Fetterlands

I continue to ponder the nature of those looming shadows far above us, fettered by their truly titanic bindings. Are the leftover craters of earth and stone the aftermath of a defensive system in some forgotten war? Were our precursors fleeing from something, or someone? But of what use were wings to a man fast bound in chains of iron?

— Adel von Chamis

A Short

“Look, there! Over there!”

Clouds whipped around Ósk as he stood on the deck of the Memento. He gripped the steel guardrail tight, his fingers cold as icicles this far up in the air without his gloves. The fin sails on either side pitched and wind whirled as the airship turned out of the cloud. On their starboard side, a gargantuan landmass loomed above the vast whiteness, the sun reflecting its blinding rays back at Ósk through his tinted goggles.

“Wooooow...! Papa, what are all of those stones?!” Ósk asked, barely keeping his excitement in, his feet tapping a tune known only to himself.

“Our new home, Óskai. I will make this broken land into something great so that you, nay, the world, will remember me when I am long gone,” said his father, resting a reassuring hand on the young boy's shoulder.

Overview

None among the living know exactly who constructed the Fetterlands, a smattering of floating islands dotted about the continent of Auredyne. There are four with ruined cities atop them—two of which are still bound to the ground by their original chains—and several smaller ones near the Scarlet Scar. The four that once held cities are known as Ørstaq, Sarqus, Ulsten, and Gurstek, though only Ulsten and Gurstek are claimed by existing nations in the modern era.

Geography

Each Fetterland is home to a slightly different geographic layout. The two to the north in the Wailing Expanse are thought to be hill-laden and rocky, covered in a thin layer of ice as they sit above the clouds. The large one in the southern region of the Arishi Desert has what are known by locals as Sandfalls, where streams of sand pour off of the edges of the rogue island as if it were water. It is thought that the Arishi was not always covered in dunes, and is entirely the product of Ulsten. The final notable Fetterland is located within Camarian territory, whose Circle of Sovereigns' Auric Magistrate has claimed as his own.

Work in Progress

Alternative Name(s)

Erstwhile Thrones; Auldbound Isles

Type

Island, Floating

Chain Facts

• Each link is roughly a quarter mile long, and each link's diameter is thought to range anywhere from two to three hundred feet.

• Chain links found in the crater in the southern region of the Arishi Desert, covered in rust as they are, still have evidence of individual hammer marks the width of hills and as tall as trees.

• Attempts have been made to recover the iron stored within the ancient chains that no longer imprison the islands, but they have proved impenetrable to all known methods of mining and extraction.