Isla Verde and the Stepping Stones

*Do not read beyond **this point** if you want to avoid being **spoiled!***

**Isla Verde and the Stepping Stones** are islands encountered by the crew of the *Nightingale* on the first leg of their journey.

## Isla Verde

Isla Verde is, as the name suggests, an "island of green", a grassy landshard with a small population and a number of sheep. Of little strategic value, it has been largely avoided by Novo Albia and other nations. Its population rarely receives travellers, with whom they trade with.

Isla Verde has a small wooden dock, but no port or formal major settlement. The island has a central peak where there is a large, ruined stone tower. The only known occupant of the island is Roxas.

Two constellations, remarked by Vermillion Versailles as looking like a scorpion and a carebear may be observed from the peak; these are called "the Twins" by the locals. Amongst the astral features observable from the island is a star known as the Great Lord. Due to a lack of industry there is very little light pollution on the island.

## The Stepping Stones

A trio of islands north of Isla Verde, uninhabited and along a line together.

### Bright Coral

Bright Coral is a swiss cheese-like island in terms of shape, with a number of caves where colourful fish may be observed. Also observed are large tentacle-mouth lobsters, and whalesharks offshore.

### Whale Corpse

"Whale Corpse", is, as expected, an island containing a gigantic corpse of a whale, whittled down to a skeleton, which lies on a flat landshard, like a promontory of rock. The skeleton is sufficiently large that the *Nightingale* could traverse its ribcage. However, the island is distinctly unnatural as it has stone cold banded metamorphic rock for a surface which appears to be transported from somewhere else. Additionally, the corpse is devoid of any scavengers whatsoever, even microorganisms.

### The Island of Bone

The Island of Bone is a larger, unnamed island; it is an "island of bone" due to the constant appearance of skeletons on the island. It is surrounded by a strange fog, and is a land covered in shale and pebbles. On nearing the ship suffered engine failure, indicating some magical force eminating from the island. However, this could not be detected by a detect magic spell.

The island has an damp and cold air, and the skeletons cease dissolving on night fall. The island also has cyclopian stone structures, as well as rocky outcrops. Of note is a bell tower, guarded by a giant skeletal snake.

#### The Leviathan of Bones

After the group encountered Sever Wickham on the island, he revealed that a leviathan on the island - a gigantic, rocky creature with a town on its magic - had awoken several days previously and that this was the cause of the magical disturbances. It was a large, 4-legged turtle-like creature with legs like scimitars of bone and approximately 200m long, an eye- and mouthless creature. Wickham noted that it, like all leviathans, had a magic shell of a physical form based on its surroundings, but there are openings as the shell is imperfect. Until the leviathan slumbered or was slain, the magical disturbances would prevent safe landing (or leaving) by ships powered by LeValt engines.

Convinced by Sever, the crew of the *Nightingale* boarded the beast by throwing harpoons onto the beast and ziplining across. On the back of the beast there were skeletons which did not dissolve and which were hostile. On entering the beast it was found that a network of tunnels traversed the beast, with walls like coral and occasionally dotted with gemstones. These tunnels were home to planar slugs, green gelatinous creatures about a foot in length, that were intelligent enough to attack en masse.

In the heart of the beast, after a sharp drop, there was a 60ft high dombed chamber, inside of which were large stone blocks of various height, ropey tendrils draped between the blocks. At the top of the chamber was a massive arcane vertex hole - a portal to another plane through which the leviathan itself had come from - with 8 spell runes surrounding the portal. The "leviathan" itself was a creature from another plane, and the hulking turtle-like creature its shell. This "heart" took the form of a single great gelatinous eye in the centre, with tendrils emerging from it.

The runes often appear around such portals, and have a symbiotic relationship with the leviathan; destroying them will stun the leviathan, but not kill them.

This creature was eventually killed by the crew of the *Nightingale*, causing the shell to lose structural integrity and collapse.