From publisher blurb: Like the waves, we crash and break against the strength of the shore. Again and again we do so, and the shore remains unmoving. We are the frame that molds the world, but we may never control the image we created. — Voice, ruler of Ishatis Before the world was complete, the races acted more as its guardians than its inhabitants. Their charge was to protect a region of the world and not to move outside of it, something made impossible by the nature of mortal minds—that is, most mortal minds. As elves, dwarves, and later humans, halflings, and countless others mingled with each other on land, the avoni sought a connection with the elements they were surrounded by. Eventually, their form grew to be less like the humanoids of the surface and more like the waters they were made to protect.