Caligos Isle/storyline 2017
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.
Loresongs of Caligos
The Tree
Discovered the 1st year of Caligos, the tree is located on the second level of the island near the pawnshop. Verse 1 Your vision fills with stratus clouds as they swirl past you, the wisps thinning, and you wake from a deep slumber. You feel the comfort of your skin, your true real home, around you and, just as you decide to return to slumber, you feel a sickening coldness lance into you. The sense of falling overtakes you, and you hear the cry of a bird somewhere above you. That must be how you ended up in the sky, some avian adventure, but it is short lived and your vision abruptly returns to normal. Verse 2 You sing to the tree and you are filled with the strangest sensations. The sun above is warm, the land damp, and rich with minerals from nearby volcanic flows. Wind sends you tumbling helplessly across the land and you slip into a crack, but you decide that it is time to wake from your slumber and shed your skin. Stretching your fingers into the deep, dark ground, you seek out nutrients, and then you begin to grow. Slowly, your vision unfurls to reveal an island wreathed in mist, but then it fades away. Verse 3 Indigo and silver mist trickle across your vision, and from somewhere far off you hear children playing. It seems to have been years since you landed upon this island and you have watched it change from volcanic rock and debris, to a landscape filled with homes and families. The mists no longer bother you, your leaves reflect their color, and you are at peace here. Thunder and the sound of rising waves suddenly blot out the sun, and as your vision fades, the laughter of children turns to cries of fear. Verse 4 Coldness greets you, and your vision is filled with a murky darkness that seems to be your new norm. Hints of sunlight play through the water, but they are far from you, and you feel yourself slowly starving. You miss the laughter of the children as they played around you, dancing in your leaves as they fell, and still mourn at the memory of their strangled, gurgling deaths. Kelp is your friend now, but it does not frolic so much as strangle and choke. Slowly, your vision fades away. Default Plunging in and out of darkness, you feel the world around you transform and water begins to sluff off of you in torrents. The air feels different, colder than you remembered, and your trunk feels strangled by the kelp that has come to the surface with you. Fish riddle the ground, their gills flaring as they struggle to breathe and their bodies twisting in odd arcs as they gasp out their last. Your return to the land and sky seems ill fated, but at least the sun is here, and it warms your fading vision. [1]