I made some islands using the generator in this post while I was finalizing the procedure, so here they are. If they look a little messy, it's because they are.
Pick
Governor: Seamus Pennywhistle
Sergeant: Mehmed Kaldun
Garrison: 20 squads of 20 marines, each led by a lieutenant
Primary Industry: Gold Mining
Population: 4,000 gold miners, 1,000 tradesmen and professionals, 400 bureaucrats, 18,000 non-working dependents
Description: One of the fastest-growing towns in the First Empire due to the high quality of gold extracted from the spires, this is the only town on Goldspire island that has been able to last more than a few years before being abandoned due to low productivity. There is a very strong First Empire presence here due to the high value of the town.
Pick has been around for nearly 5 years now and the governor is generally credited with this. Governor Pennywhistle was able to lead the town to long-term productivity by developing a new, more efficient way of organizing and directing the work of the mine. The rapid growth of the town has led some to believe they should expand the harbor and develop the local industries to the point that Pick could be declared a City.
Stalwart
Governor: Abdul Alhambra
Sergeant: Lee Kurosawa
Garrison: 6 squads of 25 marines, each led by a lieutenant
Primary Industry: Outfitting and Guiding Expeditions to the Golden Caverns and Gold Dust Desert
Population: 500 guides and outfitters (not all present at any given time), 500 tradesmen and professionals, 50 bureaucrats, 2,000 non-working dependents
Description: The fortifications of Stalwart are strongest on the north side of town, hills and ditches in the sand need to be maintained every day while marines man the walls and towers, always ready for a Desert Ape attack. Stalwart has an unusually high presence of marines in order to help defend the town from the ape attacks. This high cost of defense is thought to be worth it due to the large number of valuables and magical artifacts that are brought back with most expeditions into the Golden Caverns. The people here generally seem like they stick around out of spite towards the desert apes, or maybe even the desert itself. Many of the guides working for expedition outfitters were born in the town sometime after its founding 40 years ago or are from some other desert, so it is usually a good idea to have one of them with the group when venturing out into the desert. Most residents have some kind of trauma or PTSD based on previous desert ape attacks.
Westport
Governor: Carolina Flores
Captain of the Guard: Wendy Magnolia
Inspector General: Benjamin Blanco
Garrison: 10 lieutenants overseeing 50 guards each
Population: 53,000
Description: Currently, Westport sits at the crossroads of several important trade routes through the Sea of Treasure while also having control of one of the largest natural harbors in the sea as well. This means that although not much food is able to grow on the island, there is more than enough food being imported to keep everyone fed. The gold trade has been good to the people of Westport and nearly every resident in the city is able to afford a level of material wealth that most in the empire can only ever dream of. When gold is as common as it is on Goldspire Island, it is easy to find gold objects for relatively cheap. The large harbor also frequently hosts First Imperial Navy boats of all kinds, with a small industry built around people taking rowboats out to the navy ships to sell supplies to them on the water rather than needing to actually dock at the port. Overall, the people of Westport are shrewd and always hungry for the next source of revenue. Recently, there has been much interest in the economic opportunities of the as-yet impenetrable Glowing Forest, but until anyone comes back from there alive, no one will really know what’s there.
Geological/Biological History
A few million years ago, some magical force caused several thousand gold cylinders to rise up from the ocean floor. Many of these broke the surface of the sea and many more stayed below the waves. These golden spires acted almost like a coral atoll, trapping sediment and debris around the bases of the spires until an island formed around them. As a result, Goldspire island is relatively flat save for the spires themselves, but with a noticeable gradient where going uphill takes you generally closer to the spires. The prevailing winds in the area come from the Southeast, creating a massive desert on the northwestern end of the island due to the difficult time rainclouds have traveling over the entire length of the golden spires.
