Scattered throughout The Gray Sea are small islands commonly known as Ghost Islands. The changing nature of The Gray Sea is felt strongly in these islands. While the rules of reality on these islands are not as strong as those in the Known Seas, they are also not as weak as the rules out in the middle of The Gray Sea. These islands are home to all sorts of strange creatures, organizations, and phenomena.
Ghost Islands have a tendency to disappear and reappear, some will appear randomly and some will appear at set intervals. The location at which these islands reappear at can also change, however; most Ghost Islands stay in the same general area. For instance, Hjalmar’s Spike can be found most often in the northeast of the Blue Sea, but rarely in the same location more than once. Some claim that there are certain triggers that will cause a Ghost Island to appear or to disappear, yet this is unproven and mostly just baseless speculation and superstition. It should also be noted that these islands, when they appear, are locked into the spot that they appeared until they disappear again. If they moved, either by the currents or their own volition, then they would be considered a Floatress.
Most of these islands are found in The Borderlands or off of Mistways, but there are others, more remote and more vague, that appear only deep in The Gray Sea. Mariners have a host of superstitions, sea stories, and rumors based on these islands. Adventures and fortune seekers disregard these superstitions seeing them as mere rumor created by captains who want to prevent crew from running off. Coastlines around a Ghost Island are often hazardous and poorly charted owing to their dynamic geography. Yet it is not all doom and gloom on many Ghost Islands. Some lay home to small villages and settlements, often quite peaceful. Others have treasure hoards ripe for plundering. Others are thick with spices and alchemical reagents. Most are just small rocky islands, atolls or sandbars, to insignificant to be named or claimed by any great power.
Sofi Island
Sofi Island is a small island inhabited by a race of peaceful turtle-men. Alchemy is considered sacred to the turtle-men on this island and all of the inhabitants are skilled practitioners capable of creating any sort of potion or poison. They are all however hopelessly addicted to a substance known as ‘Un’ a psychoactive substance derived from the pollen from a small blue flower that grows only on the island. Un expands the consciousness, is said to allow one to communicate with the divine, and its withdrawal symptoms include stopping ones heart. Although this isn’t that much of an issue for the turtle-men whose hearts beat extremely slow anyway. The turtle-men are always trying to get visitors to try Un. Un, in small amounts in addition to its mind altering state, also gives its users a literal high, allowing them a slight buoyancy in air. The turtle-men do not walk about their island, but float-scoot about. The terrible secret of the Un, a secret that the turtle-men protect at all costs, is that the flower grows only in the corpses of Un addicts.
The Jaw
The Jaw is a string of small rocky islands inhabited by a group of Solvang raiders whose descendants were trapped here when the islands disappear into The Gray. These families still keep up their old traditions and their old gods, these are not the Solvang raiders of the modern era, who are out for wealth and adventure and little more than young men drunk on machismo and imported wines, but the old savage Solvang raiders, bloody and violent, looking for sacrifices for their bestial and savage gods. The coastline by The Jaw is treacherous and filled with jagged rocks and swirling jetties that make navigating past this island a test of skill even for the most experienced captains. The Jaw has a habit of appearing the middle of a Mistway, posing a large hazard to ships making a crossing. The biggest of the ‘teeth’ that make up the jaw is home to a somewhat friendly storm-witch that is willing to clear a path for captains, provided they give her the youngest boy on their ships. While the voyage past the Jaw is then calm, screams and cackles can be heard from her roost.
Whalebone and Scrimshaw Islands
These twinned islands are littered with colossal bones, believed by many sailors to be Astral Whale bones. No intact skeleton has ever been found on the island nor has any complete skull, just individual bones and bone fragments leaving the true nature of the bones a mystery. The strange tides here wash up the old bleached bones already cleaned of meat. A small settlement of scrimshaw artists live on this island, in a great lodge suspended over the channel between the two islands by vast rib bones, trading their art for supplies from passing ships that pass right under the lodge. Their bone charms and particularly valued by whalers.
