Far out in the West­ern seas, all but for­got­ten by the Realm and the major­ity of Cre­ation, lie many vast chains of islands, arch­i­pel­a­gos stretch­ing from hori­zon to hori­zon and beyond. The soci­eties that sur­vive on these islands are sim­ple ones made up of sim­ple peo­ple — the major­ity of the pop­u­la­tion get by just fine know­ing that the most excit­ing things they might ever have to deal with are the threat of the occa­sional storm or the appeasal of the local spirits.

Of course, in each gen­er­a­tion there are always those whose hori­zons are broader, and if trad­ing between nearby islands fail to stim­u­late their inter­ests they often sail fur­ther afield, beyond the only hori­zons that the peo­ple here know. Their names are remem­bered, because it is a rare adven­turer indeed who ever returns.

Twin Smoke Island is impres­sive amongst the local island chain, for it fea­tures not one but two vol­canic cones. Now both dor­mant, they are far removed from their fiery birth that spawned this arch­i­pel­ago — but yet, their spirit lives on. The inhab­i­tants of the island believe the vol­cano spirit to be their patron and guardian, and their prayers and offer­ings are reg­u­lar. They are a proud peo­ple, believ­ing their vir­tual self-sufficiency and obvi­ous bless­ing from heaven of hav­ing two vol­ca­noes marks them out for great things.

The giant stone ruins that lit­ter the east side of the moun­tains hint at a deeper and more excit­ing past. Sec­tions of wall in excess of twenty feet high jut out of the land­scape at irreg­u­lar inter­vals, their sur­face dis­torted by time but nev­er­the­less iden­ti­fi­able as hav­ing been hewn from one sin­gle huge slab of rock. It is rumoured that there was once a vast fortress here, and the name of the east­ern vil­lage, ‘Breach’ may pay homage to the day in the dis­tant past on which the walls of the place were smashed open. If this is indeed what hap­pened, the attack­ers and the rav­ages of time both did their bit to ensure that very lit­tle of the cas­tle remains above ground. As for below ground, there are a num­ber of cav­erns and pas­sage­ways lead­ing deep into the moun­tains, although as the islanders believe these to be the vol­cano spirit’s domain they never ven­ture far into them except when mak­ing offerings.

The vil­lage of Breach is blessed with the island’s only river, and wide fer­tile plains on which they farm crops. Its com­pan­ion on the shel­tered west­ern side is the vil­lage of Shore­haven, from which most of the fish­ing fleet depart each morn­ing. The west­erly side of the island also har­bours a small expanse of jun­gle, just enough to sup­ply the com­mu­nity with the lit­tle wood they require and very small num­bers of hunt­able animals.

Between the two vil­lages, along the path that runs between the two peaks, lie the island’s open mines. The rock that the major­ity of Breach and Shorehaven’s build­ings are made from is extracted here, as are the mea­gre sup­plies of coal and iron ore that Breach’s black­smith requires.

The vil­lages co-operate on almost every occa­sion, as their dif­fer­ing resources make it essen­tial to their sur­vival. Most fam­i­lies are spread across both, and as they are only four or so hours’ walk apart the gen­er­ally fit pop­u­la­tion of the island does not find this difficult.

This is the com­mu­nity you were all born into. The kind of place where every­one knows every­one else, and out­siders are rare. The island’s cus­toms are instinc­tive to you — it would be unthink­able not to help out other islanders, it would be unthink­able not to pray to the Spirit each time you crossed the moun­tains, and the sheer idea of the min­ers not leav­ing fish and grain in the mines at the end of every day for the Spirit to eat would just be silly.

Wel­come to Twin Smoke Island, a tiny jewel in the great neck­lace that cir­cles the unend­ing seas.