The Islands [ EDIT ]

There is a archipelago in the middle of the ocean, and people do not come to the islands. Once in a while some outsider ship arrives, or an occasional ship that left returns, but it always seems those on board would have been better off dying. Most can hardly communicate, just continue their gibbering incessantly, or rock back and forth on their feet and stare into infinity without reacting to the world. Some are raving madman, put down out of necessity.

So, life continues, on and between The Islands, as the locals call their home. The land dwellers (humans) are on rather good terms with the fish folk (locathah). There are children's tales of tritons, people who breathe both air and water, but no-one has seen any in living memory.

The mysterious and secretive followers of Lune provide spiritual services for the people, alongside a plethora of other deities who people believe in. The kingdom rulers and petty lords try to keep their power, and have a comfortable life, while the common folk endlessly toils to make all this real.

Most of the land is scarcely inhabited, roads and routes change frequently, and even the landscape changes regularly. A traveller cannot know what to expect on a week-long journey returning where they just arrived from. Villages pop up and get abandoned, forts are occupied for a few years or decades, then left to crumble. The towns that stay active for generation are few and far between, and travel between them is capricious and often dangerous. Still, merchants do carry goods from one settlement to other, but plan carefully before venturing farther than a few days' distance.

One of the nobles who seems to care about her subjects (or at least her outlying settlements) is Lady Lorain, residing in Wavebreak, a trade town sitting in Still Bay. She is known to reward generously those who aid her in keeping her province stable. She is also known to be quite knowledgeable about what happens in her province, and it is not worth trying to bluff her.

For reasons known only to you, you are staying for the night in Gratha, a fishing village thirty miles west of Wavebreak on the shore of Still Bay. During the pleasant evening stroll on the beach, there are suddenly screams and the ringing of steel on steel from inside the village. You have your equipment on you or in your rooms, and you can see dark shapes closing in on you rapidly. Defend yourselves! And, hopefully, the village.