A liveship is a ship made partially out of wizardwood. They are the exclusive province of the Rain Wild Traders and Bingtown Traders. Liveships are renowned for their sentience, which they achieve after three members of their family die aboard them.
History[]
When the Rain Wild Traders began excavating the buried Elderling city of Frengong, they discovered what appeared to be logs inside a chamber. Splitting the logs revealed a pale carcass which the Traders discarded. The log material, which became known as wizardwood, proved undamaged by the acidic Rain Wild River, and was therefore immensely valuable. Each discovered log was used to create one liveship, with the exceptions of the two logs used to create the Paragon and the log that contained Tintaglia.
Unbeknownst to the Traders, the logs were actually dragon cocoons, created from a combination of dragon saliva, river sediment, and dragon memories. Each cocoon contained the spirit of the dragon that was to hatch from it, and was intended to be devoured upon their hatching. The sentience of a liveship is therefore a combination of the dragon spirit stored within the wizardwood and the human memories absorbed during the ship's use.
The first liveship was the Tarman, which lacks a figurehead. All other known liveships were carved with figureheads, through which they speak.
List of known liveships[]
Tarman, the first liveship, owned by Leftrin
Kendry, owned by the Khuprus family
Ophelia, owned by the Tenira family
Paragon, owned by the Ludluck family, and later by Brashen Trell
Ringsgold, killed and eaten by serpents
Vivacia, owned by the Vestrit family
Tinestar, the only liveship to have died
Sea Rover, owned by the Ashe family
Winsome, owned by the Larfa family
Goldendown, owned by the Jorban family