The Isle of Talon Point

        One of the few large islands in the chain without any permanent settlements, Talon Point appears to have once been home to a race that lived and died long before even the Creators. The island is covered almost entirely in rolling hills and glens - very few large trees other than beach palms. In many places, strange basalt ruins rise from the earth; simplistic structures such as monoliths and strange, bloated statues. Most are little more than foundations covered in a green carpet of ages, giving the landscape odd symetry in some places. Many are surrounded by a strange type of purple flower that grows nowhere else on Rym, a blossom used by the lutrai to create certain types of incence, and by the koba as a sort of mild euphoric. Otherwise, the island is vitually deserted, with only small grazing animals and their slightly larger predators.

        Talon Point is really an ancient grave, one frequented by faded spirits too blurred by age to define. They are humanoid, these phantoms, occasionally emerging from the ancient stones at night to wander about aimlessly. They cannot be communicated with in any way - they are simply an odd visual phenomenon, spirits out of phase with the corporeal world. They were long gone before the time of the Creators, who left some signs of ancient escavation projects here. It is possible that the distubance of the tomb is what causes these wandering spirits - the Creators found only ruins.

The Graves

        Some of the open burial mounds can be accessed by means of a stout machete, their entries left open by the Creators who first explored them. Within lie ancient stone corridors lined with cave paintings that depict images of a long-dead race. Six distinct types of wingless draconic humanoids appear in scenes of all kinds, along with images of all the old gods, each corresponding to a different breed. They were a peaceful race, from the general feel of the images, though there is a strange, slightly fanatical undertone present - some scenes depict sacrifice and inter-species fighting. As a species, they seem to mimic the higher conflicts between members of the long-dead pantheon, and in some of the deeper chambers are more disturbing scenes of their civilization's eventual self-destructive decline.

        Some shamans who have studied these caves suspect that the previous inhabitants were the first, true children of the gods. Others believe that the gods may have, in fact, been the oldest and most powerful rulers of the humaoids, and that the last of the paintings were in fact made by the grieving gods, a symbol of the destructive parental conflicts that destroyed their own children. This may also explain the strange blossoms that grow throughout the ruins. In either case, the burial mounds and fallen temples are all places of powerful ancient magic that only dragons seem able to tap. Some will even visit the graves on occasion, though none are truly certain why. It is just an instinct.

Back...