Introduction: The Lonely Island is a remote, poorly-known island far away from any other landmass on Tero. Due to its extreme isolation and large size, the diverse habitats of the Lonely Island have produced a number of highly unique ecosystems such as the Rusted Plains, the Bluesalt Marsh, and the Bronze Woods. Contributing to this high level of biological uniqueness is the lack of interference from the outside world that the island experiences. Ancient lizard folk settled on the island and persisted after their great catastrophe, but like there kin in other parts of the world, the ancient lizard folk were content to adapt to the resources at hand rather than import new plants and animals, so all they have left behind is stone buildings which today sit in ruin. This time without major disruption came to an end, however, with the arrival of the Arcane Order of the Walled Garden. At the time of their arrival, these mages were exiles from the recently-formed First Empire with the goal of developing magical weapons to use in some future attempt at revenge for their exile. The magical experiments of the Walled Garden irreversibly changed many aspects of the island, creating strange magical scars in the landscape that still cause harm hundreds of years on. Among the victims of these experiments were the lizard folk of the Lonely Island, wiped out by target practice and augmentation attempts. The Arcane Order of the Walled Garden would receive justice, however, in the form of their own creations.
The elves were an attempt to create an army of naturally magical, immortal fighters to serve the Walled Garden and its goals. Luckily for the people of the world, the first elves recognized the darkness behind their creators’ eyes and revolted, killing all of the members of the order and leaving all of their facilities abandoned. The majority of the elves chose to stay on the island, fearing that the other people of the outside world were the same as their creators, and founded several towns to live in harmony with their environments and try to heal some of the damage done by the Walled Garden. While some elves chose to explore the world, the majority have chosen to stay in their homeland, the reason why elves remain such an obscure and mysterious species to this day. The elves and their history remain a secret even to the small community of humans which have settled on the island due to their distrust of outsiders, particularly humans, so it is no wonder that most people in the world are unaware that the elves originated on the Lonely Island.
Today, the people of Farport, the sole human settlement of the Lonely Island, continue to explore and understand the new home their ancestors chose 130 years ago. After more than a century of difficulties and famines, the farporters are considering acting on their decades of exploration and sending people to found new towns around the island. With this increased interest in the rest of the Lonely Island, the people of Farport are encountering the dangerous creatures, natural features, and magical leftovers of the island in larger numbers than ever before. Although most people would be discouraged by the tales of elf towns and gigantic creatures that return to Farport, the cultural value placed on collective struggles means that there is always an ample supply of people willing to do difficult things for the good of their community. Lacking successful settlements, the farporters have not started expanding yet, but when they inevitably do, it is likely that they will come into conflict with the elves, the creatures, and even the environment of the Lonely Island.
Geographic History: The Lonely Island has always been an island, never once in its history connecting to another landmass. The island of today straddles a rift between diverging tectonic plates which has not only produced a large number of earthquakes and hotsprings over the years, but the island itself. A few hundred million years ago, the Lonely Island first erupted above the waves as the slow process of volcanic buildup at the rift brought the highest sections of oceanic crust into the air. Over time, these mountains built up into the Crusty Mountains of today, splitting the Lonely Island into its rainier North side and drier South Side. To this day there are active volcanoes, earthquakes, and hotsprings caused by this rift and which residents must contend with. This volcanism actually means that the Lonely Island is slowly growing as its two halves move apart, although this growth is inhibited by the only slightly slower rate of erosion that the edges of the island experience because of the ocean. After its initial emergence, the long distance to the nearest land resulted in a long period of barrenness on the Lonely Island that was exacerbated by the high concentrations of metals in many of the rocks and soils of the island. The southern portion of the island is rich in iron while the northern and western regions are rich in copper and tin. These unique soils have not only produced an environment that is difficult for plants and animals to adapt to, but one which actively poisons those plants which cannot utilize or filter out the metals in the soil. Several unique ecosystems have developed around these different soils and levels of precipitation which include strange plants, animals, and even a few beasts which seem entirely unique to the world.
