The known world is a vast archipelago, tall volcanic islands are the only sanctuary from a vast brackish ocean. The land is dying, the sea is hypersaline - slack, windless, drained of love and life by the merciless Sorcerer Kings that plough the world of it's magic.

Small ships still ferry weary passengers between the attols, searching for the scarce amounts of drinkable water. The great warships are, of course, owned by the Oligarchs - powered by magical engines that can cross the flat water in a few hours.

The common folk such as you must charter tiny barges pulled by a pair of ...

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[–] dumples@midwest.social 4 points 1 month ago

My first thought was going to be dolphins but after reading your description a large mammal wouldn't exist at all. My next thought would be these barges aren't directed but rather falling the semi-erratic patterns of large schools of some smaller animals. These schools would follow a slow meandering direction through the more shallow seas but are unpredictable and slow. As far as animals go, I would go with crabs, isopod, krill or another crustaceans.

You could also have them pulled by something larger but an underwater burrower. I was thinking how cool and unpredictable would be have some kind of underwater, underground large worm would be. It would filter feed on buried detritus and would involve massive risk to get it attached but would be faster than the small animal method above. It would be the same idea as Dune sand worm riding but underwater. You could even using something like a purple worm as the stats.