The Ephemeral Isles, sometimes refered to as the Isles or the Broken Vows, are a series of continents made up of the split remnants of the Longlands, and are the primary focus of the novels of the same name.
History
The Ephemeral Isles were once major components of a unified landmass known as the Longlands, the massive supercontinent that was produced by the events of the initial Shatter. This supercontinent was split following the events of the Spread, a calamitous occurrence that Scholars believed to be linked to a religious event known as the Sacrifice of the Wanderer in 979 S and the subsequent will of The Great Consensus. In truth, the Sacrifice of the Wanderer was only tangentially related as the spread was initiated by the breaking of the Covenant of Balance by a few members of the Order of Aspects, resulting in the division of the Longlands into chaotic Isles as retribution. While this change to the land was intended to represent the abandonment of order in the face of The Great Consensus and its protection, the unaware Aspects of the order interpreted this and the silence of the Great Consensus as a sign of a change following the loss of the Aspect of Wander and embraced the separation of the land, dissolving the Order of Aspects and the religious practice that followed it.
Within the first year following the Spread, scholars began to recognize signs of the Isles formation through tectonic activity and strange natural divisions across the Longlands, though it was not until 5 SS that the divisons became large enough for them to conclude that the splitting of the Longlands and the drifting of the landmass was occurring. Brief and futile efforts were undergone to attempt to tether the isles together until it became clear that the direction and rate of drift indicated that the action was magical in nature. This acknowledgement immediately launched a period of panic among the masses known as the Hastening, where societies and organizations across the Longlands scrambled to prepare for the eventual loss of access and communication. The period between 10 and 30 SS saw a signifcant displacement in the populations of the Isles as the temporary governing bodies failed to equalize populations across the divided landmasses. By 100 SS the Isles were dinstinctly separated from one another, with the shortest isle-to-isle travel taking a four-light travel.
Over the years since the initial creation of the Isles, multiple acadmeic studies have been performed on the trajectory, distance, and tectonic activity between the Isles to learn more about the nature of their movements. It is generally accepted that the Isles are in a constant state of repelling drift from one another, with the distance between the Isles slowly growing at a larger rate with each passing turn of the skies. Despite several improvements in aquatic transportation over the years, travel between the Isles became increasingly burdensome with nearly all casual travel between the Isles ceasing by 900-1000 SS. By 1400 SS the understanding of the nature and events of other Isles had all but faded from public consciousness, causing scholars to nickname the Isles for the fleeting nature of the knowledge surrounding them.
Currently it is not unusual for the closest Isles to be separated by five turns of sea travel, with some Isles being rumored to require generational-trips to access. The costs and efforts required to undertake such lengthy trips result in the travel only rarely being performed by Longtraders or scholars, typically as a one-way trip. Such events are momentous enough to result in entire port towns being built around the arrival of such ships between Isles.
Geographical Features
Since the initial creation and discover of the Isles, the geographical features of the Isles have remained a topic of great debat and curiosity amongst scholars. It was theorized in a report funded by the Keepers of Mourn in 781 SS that over 20% of the original landmass of the Longlands had been lost in the drift of the Isles through a combination of erosion, low sea levels and magical imbalance. The same report theorized that the increase in distance of the Isles from each other resulted in a direct impact to the balance of elemental energies within each Isle, which was believed to be a major contributing factor to the transformation of each Isle's contained biomes. While generally accepted as an accurate assessment, scholars found it difficult to gauge the nature of this impact on a consistent scale due to decreasing contact between Isles and the ever changing nature of their respective communities.
Each Isle was impacted differently in both beneficial and detrimental ways by this change. For example, the Isle Garoo was previously recognized as a distinctly inhospitable landscape as a region of the Longlands due to its long, circling mountain ranges. Upon its separation into an Isle, the land suffered a significant change as the heaviest part of the landmass collapsed into the Drifting Sea, eroding the rough land down and creating several beaches and lush farmlands. This sudden change was in stark contrast to its western lands which more accurately represented the harsh and infertile lands that once made up its core.
List of Notable Isles
Garoo - A dual-kingdom island making up the mountainous Northwest of the Longlands.
Cordere -
Loulem -
Ainserre -
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