Yesterday Isle

Yesterday Isle (Euluska: Te Sjelaz /tɛ ɧɛlaz/, Tarkas: Ét Sálag /jet ʃaulax/) was a small and bleak rocky island. Inhabited from 1219 by mutineers after a revolt aboard the Lusken capital ship Cessalia, the island was nowadays home to around 3,000 people. It lay at the intersection of the Datria-Hjarofjall and Bracken-Kalyr shipping lanes, and was home to a large lighthouse.
== Society ==
Back in 1219, the island went from 0 to 160 in a week after the mutiny and wreck. The modern day here will be the 250s C (1900s TE) - by now, the island's population was about 3,000 people. It's a very low number- but this is due to poor food, a low quality of living, a tough life of fishing subsistence, lack of space, no mainland connections or trade, genetic diseases and inbreeding, and more. There were only about ten or fifteen births per 1,000 people per year on average, a very low number- and nearly 10 deaths per thousand, leading to quite a stagnant population curve. The life expectancy was somewhere in the 50s. 
=== Shaking Fever ===
The islanders suffered from a rare, fatal, incurable neurodegenerative prion disease, which they called shaking fever, or xatxarin in Euluska. Xatxarin was a form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. It lay dormant for about 15 to 40 years before setting in. It led to ataxia, neurodegeneration, tremors, seizures, foaming at the mouth, and death. Shaking fever was seen by the islanders as a curse for their ancestors' mutiny, or perhaps a result of the conditions. However, it was linked to historical cannibalism, where islanders practiced cannibalism on other castaways during times of hardship, aided by the lighthouse to lure them in.
=== So What Was It Like to Live Here? ===
So, bear in mind that over 98% of the inhabitants of the island were descended from the mutineers aboard the Cessalia, plus some from later ships and castaways. And how stagnant the population was. Yesterday Isle was therefore really rather bleak. Everyone knew everyone, and life was tough. Everyone was a bit inbred, or worse. Genetic diseases like shaking fever ran rampant. There was no elevating your station - you were born, you worked, and then you died. You fished, cured the caught fish, made houses out of wood, tanned fish skins for leather, or mined rocks. That was it. There was little in the way of other pursuits, save for traditional shanty-singing, tree-carving graffiti, or wandering on the beach looking for driftwood and washed-up corpses. The island was finite, and the elements were harsh.
== History ==
=== Prehistory ===
There was no permanent settlement upon the isle for most of history. During the second millennium before zero, a few Old Rakki longboat crews used the island as a place to acquire wood to fix their boats, or to hunt game birds, but they did not permanently settle, probably because of the stormy seas and dire rocks. The island was known to the Rakki as Tavuluomiriqł (Old Rakki spelling conventions: Tavulomericker), meaning 'The Rocky Cliffs'.
=== Wrecking of the Cessalia ===
In the autumn of 1219, a Lusken Empire first-rate man'o'war, the Cessalia (Middle Euluska: Kezalyaül) was sailing near Yesterday Isle. She had seventy-six cannons a side, and several hundred crew - making her one of the largest contemporary ships, and indeed probably one of the largest until the likes of the NMV No More Mr. Nice Guy 300 years later. She was bound for Kalyr (Capital of fareastern Rakkimar) with trade cargo from Datria. During a week-long squall and storm, the officers were somewhat draconian, and began withholding rum-rations from disorderly sailors. This led to unrest. Then, a lowly powder-monkey named Eiëska Alver confronted the captain, saying that she had been secretly dead-reckoning and running her own calculations, and that they would run aground on Yesterday Isle tomorrow if they didn't divert. The captain was furious at the suggestion of being shown up, and ordered Eiëska be flogged for insubordination. The situation exploded into a riot and a mutiny - some officers were thrown overboard, others held captive, and the captain was taken hostage. Eiëska and the mutineers steered the ship off-course. It ran aground on a reef about a mile off Yesterday Isle's coast, and sank halfway. Most of the crew died in the sinking or upon the rough seas, including poor Eiëska, but it was a much better outcome than hitting the cliffs head-on had she not intervened. The survivors then made it ashore and founded a small town - Ramshackle - population about 160.
=== Ramshackle and the Light ===
Since 1219, the island was almost entirely inhabited by the descendants of the mutineers. The islanders had a slightly higher than average coefficient of inbreeding and some inherited genetic diseases from this. Generatons and generations passed. Very few people came or left permanently. Datrian officials visited the island in the early 1300s, where they 'found' the 'lost' ship they thought had gone missing for a hundred years, which had been turned into boats and houses. The descendants of the crew told the Datrians the story of the mutiny, and the Datrians took the story of Eiëska back home. The story delighted the Cardinal of Datria so much that she managed to have the swabbie canonised as Saint Ayaska. There were only two other notable times the outside world came to Yesterday Isle during the next few centuries. After a string of shipwrecks - including two semi-notable cargo ships (The Olive Branch and The Holy Moonshine), the population received small influxes of fresh meat and genetic diversity. The Datrian authorities realised how dangerous the island's waters were, so they constructed Saint Eiëska's Light in 1330, a 200ft tall lighthouse with a liquid mercury bearing tray and a focal height of 180ft. It had an intensity of several hundred thousand candelas and a range of 18 nmi (33km). The islanders elected a keeper from among them and replaced them every so often when they died. 
