Caina

Caina is a large, egg shaped island in the western reaches of the Sea of Sorrows. The island is cloaked in impenetrably dense rainforest, and suffocating humidity. During the season, gentle rains form off of Caina's eastern coast every afternoon, then blows across the island to dissipate in the Sea of Temat during dusk. Come the rainy season, the rains come to the island in 3 day long cycles twice a week.

#### **Neighbors**

To the north/northwest is the chilly fortress of Uhrinsel, where its eastern military base of Uhringrad sends dozens of teams of soldiers and condemned conscripts to engage in logging and poaching missions. No more than half of these teams, sometimes literally, survive to complete their missions and return. Survivors are invariably rewarded/punished by being reassigned to additional Cainan expeditions.

To the southwest is the ruins-choked, yet equally verdant Cydonia. Scavengers from Martello frequently sail to the fishing port of Ikthyon to trade Cainan rainforest goods for seafood, shells, scrap metal, and interesting junk.

About a day's sailing to the east is the Cay of Fata Morgana. Exactly halfway between Caina and the Cay is a high, nameless stone spire where the wreck of the Darkonian warship, the HMS Gerarus, has been impaled for the last 50 years.

#### **Geography and Locales**

The island of Caina is about 20 miles from north/northwest to south, and about 8 miles at its widest from east to west. Caina's northern end is dominated by the Smargadina Tepui, a vast, sprawling, cloud-shrouded mesa. The Tepui is a popular destination for deliberate travelers coming to Caina. Most come searching for the esoteric treasures of the lost city of Teupa Haehi; most perish in the trek up the Tepui, either by being headbutted off the mountain paths by malicious wild goats, or by stumbling into one of the many secret entrances to the mindflayer colony of Utopia. Those few who do reach Teupa Haehi tend to run afoul of the Amidarumei, a tribe of cannibalistic sorcerers who style themselves as the city's caretakers. The upper slopes of the Tepui are a mortuary city filled with the abandoned temples and collapsed tombs of an extinct race of bestial magicians who, according to the basreliefs, either worshiped monstrous sabertooths and vindictive antelopes, or were monstrous sabertooths and vindictive antelopes. Those graverobbers and archaeologists who discover the actual truth never survive long enough to leave the Tepui.

The eastern coast of Caina is frequently, if not constantly, battered by storms and monsoons. As a result, it is a graveyard of ships blown ashore. Local hermit, Aleister Dunkirk, estimates that, over the course of 87 years, there have been a total of 873 wrecks. In particular, Aleister squats in the wreck of the Darkonian caravel, the HMS Proserpexa, sister ship of the HMS Gerarus. Aleister and other maroonies boast that the surviving cargo of the wrecks contain enough wealth and materials "to rebuild two Il Aluks." Many scavegers flock to the eastern coast, hoping to make kings and queens out of themselves (or purchase for themselves) with what they find. Few survive. Many encounter the progeny of the Greatest Beast, mixed species prides of big cats; sabertooths, tigers, lions, and panthers, and are either devoured, or forced to join these prides as infected werecats. Other scavengers run afould of the coal lubbers, a species of soot-colored iguanas with carmine heads. Victims of their venomous bites are often euthanized on the spot in order to spare them an agonizing, protracted death of bone-breaking pain.

New maroonies on the eastern coast who survive eventually find themselves rescued by representatives of the shanty town fortress Martello. Martello is situated on the southern end of Caina, where it festers like a carbuncle made of jungle lumber, giant snail shells, and shipyard junk. This makeshift port was founded by Alwynn Martello, an elven merchant who is the only survivor of the wreck of the Proserpexa, and has maintained control for the past 50 years. Even though Alwynn continues to amass wealth and gather influence, he has expressed no desire to return to his hometown of Martira Bay, or even leave Caina. Most assume it's because Alwynn fears retribution for the loss of the Proserpexa and the Gerarus; a few whisper that he remains on Caina as part of a Faustian bargain with the Greatest Beast.

Within Martello's ramshackle barricades, its residents are hard at work in cottage industries processing rainforest organisms, fungi, sea creatures, fruit, flowers, and seaweed into food, alcohol, clothing, alchemical reagents, spell components, and most importantly, curios to sell to visiting merchants on their way to and from of Liguo. Residents of Martello buy, sell and trade using a byzantine system of gossip, barter, and swapping of favors owed. Only tourists and the naïve readily use coin for coin's sake in transactions. Locals will also reluctantly accept coin from each other, too, but they generally ratchet up prices and attach additional favors owed as compensation.

Most residents of Martello are humans, elves, and gnomes, though the locals warmly welcome anyone wishing to stay. The locals are tolerant of eccentrics, provided they don't make trouble, or create an irreplaceable benefit.

Some fifteen years ago, a gang of