Tesselated Shores

The southeast coastal plateau of the Eternal Isle is a misty woodland painted in the shades of twilight– violet grass, wisterias, and thorny roses coat the dark soil below trees with leaves of tawny and silver. Even during the day, the sunlight that reaches below the canopy is turned the color of the evening sun, as if the region is lazing in endless dusk. The region sits in the shadow of the mineral-rich volcano of Fal-Surya, and so farming and mining join lumber and fishing as prosperous trades of the region. Towns along the Sunhold-Dusk route grew from these industries, such as Kyndril and Arcei Gan. The city-state of Dusk sits on the cliff-coast of the region, an ancient military stronghold, grown through the help of the powerful magical metalworking secrets of Dusk’s royal family. Dusk watches over the seas which Pyandonean pirates prowl, and as such frequently finds itself in conflict with the sea elves. Innumerable assaults from the Maormer over the course of thousands of years have disfigured the coastline of Dusk’s sleepy woodland. The Maormer’s Landbreaker magic has torn miles of straits through the coastline, splitting the region into an archipelago of rocky islands crowned by forest. The islands’ sheer rocky faces are imprinted with a tessellated rectangular pattern, a small fractal of the shapes of the islands themselves, and tree roots reach across the islands to form natural bridges. Caves and grottoes along these isles’ coasts are frequent hideouts for Maormer pirates, though the fishing villages of Moorayal and Iromath still cling to the coast. The Oyinaam, magical bells made from the resonant silver of Fal-Surya, are housed in the watchtowers that line the coast, the largest of which, Ald Phalo and Xiroya, are settlements to themselves. The bells’ sound magic is a potent repellent for Maormer invaders and their sea serpents, whose bones litter the shorelines. The city of Celemora houses Oyin-El, the greatest of the bells, as well as the Pilgrimage of the Bell, a Trinimacite shrine that members of the warrior caste journey to when they reach serving-age.