One of the stranger and less well-understood environments of the Lonely Island is the Bronze Woods, a forest which covers all of the land north of the Crust Mountains and which is primarily composed of bronzeleaf trees. These trees have leaves that are embedded with a network of bronze mesh, produced by extracting the necessary metals from the soil, which protects the photosynthetic portions of the leaves and makes them inedible to all but the one group of creatures which has gained the ability to digest them, the ballistic possums. These creatures are a diverse group of marsupials which have developed tube-like snouts made of thick bone and muscle which can not only crush and swallow the leaves of the bronzeleaf trees, but launch balls of bronze extracted from their food at lethal speeds. These creatures are the dominant group in the Bronze Woods, coming in many sizes from the tiny pistol possums to the massive, ground-dwelling, artillery possums. The bark of the bronzeleaf trees is, like the leaves, a mixture of bronze and plant material which renders the bark of the trees not only as strong as bronze but inedible to all but the most specialized of species. Bronze-billed woodpeckers, with their metal beaks, are able to penetrate this protective layer to eat the metallic sap of the trees, but little else is able to feed on the trees, save for whatever is able to access the deep roots of the tree, the only parts not embedded with bronze. Other, more conventional plants exist in the region as well, but all grow in the shade of the bronzeleaf trees, many of them even siphoning nutrients from the roots of the trees they grow under. The low number of conventional plants means that the herbivorous artillery possums and bronze-billed woodpeckers make up the base of the food web with several different predators and scavengers making up the rest of the large animal residents. Some of these predators are found on all parts of the island, such as the saber-toothed ferrets, while others are more particular to the area, like bronze-taloned hawks, which prey upon bronze-billed woodpeckers and smaller ballistic possums.
On the southern side of the Crusty Mountains, contrary to the lush, metallic forests of the rainier north, are the reddish hues of the Rusted Plains. These plains are covered in a reddish sea of irongrass, a plant which grows crystals of iron oxide within its leaves to wear down the teeth of herbivores, as well as poison them if they cannot stomach the metal. The sea of red grass is punctuated by patches of more conventional grasses and bushes which provide valuable sources of food for the non-grazing herbivores of the regions. The stilted rats, herbivorous rodents with long, spindly limbs to let them see above the grass, move from green patch to green patch, eating whatever they can as they stay on the lookout for packs of the massive saber-toothed ferrets. Of all of the species endemic to this region, the most impressive may be the metallic kangaroos. These animals form large herds which roam the Rusted Plains, grazing on the irongrass and incorporating much of the iron into their fur, which has a shiny, metallic quality that reflects heat and sunlight off of the animals on hot days while collecting and radiating body heat back onto the animals on colder days. The kangaroos are often too big for any but the largest groups of saber-toothed ferrets to attempt to take down, but plains chameleon, a massive, solitary ambush predator, is able to use its color-changing scales and projectile tongue to get the drop on herds of kangaroos and pick one or two of them off.
To the west of the Rusted Plains is the Bluesalt Marsh. Here, the waters of the Bluestream not only spill out to soak the entire region on a regular basis, but they deposit copper leached from the rocks and soils of the area, which precipitates into a crust of blue salt that covers the more stagnant areas of the marsh. Here, very few plants are able to cope with the crust of blue salt, save for some hardy mosses and horsetails. These plants are soaked in copper and are poisonous to pretty much everything on the island, so the area is mostly home to birds which take advantage of the otherwise empty area to build their nests. A few creatures have moved in to take advantage of this, but little more than a species of saber-toothed ferret which lives a solitary life and raids bird nests for food. There are tales of a creature which roams the marsh and plucks whatever unlucky birds it can catch, however not everyone is sure that it exists.
Dividing the island are the Crusty Mountains, a mountain range as old as the Lonely Island itself. Most of the hotsprings on the island are found among these volcanic peaks, but travelers must be wary because the frequent earthquakes of the Lonely Island also tend to cause frequent rockslides as well. Truly unlucky travelers may even be caught in a volcanic eruption, something that is rare on an individual timescale but which happens fairly regularly over the course of years and decades. Although these volcanic eruptions provide the density of nutrients which allow many plants to survive despite high amounts of metals, they have built up to a point in the mountains themselves that the soils are mostly free of the metals found in the more shallow soils of the rest of the island. Because of this, the Crusty Mountains are home to a rather conventional pine forest as well as smaller, mountain-adapted varieties of many of the animals from around the island. Mountain rats, shorter than the stilted rats of the plains, can be found here, browsing and avoiding saber-toothed ferrets much like their plain-dwelling kin. A few species of ballistic possum have also adapted to this environment, consuming pine needles and firing balls of hardened pine resin instead of bronze, but still deadly. The Crusty Mountains act as a meeting point for the ecosystems of the island, allowing for visitors to see parts of the entire locale while still experiencing a unique ecosystem unto itself. Of the inhabitants of the Lonely Island, those such as the lizard folk and the elves chose to live in harmony with the unique environments they found themselves in, the Arcane Order of the Walled Garden tried to master them and only ended up causing harm, and it still remains to be seen what impact the farporters will end up having.
