Caligos Isle/storyline 2017
Caligos Isle - 2017 Storyline
Pre-Storyline
Opening Night
Synopsis of Storyline & Quest Results
Captain Rinnok Junderthal has made his preparations on the island - all the merchants are set up, all the games are out, all the decorations are in place. Therefore, he travels back to the mainland to find an eager group of merrymakers to enjoy all the best Caligos Isle has to offer. He can practically see the stacks of silver piling up around him.
Junderthal heard of the demise of Feywrot Mire -- all the merchants now without shops, adventurers without a place to visit and celebrate, all the lost revenue... he decides to make the most of an unfortunate situation and returns to the coast at the edge of Feywrot.
Once in port, he makes his announcements and gathers a crowd, hawking the marvels to be found on the distant island. A land is unseen! Treasures undiscovered! History lost to time and the sea! There's something for everyone. The boarding passes sell out in short order.
During the trip to the island, passengers might notice that the coarse, but generally amiable captain seems a little restless. Perhaps he is simply eager to return to his beloved isle. The voyage is without interruption, though some passengers probably notice bands of discoloration around the captain's wrists; they're indistinct, like old, harshly treated tattoos. It's certainly just a trick of the eye that makes them seem to slither to and fro occasionally. After 30 minutes of southerly travel, the boat slips through a misty shroud and comes out on the other side of Caligos Isle.
After arrival on the island, Junderthal is able to create a portal back to the mainland -- the following evening, and every year thereafter, he offers to take players on a tour of the island. Though on the face, the island is certainly foreboding, with a scarred and grey countenance, the festivities are a welcome distraction. It is only after being there a while that festival-goers begin to hear the voices. Quiet whispers haunt the fog that shrouds the island, and figures seem to dwell trapped within its depths.
Amid the shoppers and merrymakers, talk begins to circulate of wondrous good fortunes. Those that came to the island as mere wishes in the minds and hearts of the festivalgoers are suddenly blossoming into fruition around them. It is inexplicable. The sudden turn of fortunes only inflames those latent desires, and wishes grow deeper and grander as the festival goes on.
Meanwhile, the voices within the fog beckon to all those the mist touches, bidding them to various tasks here and there on the isle. The festivalgoers find the landscape stark and mysterious. Decrepit buildings are but waterlogged facades of what once must have been a burgeoning settlement of shops and taverns, inns, and houses. Proof of the former inhabitants are found scattered everywhere, undoubtedly cast far afield by the tempestuous nature of the sea. Precious items and keepsakes are abandoned inside the buildings, pieces of the past, of memories, caught out of time.
As every foot of the island is explored, it becomes apparent that the slip of land is more than it seems. The iconology discovered seems to suggest that its former inhabitants worshipped a deity previously unknown to world scholars - a deity designated by dual concentric rings of eels joined head to tail. The name Ghezresh surfaces among the ruins, though exactly who or what remains uncertain. Throughout the festival, those in attendance have carried out the seemingly benign requests of the spirits, hoping to satiate their needs, to end their sorrow. But, just as the festival is drawing to a close, it becomes apparent that those deeds have consequences and not the sort that was intended.
One of these tasks was to collect the strange materials found on the island. Some bricks, some tiles, beams, and posts, are all brought to where the spirits wish… At the very top. It is only as the festival is bound to close that a transformation takes place at the peak, transforming all the brick-a-brac into a temple to this new deity. And as the Ezreshi, a priestess with a title previously unheard of casts her first blessing in the temple, the sound of a tomb being opened echoes across the land.
The spirits of the island are left to their purgatory once again as the ship of festival-goers departs its shores, but perhaps a little something of specters has escaped. Seeping into their skin while they laughed and shopped, explored and whiled away the days with wishing, the travelers have taken a little of Caligos Isle home.