Many stories speak of the terrors of the sea, pokemon such as Poliwrath or Gyarados which few encounter and live to tell the tale. Far fewer, however, discuss the comrades of every sailor, the pokemon who are seen not just as food or danger, but as a blessing of good fortune for all those who encounter them. And yet when these tales are told, they are often read by the light of the very pokemon which counts itself as their subject, for every ship has its Lanturn.
The use of Lanturn for nautical illumination is as old as large wooden ships, for the simple reason that alternatives such as Charmander could cause the boats to ignite. Lanturn, however, maintain an internal light, and have long been popular for illumination among pyrophobes, so they were pressed into service to aid navigation on cloudy nights. They are most popular not for their practical value, however, but for entertainment; long voyages at sea demand some way to stave off boredom, so on nights when starlight was sufficient to guide the ship, sailors spent their downtime huddled around the glowing twin lights of a Lanturn, reading long tales aloud.
It is not only trained Lanturn which are seen as benevolent allies of seamen. When a ship encounters one of the many floating colonies of wild Lanturn, they will perform light shows and communicate information on weather and hazards to the ship's captain. This is because most sailors treat their own Lanturn extremely well, and Lanturn pods repay every kindness given them and always remember their friends.