=== The Platinum Mine ===
A Sanctum-based mining fleet of three frigates tried to establish itself as a platinum mining company on the island's northwestern shore, a few miles uphill from Ramshackle town. The mining operation lasted from 1534-1545, and at its height included an open-cast mine, an exposed ravine, and a small company town, Port-of-Fallo, with 200 live-in employees. But after only eleven years, the platinum reserves ran out, and Port-of-Fallo was abandoned. One of the three company ships, the Ikaheka, wrecked during the company's exit, leading to a third of the employees drowning off the north coast. Once again, the island was left to its own devices. It continued to be a small, slightly inbred island of the descendants of mutineers who made their living from subsistence fishing. 
== Geography and Ecology ==
Yesterday Isle was a late-stage volcanic island, formed about eight thousand years before 0. It had very tall cliffs on most of the islands' edges, and stood with an average elevation of almost 50m above sea level. The island's silhouette was dominated by the huge, dormant volcano and its foothills, as well as the dramatic limestone and chalk cliffs. The beaches had greyish sand, a mixture of volcanic black sand and eroded chalk rock. The cliffs were home to a lot of natural caves, including extensive poorly-explored cave systems that extended underground and underwater to depths unknown. The eastern shore of the island broke into shattered razor-sharp rocks that poked above the high tide, whilst to the south stood a 300ft-tall sea arch. There were also a few nearby uninhabited islands - Whitehead to the SW, Karst to the NE, and Irulegi to the NW. The seas around Yesterday were very stormy, with frequent rogue waves and gale force winds. 
Yesterday isle's east was covered in a thick perennial woodland of yew, willow, and rowan trees. Its south and west were home to rolling alkaline heath and grasslands atop the high cliffs. The centre of the island was dominated by the mountains.
=== Flora ===
* Firewort, a gently glowing bioluminescent moss found on the slopes of the mountain
* Deep magenta lillies that thrived in the rich volcanic soil at the base of the mountain
* Yew, rowan, willow, as well as secondarily birch, elm and, ash trees in the extensive woodlands
* Heather, gorse, and sorrel in the chalk grasslands
* Peat on the moors that led to quite sudden boggy quicksand-like ground
* Rare orchids that grew on the windswept cliffs
* Brackens and other ferns that grew in the western shadow of the mountains
* Nettles, thistles, and ashberry bushes, all spiky or irritating plants that locals then turned into tea, medicine, or food
* Lusken Catkins, small clusters of fuzzy purple catkins
* Midnight Lupins, which gave the landscape an eerie purple look in the summer
* Vetchgrasses, burdock, and reeds
=== Fauna ===
* The native and notable Tomahawk Crab. A very large endemic species of coconut crab. It was big, weighing up to 15kg and reaching up to 1.3m across. Their name came from their left cheliped, which bore a huge hatchet-esque chela. They ate pretty much anything, so they were nicknamed pig crabs. 
* Large colonies of puffins, albatrosses, gulls, petrels, and auks, which nested on the cliffs and beaches. Their noise and droppings were quite the smell for first-timers.
* Rakki Pipistrelles, the only native mammal. They were small gregarious bats.
* Lusken Rats, non-native invasive black rats that came aboard the Cessalia
* Cliff goats which climbed the less sheer cliffs to munch on roots
* Finches, siskins and grosbeaks - small birds that fed on the seeds of the forest
* Kingfishers and other diving/spearfishing birds
* Passerhawks, large raptor birds adapted for soaring on ocean currents
* Herons and other wading birds that hunted in the tidal pools
* Horseshoe crabs, and fiddler crabs on the shores
* Mussels, oysters, and clams in the rockpools
* Sea stars, brittle stars, feather stars, sea slugs, and isopods in the ocean
* Barnacles and sponges on the rocks
* Lava geckos, small lizards named because they loved basking near the geothermal pools or volcanic sand
* White Headed Monitors, small monitor lizards native to Whitehead isle
* Innumerable fish, which the islanders subsisted on. Tuna, sturgeon, cod, bass, haddock, trout, monkfish, coalfish, wolffish, mackerel, gar, pike, stickleback, mullet, lamprey, eel, salmon, char, halibut, hake, shark, dogfish, right whale, bowhead whale, 
== Notable Locations ==
=== Ramshackle Town ===
The only settlement on the island was Ramshackle, the large town. The houses here were built of driftwood, the Cessalia's deck wood, and trees from the forests. The houses were clustered close on the banks of the river and the lowlands near the only accessible pier of the island, where hundreds of boats were moored. The town was full of drying racks of fish. In the centre was a fountain containing the original flag of the Cessalia. Notable locations in town included the green-roofed Captain's Leg, the main tavern and the only overnight inn for what few visitors came. Also nearby was the fish processing plant, a large factory-like building.
