pieces you can salvage besides the wood. Consider taking down the sail and using it as makeshift clothing, covering holes and other odd jobs that might require a flexible material. The sail is very useful for covering a large area, either to keep yourself protected from the sun or to try and prevent hot sand from blowing in.

No lets say you have salvaged whatever you can form your ship and can not use it as any further cover. Consider searching for a large rock formation and apply the same principle as with searching water, stick to the north of the rocks so you can have the most shade during the day. Keeping you and whoever is travelling with you cool.

Alternatively if no rocks are nearby to be found and you need shelter; dig in the ground and try to pack sand together to harden it. This will create a makeshift cave over which you can span a sail to cover you. In the worst case scenario where you absolutely need to find shelter immediately, hiding behind a tree will have to do. Of course for you I hope you prepared better so it does not come that far.

But remember most of all: there is no hiding from a Death Worm, maybe if you are on top of some rocks in a canyon type of deal. My best tip for surviving a Death Worm encounter is to hid near or in a hardy structure. Rocks, caves anything the closer you are to them the less wiggle room a worm has to catch you.

For any other encounters with, chupacabras, Goblins or pirates I recommend using your brain and finding shelter using the tips above or to think for yourself in how you would find cover. Now you might actually want to consider being found by pirates, that is if you have the coin either on you or back in Scorch Gate. For a nice sum of money they will take you to the safety. Now some pirates out there follow a different code and will bring you to safety for even no fee. Despite having a scary name some of them are quite friendly.