Brass Bricks

This is a very general map of Nikazanjima, or “Monster Island”, as you guys refer to it… in Japanese, that would be “Yokaishima”. Scary names have the advantage of obscuring the actual name and location of the island, and discouraging the superstitious from even fishing in local waters. Information presented is based on you guys landing in the previous adventure, and circling the island once before landing this time.

The island itself is located about a day’s sail from Honshu. That is too far for casual traffic by fishermen, but not so far away as to make it difficult to get to. During the day, the island is fairly mundane looking, but at night frequent storms and unseasonal fog keep ships away from it. To make matters worse, there are small shoals around parts of the island (not charted), visible only by the surf and a few bits of wreckage.

Much of the shoreline is surrounded by rocky beaches, too rugged to put ashore on, or low cliffs of rugged volcanic rock. These are climbable of course, but are crumbly, wet, and frequently pounded by the occasional freakishly large wave. Fortunately there are a few beaches of volcanic black sand, including two that serve as adequately protected harbors. The island is dominated by two small volcanos, both reaching about 1000′ feet in height or more. Both are riddled with lava tubes, but both appear to be dormant. The surface of the island is rugged and covered with numerous ravines, hills, and small streams. The southern portion of the island is covered in a thick forest, mixed palm, bamboo, and deciduous trees, intermingled with lush foliage on the ground. The northern side of the island is mostly grassy hills dottend by an occasional bamboo thicket.

Human presence on the island is limited to what you bring, of course. Circling the island during the day, you can see a few interesting structures. On the southernmost beach, you of course see the shack and the stone lanterns, and the trail leading into the forest. In the northeastern corner of the island, you can see the remains of a formerly extensive fishing village, abandoned for longer than you can tell from the water. Certainly decades at the very least, maybe much longer. On the far northern tip of the island, you can see a small watchtower, constructed of bamboo. It sits on a rocky hill near the northern beach, and seems to be well maintained by parties unknown.

The island is pretty much the same at night, except when the two stone lanterns on the southern beach burn dimly with cold green flames, apparently without fuel. These lights have lured enough fishermen to their deaths on the shoals in the past that they are cited as a good reason to avoid the island.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 29th, 2005 at 6:19 pm and is filed under RPG - Role Playing Games, RPG - Warring States. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.