Blackgrave Isles
The legendarily dangerous isles sealed off from the outside world, home to countless terrors and nightmares
WARNING! The Rasmanthus Guild has issued a Quarantine Notice for the Blackgrave Isles for all travelers - all travel to and from the island has been banned on threat of death. Any travelers or sailors attempting to sail to and from the island will be detained, their ship burned, and all creatures present sentenced appropriately for their crimes. All travel to and from the island must approved by The Rasmanthus Guild and The Knights of the Blighted Gate, which stand eternal vigil over and handle all travel to and from the Isles. Because of the Blackgrave Isles' status as "Death Islands" as well as the home of the incredibly hostile and dangerous Heihaizi people, this quarantine notice has been issued for the good of all Zheng-Kitar to prevent the island's denizens and dangers from acquiring the means to leave the island and wreak untold havoc outside its reaches.
Geography
The Blackgrave is predominantly a jungle-covered island, with a rainforest-esque jungle with tall, thick tree canopies and extremely hot and humid conditions covering a majority of the isles' reaches - the rest of what is not covered by the hot, humid jungle is a mixture of hot and expansive savannah connecting the jungle and the rolling, hilly plains of the smaller island in the Isles, where the hot and humid termperatures of the main island give way to gentler temperatures and more picturesque terrain in the form of beautiful grasslands, rolling hills, temperate forests, and the like.
Ecosystem
As a set of isles dominated predominantly by hot, humid rainforest, the Blackgrave Isles are one of the most biologically diverse places in all the world - countless animals, lichen, plants, and creatures exist and interact within the Isles in a beautiful and self-sustaining ecosystem where, unlike the Khyarmani Atoll, most of the island's creatures and plants are not lethal or dangerous in any significant way beyond the norm.
Instead, the Heihaizi sit at the top of the Isles' Ecosystem as the Apex Predators that rule over everything else on the Isles, from the lowliest insect to the mightiest beast.
Ecosystem Cycles
Thanks to the Isle's unique placement, it has little in the way of a cycle - it is more simply divided into the 'hot season' where the isle is extremely hot and humid, and a 'dry season' where the Isle cools down slightly and, while still quite humid, is nowhere near as bad as in the Hot Season.
Localized Phenomena
Aside from frequent rainstorms and other weather phenomena associated with the isle's location and the rainforest that covers most of its surface, the Blackgrave Isles have little in the way of supernatural or special weather phenomena.
The sole unique feature of the Blackgrave Isles is the legendary Skull Rock present on the largest island in the isle's western shores - the skull of some enormous beast that now sits as part of the terrain that, during the island's hot season when the island's humidity is at its highest, water will pour from the eye sockets and mouth of the enormous skull after fresh rainstorms, pouring out enormous waterfalls of lichen-covered water into the ocean in a wonderfully beautiful display of nature's grandeur. Where this skull came from is unknown - though it has remained a popular tourist attraction even after the isle was quarantined and sealed off.
Fauna & Flora
The flora and fauna that inhabit the isles are rich and diverse, much like the Yudao Rainforest - a vast wealth of exotic birds, dangerous beasts, unique plants, and gigantic trees make up a vast wealth of the Isles' biodiversity.
Natural Resources
The Blackgrave Isles are believed to be rich in natural resources such as thick Ironwood bark, various metallic ores, pearls found in the shoals off the isles' coasts, and even a deposit of Zlakol once kept a closely guarded secret by the Jungle Elves that have since been butchered and enslaved by the Heihaizi who now call the Isles home.
What other types of natural wealth the isles may hold is a mystery only the Apex Lifeforms known as the Heihaizi know for certain.
History
For much of the history of the Blackgrave Isles, it was a simple but ill-explored wilderness-covered series of islands notable for its unique Skull Rock(See 'Localized Phenomena' for more info) but little else aside from its high biodiversity and unique ecosystem of jungle, savannah, and grasslands. However, it was not until the downfall of Dahmunara Worldthrone and the advent of the deadly, incurable disease known as the Witchblight that the isle began to see regular use - after exhausting all other options, the countries of Zheng-Kitar at the time decided to simply round up the victims of the highly communicable plague and ship them off to the Blackgrave Isles to die.
The isles, chosen for their distance from the mainland which would prevent escape but would allow for easy monitoring, saw much use over the next centuries as the Knights of the Blighted Gate began to dump victims of the Witchblight onto the isle's western shores, and soon set up three bases around the isle within which to monitor it and its dangerous denizens later discovered, the Heihaizi, after centuries of dumping the Witchblight's victims upon the isle's shores. Now, the isles stand as one of the few Death Islands in Zheng-Kitar, alongside the Khyarmani Atoll as one of the most dangerous locations to travel in all the world.
Now, all native inhabitatants of the isles have been eradicated(Most notably a tribe of Jungle Elves or enslaved beneath the Heihaizi's unmatched, perfect power.
Tourism
Though the island was once rich in tourism from scholars and simple travelers alike, none come around the island in the modern day - all tourism has died off after The Rasmanthus Guild and the Knights of the Blighted Gate declared the island Quarantined and sealed off, to prevent the Heihaizi from escaping its confines.
Type
Island
Included Organizations
Owning Organization
Contested By
Inhabiting Species
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