THE ISLAND
Tucked into the bow and cradle of the Mirror Bay lay a nameless isle. It juts out of the coastline with an outcrop of black rock, yellowing flaxen grass and dour gray reef. When the wind is right the sound of the Sunless Jungle to her east scatters through the laughing of the gulls and stern. It is subject to the constant beating of the waves, glittering silver spittle foam eroding bits and pieces of her back to the sea with the crawl and the drag of the bay.
The island is entirely surrounded with water safe for one thin landbridge that is impossible to cross during the highest point of the tide, the water rendering the passage inaccessible. To the south and out towards the mouth of the sea the island angles upwards to a great steep cliff, crowned with a lighthouse perched at the very top.
the village
Nestled and built into the sides of the rock and dune is a fishing village. It’s moniker is the Low Cove, baptized and lived in by wild clans throughout its ancestral history. Despite this its insignificance, small size and its affiliation to the Wild Clans has prevented it from being charted on some Ivrathian maps. It is home to a little over a hundred people though its population fluctuates. They are entirely self-governed and their clan’s people are scattered across the length of the southern Mirror Bay coastline, historically being fisherman, sailors and whalers.
The village is constructed of dark Sunless wood and white bleached whale bone, as well as old boats repurposed and old sails strung between a drapery of seaweed and netting. The wood is adorned with wild clan carvings, most of them painted in blue or engraved in the planks themselves, geometric shapes and litanies. For most part of the day it is cloaked in the shadow cast by the lighthouse, the dark of it stretching thin over its houses and its boats moored at the barnacle riddled piers. The size of the little harbor and its piers accommodate sloops, fishing vessels and most one-mast ships or a few smaller two-mast ships. Poles stand threaded with rope railings along the boardwalks that lead up the cliffside up to the lighthouse.
Its inhabitants are almost exclusively of wild clan make. It is a quiet life in a self contained world, an austere existence of hard work of breaking down small whales, porpoises and fish for their oil and bone. Kelp, crabs, oysters and other seafood are also fished up in smaller quantities.
The village is constructed of dark Sunless wood and white bleached whale bone, as well as old boats repurposed and old sails strung between a drapery of seaweed and netting. The wood is adorned with wild clan carvings, most of them painted in blue or engraved in the planks themselves, geometric shapes and litanies. For most part of the day it is cloaked in the shadow cast by the lighthouse, the dark of it stretching thin over its houses and its boats moored at the barnacle riddled piers. The size of the little harbor and its piers accommodate sloops, fishing vessels and most one-mast ships or a few smaller two-mast ships. Poles stand threaded with rope railings along the boardwalks that lead up the cliffside up to the lighthouse.
Its inhabitants are almost exclusively of wild clan make. It is a quiet life in a self contained world, an austere existence of hard work of breaking down small whales, porpoises and fish for their oil and bone. Kelp, crabs, oysters and other seafood are also fished up in smaller quantities.
the lighthouse
On top of the cliff stands a lighthouse.
It marks the coastline and guides vessels along for a safe passage, for the bay’s shallows are treacherous in their pristine glasslike quality. Its beacon was once tended to and nurtured by its faithful keeper, bright enough to pierce even through the most hazardous weather and violent seas where sight is limited. Not a day forgotten. Not a ship betrayed.
Its archaic beacon is an intricate work of art constructed of wicker, oil, mirrors and glass and reflectors, unfurling open, a burning heart. As delicate as it is sturdy, passed down from generation to generation, keeper to keeper. Tweaked and tinkered with to function better, shine brighter, a heraldic spear of light stabbing in the dark of a storm. It is fiercely guarded by the keeper and access to the beacon without him is impossible. He was the only individual who knows the exact intricacies of its functioning and had inhabited the lighthouse for as long as the inhabitants of Low Cove can remember. The lands breathed with him.
The protector of souls he will never meet. And now, he is gone. The lighthouse stands abandoned.
The exact architect of the tower is long forgotten. Though its very foundations perhaps suggest Ivrathian make, an attempt for a holding, its finish and any further maintenance to its structure are a Wild Clan haunting. Whatever hold the Crown once had on Low Cove has long been abandoned and forgotten and shows only in her ghosts. The tower is constructed of mostly stone masonry and age old wood, tied with bone-thick rope and blue paint markings peeling off in flakes. Not a brick wasted, not a beam too much spent, it stands a tall monolith on the horizon before it bleeds into the vast emptiness of the sea.
It marks the coastline and guides vessels along for a safe passage, for the bay’s shallows are treacherous in their pristine glasslike quality. Its beacon was once tended to and nurtured by its faithful keeper, bright enough to pierce even through the most hazardous weather and violent seas where sight is limited. Not a day forgotten. Not a ship betrayed.
Its archaic beacon is an intricate work of art constructed of wicker, oil, mirrors and glass and reflectors, unfurling open, a burning heart. As delicate as it is sturdy, passed down from generation to generation, keeper to keeper. Tweaked and tinkered with to function better, shine brighter, a heraldic spear of light stabbing in the dark of a storm. It is fiercely guarded by the keeper and access to the beacon without him is impossible. He was the only individual who knows the exact intricacies of its functioning and had inhabited the lighthouse for as long as the inhabitants of Low Cove can remember. The lands breathed with him.
The protector of souls he will never meet. And now, he is gone. The lighthouse stands abandoned.
The exact architect of the tower is long forgotten. Though its very foundations perhaps suggest Ivrathian make, an attempt for a holding, its finish and any further maintenance to its structure are a Wild Clan haunting. Whatever hold the Crown once had on Low Cove has long been abandoned and forgotten and shows only in her ghosts. The tower is constructed of mostly stone masonry and age old wood, tied with bone-thick rope and blue paint markings peeling off in flakes. Not a brick wasted, not a beam too much spent, it stands a tall monolith on the horizon before it bleeds into the vast emptiness of the sea.