=== Saint Eiëska Light ===
Saint Eiëska Light was the lighthouse of the island. It was built in the 1330s. From ground level it stood 200ft tall, with a focal height (the elevation of its light) of 180ft. It was painted white with a red roof, and had a thicker ring around the centre for living space. The Light's beam had an intensity of 200,000 candelas and a range of 18 nautical miles on a good day. The light was floated on a bearing tray of liquid mercury. The lighthouse had two keepers at a time - one for nights, one for days - and they held it until sickness, old age, or death, at which point someone would volunteer to replace them. Generally, the more experienced keeper would take nights. They worked twelve hour shifts every day - it was tough, mind-maddening work.
=== Minor Locations on the Island ===
Broadly from west to east:
* Port-of-Fallo - A Sanctum-based mining syndicate built a company town here for the workers of their open-cast platinum mine from 1534-1545. The town has since become ruins reclaimed by nature, and its leftover mining equipment was long since scavenged by the townsfolk. It is now an eerie ghost town.
* The Great Platinum Rift - a large open-cast mine that opened into a ravine. It had been intensively mined for platinum deposits and now stood as a complex mine/cave system that ventured deep underground, full of rusty old rails and treacherous shafts that flooded tidally.
* The St. Verehia Mountains - The dormant volcano and its foothills that dominated the landscape, laying quiet for millennia. It loomed black and huge over the island.
* Fullmoon Pond (Atazi) - The geothermally heated lake that collected rainwater runoff to spawn the Bryne River. It was home to some fish, and locals often visited it.
* The Bryne River - The river that ran from the foothills through Ramshackle town and to the sea. It was narrow and slow-flowing.
* The Bryne Saltmarsh - The estuary of the river, complete with a scattering of sediment islands home to wading birds and mudcrabs. The Yesterday Island pig crab also was found here, as well as in the woodland.
* Northton - the northern part of Ramshackle town over the Bryne Bridge, it was where most the tanneries and the even-smellier businesses were confined to.
* The Valvarešti Woods - Large expansive woods of yew (20%), rowan (20%) and willow (40%), as well as secondarily some birch, elm, ash, and hawthorn trees. They were quite dense, dark, and damp, with paths carved out to get to the lighthouse and back.
* The Heath (Kankova)- the rolling highly chalky alkaline soils between town and the eastern side. They were covered in heather and gorse and other alkaline-loving, chalk-philic shrubs. The Heath was also covered in peat bogs and pits that could swallow an unwary animal - or pedestrian - whole. They were blamed for quite a few missing persons. 
* Shipwreck Cliffs - the southern cliffs of the island, very sheer and rocky
* The Halfway House - An old bothy (a shelter left unlocked and usably by anyone), left halfway between the church and the town in case anyone was caught out in a storm. by now, the roof was falling in and it was waterlogged. 
* Helkoalda Church - a small white wooden church surrounded by a graveyard, a couple miles' walk over the heath. It stood alone and semi-abandoned, only used during funerals. 
* Hangman's Hook - a small sea arch attached to the mainland on the north side, in the shadow of the lighthouse. 
* The Great Grey Cliffs - The rocky, shattered, razor-sharp cliffs on the northeast side nearest the lighthouse, very treacherous
* Duna Ruins - Old ruins where the first lighthouse was going to be built, but it never got taller than one story before it was left to rot and they made a new one instead.
=== Off the Island ===
Clockwise from the northwest:
* The Wreck of the Olive Branch, a Kalyrian cargo ship 
* Irulegi, a small rocky flat-topped island with sandy beaches, lay a mile north of Portofallo. It was uninhabited and barely a few square miles in area. It was home to a rare endemic species of booby bird, the blue-beaked Irulegi Booby.
* The Thousand Mile Marker was a large buoy containing Lusken-Datrian meteorological equipment. It was used during the early 16th century, but abandoned after the fall of the Empire in the 1520s.
* The Ikaheka, one of the Fallonese platinum ships, ran aground on a reef a few miles off the north coast
* Karst Island, a large bowl-shaped grassy island. Its north side had cliffs 100m high, whilst its south side was only a few metres above sea level, leading to tidal pools in its centre. Karst was about five times the size of Irulegi, and a tenth the size of Yesterday.
* The wreck of the famous Cessalia manowar lay a few miles to the south on a large rocky outcrop in the sea. It had been stripped for parts and what remained was treacherous and dangerous to approach
* Horseshoe Stack was a 300ft tall sea arch, which dominated the skyline from a southerly approach. It had never been climbed by islanders. A lot of seabirds nested here.
* Whitehead Island, the second largest island of the archipelago. It was about a fifth the size of Yesterday, and was uninhabited. It was mainly woodland with some sandy beaches, and was home to a lot of shore invertebrates like crabs and the like. Locals sometimes hunted game on the island, including the endemic White-Headed monitor lizards, which gave the isle its name.
* The wreck of the Holy Moonshine, a Brackian cargo vessel which ran aground in the fifteenth century carrying alcohol.
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