Warden of the Risen Shore

The Literomancers who participated in this effort were all volunteers, each of whom risked critical Magic Drain if the collective act failed. The title is meant to acknowledge the bravery of the act first, and the acumen of the Tome Knight second.

This title is an honourific bestowed upon the Tome Knights who took part in the ritual to acknowledge their effort and achievement. A significant percentage of the participants were Power Writers, and several were already Defenders of the Realm.

The honour was bestowed in a formal ceremony by the Council of the Great Houses on August 2, 2025, about a week after the completion of the rite and the subsequent magical effort to raise the Eastern Seaboard from the ocean.

Tome Knights look to Wardens of the Risen Shore for inspiration and leadership. They are expected to set a good example for other Tome Knights, and encourage others whenever possible.

While the Wardens have no formal responsibilities other than those expected of every Tome Knight — namely, to defend the world from The Undead Horde through literomancy whenever and wherever they appear — it is expected that Wardens of the Risen Shore will be looked to for leadership in group actions and crises in war or peactime.

The Wardens are highly respected in their Protectorates, and in the wider world. They are valued by their Houses, and deeply admired by other Tome Knights.

When The Cosmic Kraken Coffee Quills wrote in The Iron Tome to Resurrect the dead from The First Word War, the world first discovered the "Monkey's Paw" effect of using the Iron Tome in this way. A massive shift of the continents and the world's sea levels took place as a side effect, which became known as The Restructuring. In the process of this catastrophe, the area most affected was the Eastern Seaboard of the North American continent, which crashed into the sea. Half of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and most of the East Coast of the United States sank into the ocean. Millions died in the disaster.   The world adapted. In the wake of the zombie apocalypse, society restructured itself in much of the world into Protectorates that answered to the literomantic Great Houses, those who had saved humanity in the chaos.   The Battle of the Book in 2022 established a method of combining efforts in magical ritual for literomancers to accomplish enormous magical feats they would be incapable of when working alone, and this process was modified and refined during such efforts as The 50K Offensive, the Battle vs the Nite Qing, The 50K Team Up, and The Battle of Zafforza City.   In the wake of the Claw Summit's Fudge Festival and Treaty in 2025, when the House Leaders gathered for the July Tourney, Regent Dazzlinkat lamented the destruction to the land and people that she had been reminded of in the treaty discussions.   "Why not use a ritual to raise the land from the ocean?" Anassa JaySeaBoom remarked.   "Why not indeed?" Queen Sable replied.  

The Ritual

Drawing upon the teams that had been formed to remove then-Princess Badger Purpleheart from the fairytale book she'd been trapped in during the April 2025 Tourney as a starting point, four teams and four solo participants leant their efforts to amassing the necessary Literomantic Power to accomplish such an incredible magical feat. Queen Sable's research indicated that the literomancers would require a full Milwordy, 1 million words, to do what they meant to do.  

Teams

    Such an effort had never before been tried, and admittedly, the participants found it intimidating. Further, the risk was considerable. The necessity of bonding the participants together in the rite meant that if the group succeeded, no one would suffer direct consequences, regardless of personal success or failure. But if the group failed, every participant, whether they personally succeeded at their goal or not, would be afflicted with severe, possibly fatal, Magic Drain.   However, concerns appeared to be unfounded, because while the effort expended by some of the participants was considerable, and not every Tome Knight who took part succeeded individually, overall, the million Werds were, indeed, raised.

The Act

With the necessary magic present to accomplish what they set out to do, the act itself was divided into several key elements, with each House doing their part:

The Molluscans used a variant of their history of collective magic to bind the Houses together into the rite, with the Iron Tome itself counting as the eighth member of their collective unit. They also managed the tides, directed the ocean water to assist with the land raising, and limited the effect on the ocean and marine life;

The Melesians used their earth magic to raise the sunken sea coast from the ocean floor;

Cheetya Ironfist of House Lapin invented a device to transform and extend Queen Sable's force field power, so that it could be extended thousands of kilometers along the existing sea coast to prevent a massive tsunami from devastating the shore;

Sauropodan drones were used to form key points to relay the barrier along the coastline, controlled by Regent Dazzlinkat and Sir Trashy;

Avisans and Chiropterans flew along the coastline to help coordinate and adjust the drone positioning according to their personal senses of the flux in literomantic energy as the process was underway;

Voiders Anonymous used their ability to summon Void Rifts to redirect landslides into The Void so they would not cause a catastrophic loss of life;

Novamoonlight of House Ailurus utilized her wind wall power to protect the coastline from severe weather events, while Lady Wynter of House Mollusca calmed the rising ocean storm;

Archon The Bard with Many Names of House Ailurus and Princess Rowean of House Lapin, in conjunction with the other green witches and fae-blooded folk among the Tome Knights, directed the flora of the land to restore itself once it had surfaced, so it would not take thousands of years to recover.

This epic act of magic took three days to accomplish, and was, in fact, successful. Furthermore, there were only seven civilian casualties, a handful of people who refused to evacuate vulnerable sea coast areas.

Aftermath

In the aftermath of the restoration of the Eastern Seaboard, the Tome Knights who had succeeded in reaching their goals in the rite to raise literomantic power, now dubbed "Wardens of the Risen Shore," discovered that they had developed an ability to sense disturbances in the land. This either applied to the area that had been risen from the sea, or a thin band of ocean coastline everywhere in the world.

This accomplishment did far more than restore the lost land, which would already have been significant enough. It represented the first time that the Tome Knights were able to restore something that had been altered by the potentially destructive effects of writing in the Iron Tome. It gave the whole world hope that perhaps they were more than mere victims of a dangerous and capricious being with godlike powers that could crush them on a whim, or the helpless tools of fate.