#sextant

PERSUASION (2022)

Swordtember 2025

7. Clock

Astronomer Priest’s Secret Blade

Once one of the most powerful groups of people in the entirety of the lands, the Astronomers are now a fragmented and dwindling diaspora. In their heyday they controlled vast kingdoms built at the very tops of the impossibly tall mountains in the Southern Lands, a realm they called Sud Ech. From their Mountaintop cities, they built vast Observatory Temples from which they studied and venerated the stars and other astronomical bodies. They controlled massive trade networks and even rivalled the Elves in their understanding and command of magical and technical knowledge.

Their itinerant priests often carried objects that appeared to be fully functional sextants, though at the push of a button, could be transformed into blades, via intricate clockwork mechanisms perfected by their engineers.

ANGLEFISH, TELESKEYE & ASTROLAZE (Water/Psychic) The stargazing pokemon

This family of fish pokemon have gained psychic powers after spending their whole lives gazing at the stars, basking in their cosmic energy, opening their minds to the powers of the universe. They know the movement of the stars up to hundres of years into the future and navigate around the seas following the star charts imprinted in their mind.

ANGLEFISH (Angelfish/Angle) is based on the juvenile of the Orbicular Batfish (Platax orbicularis) and a Sextant, a navigational instrument used for determining the angle between the horizon and a celestial body such as the Sun, the Moon, or a star, used in celestial navigation to determine latitude and longitude

TELESKEYE (Telescope/Eye/Sky) is based on the Tripod Fish (Bathypterois grallator) and a Nautical Telescope with its tripod

ASTROLAZE (Astrolabe/Gaze) is based on the Stargazers, a family of fish (Uranoscopidae) with eyes on top of their heads and an Astrolabe, an ancient astronomical instrument that was a handheld model of the universe used to help determine the ship's latitude from the height of the Pole Star or of the sun

In ASTROLAZE's back there are 3 markings, these markings actually represent 3 different constellations, this are Pisces (The Fishes), Sextans (The Sextant) and Telescopium (The Telescope), making them references the line inspiration in stars and to its previous forms

I wasn’t supposed to touch it.

It was locked away in a cedar box with a note: “Only to be used under moonlight, and never when the tide is low.”

The brass was still warm. The dials turned without resistance—as if something on the other end was guiding me.

It doesn't point North. Never has. Just spins slow... and points somewhere deeper.

My uncle said he got it from a shop that specializes in maritime salvage. But he won’t tell me the name.

⚓ Would you follow it?

(Found this piece through a niche antique supplier. Perfect for collectors of the strange & stellar.)

Illustration pour Reporterre sur la navigation avec les étoiles l'article ici

Source details and larger version.