Farporters: The farporters are a group of humans which arrived on the Lonely Island about 130 years ago as disillusioned dissidents of the First Empire, in many ways mirroring the Arcane Order of the Walled Garden from hundreds of years before. Luckily, the farporters are more interested in their own survival than developing magical weapons, so they have spent most of their time exploring, learning, and building up their city, Farport. Farport itself is on the banks of the Iron River near the point where it empties into Big Bay. This is not only the place that the initial group of farporters landed their boats, but it is also an excellent natural harbor that provides plenty of deep water for merchant ships to dock in. This is important as the farporters, despite developing a culture in which they help each other to overcome the challenges of their environment, are not able to produce everything they need to survive on their own. For example, while several local food crops are being cultivated for human consumption, no one has been able to tame metallic kangaroos, the only viable livestock that can eat the local irongrass. This means that the vast majority of the meat eaten by farporters takes the form of either imported, preserved meats or fish. The farporters’ cultural values of collectivism and loyalty are evident in many of the structures of their society, such as the Church of the Island, which is devoted to showing loyalty to their island home and the spirits that govern it through rituals and sacrifices at certain times of the year, as well as festivals that are celebrated by the entire city of Farport. In general, the farporters are kind people who are content to help each other to survive in their challenging environment, although there are always some who long for more and wish to go on adventures and find new places for people on the island to settle.
Elves: Elven existence is governed by a deep, pervasive sense of unease. Aside from the fact that they were created to be the magical army of power-hungry wizards, all information on how the elves were created and what their biology is intended to be like was lost in their uprising against the Arcane Order of the Walled Garden. As a result, no elf is aware of anything about their species save for whatever was passed on orally and whatever has been determined through observation and experimentation since the overthrow of their creators. The things elves know about themselves are that they were created through a terrible, evil breeding program run by the Walled Garden; each of them is born with pointed ears and random skin, hair, and eye colors that can each be any color one can imagine; every elf is born with a unique magical ability that they can use at will, as often as they like; elf women can only get pregnant on the solstices; elves cannot get sick or fall ill; it takes roughly 30 years for an elf to reach full maturity, at which point they cease to age and can only be killed through injuries and poisons. Other than these things, the elves are ignorant of themselves and must learn and define on their own. This unease and discomfort with the purpose behind their creation has resulted in a paradoxically good-natured, relaxed, and peaceful culture which cultivates compassion for others and the environment at all times. Lacking any kind of religious tradition due more to ignorance than anything else, the elves have come upon this lifestyle more out of opposition to their creators than anything else. Going with this philosophy, the elves have settled into four towns around the Lonely Island, one for each of the main ecosystems of the island, and built them into the landscape so that at a glance, each town seems to be formed from their surrounding environments, even being mistaken for natural formations by the particularly naive and whimsical. Some elves prefer to travel and see other parts of the world, but for many of them, they are quite happy to live in their town and practice a harmonious existence with each other and the world around them.
Rough Timeline- 4,000 years ago- The ancient lizard folk civilization collapses, a few groups persist on the Lonely Island
- 1,000 years ago- The Arcane Order of the Walled Garden, a group that had been the main challengers against the now-immortal First Emperor, are ousted from the newly formed First Empire and forced to find a new base of operations
- 964 years ago- The Arcane Order of the Walled Garden settles on the Lonely Island, then untouched by humans, with the initial plan of developing magical weapons to take revenge on the First Emperor
- 960 years ago- The last Lonely Island lizard folk are murdered in magical experiments after being captured by the Arcane Order of the Walled Garden
- 592 years ago- The first elf is born on the Lonely Island, marking the first success in one of the Walled Garden's many projects.