The golden spires themselves are not immune to the effects of weathering. Portions of spires that are above the ground are exposed to wind and dust, resulting in a uniformly pockmarked appearance on the surfaces of the spires. The weathering results in a high amount of gold dust being incorporated into the local soils and sands, so while most of the soils have a strong yellow hue. The high gold content is toxic to most plants so there are relatively few species that survive on the island, and those that do survive tend to have the “candelabra” growth form common to plants that grow in soils with high amounts of metal.
The Stretch exists due to the mangroves that populate it. The colony began before the Stretch, but sediment gathered around the trees, allowing them to expand outward, eventually creating the Stretch. Today, the area is a massive mangrove swamp, home to a large variety of fish and semi-aquatic turtles.
The harsh environments produced by the island have caused very few animals to be able to survive here. Many species of turtle are present on the island, most of which have golden shells, and the ones from forested and swampy areas tend to be tall and lanky like giraffes. The glowtrees of the glowing forest fruit throughout the year, providing a useful source of food for the glowing tortoises and birds that call the forest home. Other than turtles, the only residents on the island are a fairly mundane array of birds, the lizard folk, and whatever the settlers have brought along with them, although manatees are known to visit the shallows around the island.
Pretty much all modern industry on the island derives from exploiting the gold that makes up much of the island. The ancient lizard folk left behind the Golden Caverns and many useful artifacts, while the gold that makes up the spires themselves is more pure than most ore processing techniques are able to produce. The yellow plains, gold dust desert, the stretch, and all other parts of the island have soils that are not suitable for food plants due to high metal content, so all food is imported and no plants or animals are grown on the island. While the plains, forests, and swamps of the island support a lot of life, none of it is edible to anyone except the residents of the island who have adapted to high concentrations of gold. Because of this, the first empire colonists have introduced no new species to the island successfully.
The lizard folk, in contrast, have apparently been on the island long enough to adapt to the harsh conditions, being found in some numbers in every biome of the island save for those entirely inhospitable to life. Much of this is due to the apparent ability of the lizard folk to eat nearly anything without negative consequences, but the lizard folk of this island seem to push this ability to its limits. While not technologically advanced, 5,000 years on the island has caused quite a bit of adaptation and innovation that the newcomers could learn from.
The desert apes have been present on the island for quite some time, however they have had little influence, if any, on the ecology of the island as they do not appear to consume any resource other than space. Nonetheless, the apes do threaten some species by being hostile to anything that isn’t one of them inside of their territory, which sometimes encompasses important resources.
Political History
Lizard folk arrived on the island about 5,000 years ago when they first arrived in the Sea of Treasure. They created the Golden Caverns that run through the spires and under much of the island before their regression. The First Imperial Navy began scouting the island about 60 years ago and the First Emperor opened it only ten years later, a record for shortest time between initial surveys and opening in the First Empire. In the 50 years since then, very few people have been able to successfully colonize this harsh landscape. What settlements there are must import all of their food and most of their supplies, leading to a cycle of towns attempting to establish, failing to produce enough to justify the work it takes to keep the towns supplied, and then being abandoned. The settlements that have managed to stick around are full of hardy folk who are no strangers to scarcity.
Recent Events
There have been an increasing number of attacks made by the desert apes against Stalwart
Gold production in Pick has been increasing every year since it was founded 5 years ago, some believe that the only limit on production is the number of people they have working the mines
Reports from Fort Sandhill indicate that there are a lot of concerning things going on in the Stretch, but most people believe these to be paranoia brought on by isolation
Last year, a group left Westport with the intention of starting a town in the Glowing Forest, but they have not been heard from since they left
Wexlington the wizard has been warning people for several months now that the Dread Manatee is growing restless and may begin to threaten local shipping routes
The people of Westport have been somewhat concerned lately that they are not making enough money and have been pressuring the governor to find other industries to open up on the island
An explorer in Stalwart claims to have found a source of food that can easily grow in the gold-rich soils of the island, but that he is incapable of removing the seeds from where they are stored in the Golden Caverns, leading many to die attempting to retrieve the seeds
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