How the Black Tide Spreads
The Tide does not conquer. It waits. A realm whose Governor has gone is the only ground it takes, and it takes that slowly, one island a day, with the capital last. Everything else it holds, someone handed it.
Forsaken shores
The Tide claims Forsaken shores: islands whose Governor has been absent for at least 14 days, but it holds back until the Governor has been gone 30 days. The stretch in between belongs to you: a Forsaken shore is open to liberation and colonisation before the Tide may touch it. When the Tide does move, it takes an abandoned realm one island per day, capital last, and the realm stays on the chart, and raidable, the whole way down.
What it raises there depends on who still sails those waters. If another Governor in that ocean has been seen in the last 14 days, the shore becomes a raider: it may come for their lumen, but it brings no storm. Only where every other Governor is long gone does it become a warband.
The short clock for an untouched shore
A Governor who holds a single island, never built it past the bare landing, never passed a standing of 500, and has not been seen for 7 days turns Forsaken early, and the Tide may claim the island after 14. There is nothing on such a shore to plunder and nothing to win by liberating it. A Governor with two islands, or with any real standing, keeps the full 14-day and 30-day timeline.
The Tide keeps what it takes
A claimed island is not razed: its walls, workshops, stores and standing troops pass into the Tide's service, as formidable as the realm that was lost. What belonged to the Governor personally washes away: blessings, standing, the island's good name. Allied troops stationed there sail home, and their owner is told.
Every new Governor gets a Tide neighbour
On the day they arrive, a raider takes a harbour in their ocean, or the next one over when theirs has no free island. It is the softest kind of Tide island and keeps to itself unless provoked. A raider that wins no plunder and feels no blow for two weeks soon slips away, though never in its Governor's first two weeks, and so does any raider or warband in an ocean where no Governor holds an island.
And it speaks
Drive it off an island, or light a new church, and the world may hear from it: a line of glyphs in world chat, and the harbour watch answering in the ticker. The glyphs are not broken text and there is no translation to look up. Some Governors keep notes.
What it is not
The Tide is a force of the sea, not a rival court. Happiness, food, population, trade, research, diplomacy, and rankings do not govern it. It cannot be messaged, allied with, or found in player search. Its islands show plainly as The Black Tide when selected, marked with a black ring in region view, and it acts only from harbours it holds: a Tide reduced to zero shores stays silent until it gains a new foothold.
Common questions
My friend stopped playing. What happens to their islands?
After 14 days of absence their shores become Forsaken, open to liberation and colonisation by any Governor. The Tide waits longer: only after 30 days of absence does it begin to take them, one island per day, capital last. Until each one falls it sits on the chart like any other shore, and raiding it is fair game.
I am going away for a month. Will I lose my realm?
Not while you look in. One visit resets the clock on every island you hold. If you cannot, shutter the realm before you go; that page says what a planned absence protects and for how long.
The raider near me vanished. Did someone clear it?
Perhaps, and the Black Tide Liberators board names who. More often it simply slipped away: a raider nobody raids and that wins no plunder for two weeks leaves on its own, once its Governor is past their first fortnight.