The Isles of Silence
These islands are inhabited by an industrious group of monks that have a vast library filled with arcane and divine tomes. The library is truly massive with dozens of wings and multiple stories extending both above and below the island. The deeper in one goes, the farther back in time they go, the upper floors contain more modern bound books, while the bottom levels contains dusty papyrus scrolls and even older forms of writing. Talking is forbidden on the island and the punishment for speaking is death. When visitors arrive on the islands the monks hand them chalkboards with a single piece of chalk. When the chalk is gone, it is time for the visitors to leave.
The Spur
The Spur is a barren island, save for some strange and pitiful mosses that grow on its bleak stones. What is most remarkable about this island is its sky. The sky when viewed from this island is a dark purple even during the middle of the day. The air above the island is alive with electricity, large bolts of lightning dance in the cloudless sky. Lightning strikes are common on the island and small scorch marks can be seen all over the stones. At the center of The Spur is a smooth stone tower the color of a deep rusty red which seems to deflect the lightning. Rumor has it that the tower, if hit by a bolt or other suitable source of electricity, will open a portal to another world. This island is sacred to the madness touched Starburn Corsairs who preform strange rites at the towers base.
Mycelia
Mycelia is an Ubershroom, one the mountain-vast mushrooms that are common to the Formless Sea. What makes Mycella unique that it appears to be growing out of a small sandbar. Normally saltwater is poisonous to the mushrooms but Mycelia seems to be immune to its effects. Long white sticky hyphal strands descend down from the gills of the mushroom, floating lazily in the water below. These strands catch all sorts of sea creatures in their grips and are Mycelia’s primary way of gathering food. Passing ships have observed creatures as large as whales caught in its fungal grips. Unfortunately for passing sailors these strands also have a tendency to catch unwary ships. A small colony of Fungaloids lives on top of Mycelia, led by a single massive fungal queen, and guards a vast hoard of treasure from the ships that Mycelia has caught over the years.
Uhrberg
Uhrberg is a perfectly symmetrical town inhabited entirely by painted wooden clockwork people known as Tick-tocks. The city is peaceful and tranquil, the perfect simulacrum of idyllic peasant life. The cobblestone streets are smooth and even, colorful wooden flowers sprout from neatly kept window boxes, a pleasant symphony of bells rings out every hour (never missing a note) from the central clock tower, and not a single spot or smudge can be found on or in any of their white half-timber homes.
While accommodating to visitors, life in Uhrberg is dominated by routine, symmetry, and precision. The Tick-tocks live on time, quite literally. Everyday they are wound up and if they are ever unwound they die. As time and punctuality is a matter of survival the citizens of the city like everything in its place, even their visitors, for whom they have constructed a hostel, shop, and tavern all near the city’s one dock. Interruptions to this routine and violations of their constructed symmetry are met with ire from the populace. It does not take much to for the Uhrbergers to take issue with. Little infringements, like leaving your beer stein pointed the wrong way, not wiping your feet, or causing someone to be late are all capital offenses in Uhrberg. Visitors who disrupt their routine the first time are politely scolded and warned of dire consequences if they further interrupt. The second offense involves jail time, measured down to the second. The third offense is death.
Cursed City of Xar
This island is covered in a sprawling jungle that hides the remnants of a city made of massive white stone blocks. The creators of this city are mysterious and from examining the disturbing bas reliefs found in many of the ruins, appear to have been a race of giant cyclops who performed graphic live sacrifices to their unnamed and alien gods. Colossal ziggurats sink into the soft earth and many creatures have made their lairs among the ruins including pirates. Three rumors exist about this city. The first, more mundane, is that it is preferred place for pirates, particularly the Starburn Corsairs, to store treasure. The third, more sinister, is that the alien gods of the fallen city are still out there sleeping and waiting for the time when the blood flows from the tops of the ziggurats again.
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