Juniper Island

Large, low island at the mouth of the Bully river. It is a mostly uninhabited place, but it is large and there are some good places for settlement, so it has been settled at times, and it is used now by many groups. There are in fact several places on the island that have been settled, and these are important.

Geography

Juniper Island is a large island at the mouth of the Bully river. The southern half of the island is low and flat, marshy, with interspersed woods and hillocks, as well as open water. the northern part, especially on the eastern side, is higher - there is a prominent ridge along the eastern coast and two or three high hills. These are mostly covered in trees, with some patches of bare rock, and some steep bluffs. Between the marshes and hills is a stretch of middle ground, above the flood line, but mostly flat and wooded. Some of this area is suitable for farming and other uses, and there have been settlements on the island, though none of taken hold permanently.

Fauna & Flora

Tidal marsh, some grassland, and pine forests.

Natural Resources

The island teems with life - birds and fish, animals and so on. Parts of it are also heavily wooded, and other parts are boggy, and produce peat. Much of it, though, is plain swamp, only good for fishing and some hunting.

History

There have been a number of attempts to settle on the island, but nothing has lasted. The most significant settlement here was that of the Knights of St. Ballin. They were crusaders, fighting in the religious wars, who fell out with King Marshall in the 1480s. He banned them, and they fled to the mouth of the Bully River. They did not intend to stay, but they built defenses, places to hide their gold and silver, and as things fell out, they stayed. They first built a palisade, a wooden stockade - but as it became clear that they were noty going to make peace with Marshall, they buit better fortifications. They hoped this could be a stronghold in the north, a place from which to continue to wage war against the Reformers, and to rebound against Marshall.
They built a small stone castle, then. They dug wells, built defenses around the springs they found. They built underground passages and chambers to hide their loot, and to move around in. And they stayed. All of this was built by an inlet on the northern shore of the island, a nice natural harbor, surrounded by hills and bluffs - though they should have noticed that some fo the bluffs were clearly being eroded. 
As it happened, this was not the beginning of their comeback. The leaders - Horace Simpson and his highest officers - packed off fairly soon, taking most of the soldiers and gold, striking off to more profitable realms. But even so, many of the order stayed. This was a strong place, hard to get to, or even find, very defensible, and it let the order continue to play a part in the politics of the region. They operated secretly - as financiers for Universalist forces, as traders, as mercenaries and agents, as lenders, and increasingly did so not for religious or political reasons, but simply to make money. They were essentially a professional mercenary force, with a financial arm - though over time, they seemed more like a financial operation with muscle. But even this faded with time. Their leaders drifted off; the organization elsewhere dissolved or reformed or were obliterated, and slowly disappeared. What remained became more secretive - and this outpost became more secretive and reclusive.
By the 1510s, they were very much underground, still talking like a religious organization, still pretending to serve god and king (though usually under other people’s banners), but they were a lot less fussy about who they lent money to and how they got money. Though even this faded by the end of the decade. In the 1520s, an outsider named Sylvester found them, and visited. The visit was cordial enough: Sylvester and his men visited their main fort (the Cross Tower), though they were not allowed to stay in it. They saw some of the layout, though not the spring house or the tunnels under the hills. They heard about the glory days of the order, their continuing efforts, their hopes of return to their grandeur of the past. Sylvester's group did not explore the island much - partly because the order discouraged them - partly because they saw it as a pestilent and unwholesome place, a good place to die. The only kicker was one of the monks escaping with wild stories of treasure and tunnels and terrible practices. The order reclaimed him, saying he was a sad case and all. Sylvester had his doubts. They sailed away, and that was almost the last outside contact with them.
And that is the end fo their story, though not where it really ended. But some time in the next fe years, the cliffs collapsed and brought down the Cross Tower and whoever was left died or went away, and that was the end of that. Rumors persisted - of undead and terrible secrets and treasure - but the place was inhopitable enough that no one really tried to find any of it.

Type

Island

Location under

Hool Marshes

Characters in Location

• Clive