- 560 years ago- the first generation of elves reaches physical, mental, and magical maturity, allowing them to overthrow the Arcane Order of the Walled Garden, killing every single member, and abandon all of the organization's facilities to form their own small society
- 130 years ago- Dissidents from the First Empire arrive and found the colony of Farport, unaware of the island's history of habitation or the existence of the elves
- 126 years ago- The elf villages convene and agree to stay hidden from the Farporters until they have proven that they are no danger to the elves
- 125 years ago- The Church of the Island is founded, worshiping the island itself and the multiple unique beasts of the island as a chief god and its lieutenants
- 50 years ago- the Terror of Farport eats all of the food in Farport, resulting in a massive famine which is commemorated by a statue of the beast
- 6 years ago- While exploring the island, a man named Frederico Buscando discovers an abandoned Arcane Order of the Walled Garden facility and the ancient magics inside, forming the Thieves in the Garden along with several of his close confidants on his return to Farport in order to organize more expeditions to go out and take Walled Garden artifacts
Major FactionsFarporters- The residents of Farport, descended mostly from the original First Empire dissidents that founded the city but bolstered by sporadic groups who are similarly trying to escape tyranny. The Farporters have developed a culture based on collective struggle and loyalty. Their only settlement is Farport, although there are regular Farporter expeditions into the Lonely Island's interior. Lately, the leaders of these expeditions have made claims that they are scouting locations for new settlements, although people aren't sure if enough people would be interested in moving to make such an endeavor worth it.
Elves- The elves are the result of the experiments of the Arcane Order of the Walled Garden and because many of them participated in the overthrow of their creators, they are generally cautious of outsiders, especially those with magical knowledge. The elves have 6 towns hidden around the Lonely Island, each of which is blended with the local landscape to show coexistence rather than mastery over the land. This is a direct reaction to the attitudes of the Walled Garden wizards. Shortly after the arrival of the Farporters, the elves decided to keep their existence hidden from them until the humans showed themselves to be trustworthy and safe. This was over 100 years ago and the majority of elves are still withholding judgment until more evidence can be collected.
The Thieves in the Garden- 6 years ago, Frederico Buscando discovered and survived the ruins of a Walled Garden facility. He went on to get whoever he could trust to join him in forming an organization that goes out and finds Walled Garden ruins to loot. Currently, the group is collecting resources and magical artifacts with the goal of revealing themselves and gaining power in some way once a certain threshold of wealth and magic has been reached.
The Behemoth's Children- A group of warriors who venerate the Armored Behemoth. They maintain a shrine and school of martial arts in Farport where they give offerings of diamonds and high-carbon steel to the Armored Behemoth in the hopes that it will grant them durability in battle like it has. The group is known for wearing heavy armor at all times, even while training, and using spiked clubs as weapons.
Gnome Merchants- The people of Farport, as First Empire deserters, have banned First Empire traders and merchants from doing business in the city, leaving room for a few enterprising gnomes to step in. While there are rumors that some of these merchants are tied to the Gnomish Mafia that is present in other places, none of these rumors have been found true yet.
Fleance the Dragon- Fleance is a massive purple dragon who has lived on the Lonely island for 10,000 years. He lives in a cave which can only be accessed from the highest peak of the island and remembers the rise and fall of the ancient lizard folk, among many other major events that have been forgotten by the historians of modern societies. Fleance is quite active and can frequently be seen flying over the island, although he mostly stays to the Rusted Plains, where he can hunt his preferred prey, metallic kangaroos. Inside his lair, Fleance has amassed the world's largest collection of medicinal plants. Over the course of the last 10,000 years, Fleance has had time to set up rooms to perfectly imitate all of the natural environments of Tero so that he can maintain a living collection that he can harvest from and preserve in various ways. While Fleance's personal collecting is limited to the Lonely Island, he will occasionally arrange to have plants from other areas brought to him, allowing him to have medicinal plants from all over the world. Fleance's collection includes many plants that are otherwise extinct, many of which also have strange, potent magical effects. Fleance is generally unwilling to share anything from his collection with anyone other than those he considers his equals, which is mostly other dragons.
The Church of the Island- Shortly after their arrival on the island, some of the more spiritual members of the original group of farporters started to receive visions of the locations of useful resources. These visions were attributed to a single spirit which looks over and has power over the Lonely Island, and spirit known as the Island Lord. As people started to return from expeditions to remote parts of the island with reports of strange and unique creatures, these devotees took them to be lieutenants of the Island Lord who protect and maintain different parts of the island on behalf of their Lord. The Church of the Island venerates these beasts along with the Island Lord, seeing them as integral parts of the holy ecosystem they rely on as residents of the island. The farporter values of collectivism and loyalty show in church doctrine as a recognition of their place within the greater ecosystem of the Lonely Island and a sense of loyalty to the Island Lord for overseeing and managing this ecosystem.
