The legends go that in 568 bASC, there was an earthquake near Avakair, and some of the standing stones that the legends say magically protected the realm fell over. The next week, ships heading out of the harbor mysteriously began disappearing.
Baroness Cerid Wintersong ordered all naval commerce with Avakair to cease until the cause could be determined. The determination was not long in coming. A few weeks later, a seal the size of a small mountain swam ashore onto the beaches of Asantelian, where it sunned itself but took no other action. Heralds were sent to Goldshire Hamlet and Shirekeep, appraising the Duke and Kaiser of the situation and asking for help.
Kaiser Timothy II sent an army forth to slay the seal, but when the seal saw it coming, it slipped back into the sea and disappeared. The army camped out in Asantelian, waiting for the monster's reappearance. Duke Jormun Kilbane of Goldshire urged the Kaiser to send the navy after it, but Timothy II determined it would be suicide to approach the creature at sea.
It so happened that around the same time, there was an infestation of the horrible Daemon Fish of Balgurd in Holwinn. The army in Asantelian rushed west and with the help of the local priesthood was able to slay three of the Fish before they returned to their infernal fortress.
The fish were salted and brought on huge wheeled carts to the capital in Avakair. Cerid Wintersong ordered them cooked, and when the smell of the giant demon fish wafted into the air, the Great Seal reappeared. The priests offered the demon fish to the Great Seal, who gulped them down heartily.
After that, the Great Seal and the people of Ynnraile were the best of friends. The Seal never again harmed the ships coming to Avakair to trade. But when the Treesians launched an invasion in 502 BASC, it was the Great Seal who scattered their ships to the four winds, leading the Baron of that land to prostrate himself before the Kaiser and sue for peace. When Ynnraile ships foundered in a storm, the Great Seal would be there to rescue the sailors on its mountainous back, and return them to Ynnraile shores.
Sightings of the Great Seal declined after about 200 BASC, and the general consensus was that it had died of old age; three hundred fifty years was a long span even for monsters. However, for millennia after, and even until the present day, the odd sailor will swear to have briefly seen its mighty flipper raised in salute on the far horizon, and there are still taverns in Tephal where anyone who says the Great Seal is dead will be beaten soundly.
The Barons of Ynnraile adopted the likeness of the Great Seal as one of the symbols of the Barony, and official baronial documents frequently bear a stylized image.
