The Shattered Isles

The Shattered Isles is a volcanic island chain that rests in the Shattered Sea, between the “civilized” Mainland and the deserts of Phairoux’s Exile. It is said to be the resting-place – or, depending upon who you ask, the prison – of Rheyir the Destroyer. The Isles are visited annually by the Red Priests, zealots of the cult of Rheyir. During these visits, citizens of the Isle are gathered to the largest, central island, and led up a winding path to the mouth of the volcano. Sacrifices are given, including cultivated plants, fish, choice items prepared by craftsmen, as well as the elderly and infirm.

The Big Island

—coming soon—

Inter-island travel and trading

Most of the islands, barring the Big Island, are surrounded by sandbars and rocky harbours that are not suitable for the large trading vessels that traverse the Shattered Seas. There is a lone natural bay on the Mainland side of the Big Island, and several ports with long piers and docks, have been built to accomidate them.

The channels between islands are too shallow for most ships, and the journey is made more treacherous by Channel Hunters, which are scaly, aquatic beasts with webbed hands that are known to capsize shallow vessels and prey upon those who fall in the water. Still, some travel between islands is feasible. When the seasonal tides make the water shallow enough that the Hunters find it difficult to move freely, a few adventerous souls will venture between islands on large rafts, often carrying a half-year’s worth of goods to other islands to trade.

The Islands

Medicine-maker island

Medicine-Maker Island is populated by a people who are generally skeptical of the Red Priests. They have found wisdom and healing in the fauna that grows on the Isles, and are dubious about the Priests’ claim that salvation from pain and suffering can be found only in Rheyir’s fire. They are a small group, made up of only a few familial clusters along the coast that faces the Big Island. Tropical storms make living elsewhere along their island’s coast unfeasible, and the deep forests at the center of their island are considered sacred places where nature is allowed to flourish unimpeded by human settlement.

Medicine-Maker Island is marked by small, grass-roofed treehouses. Many historians believe they are genealogically connected to the Tree-Topper people of the Danjerie Marshes, though such connections are difficult to trace among people who do not often keep written histories. As such, any connections that might have existed were lost after the Shattering.