Astentine Shallows

The Astentine Shallows is a common term for a bleak and stony archipelago of over a dozen islands and numerable smaller islets in the Pagan Sea, named after the Astentines, an ethnic group who originated from the islands, but presumably migrated to Volubis long before our time.
The largest island is Cutlass, which has played an important strategical position in attempts to control trade on the Pagan Sea. The isles themselves are practically worthless, but the major sea routes from much of the, The Ayyubid Emirate, the Chorenese and the Free Cities to the major markets of the world have to pass through the straits between the isles. The Shallows have always been a lawless borderland contested by the Free Cities, Chorene, and Ayyubid, but never fully controlled by any one nation for too long. There is no permanent population or settlement on the isles, though pirate dens often riddle the Shallows.