The Gelgelan Eminence

Though this isolated island is far off the navigational charts for most traders and even most cartographers, it is of tremendous importance in terms of magical history as well as serving as a warning to any who decide to meddle with volcanoes.

It is nearly a thousand miles across at its widest, however a significant potion of the island is empty thanks to the major caldera lake. The island itself used to be more or less a solid volcanic cone, but several thousand years ago something went badly wrong with the Gate that was stuck under the surface there, with the volcanic activity still present. No one was able to move it or warn of its demise as no one had been there for hundreds of years. The Gate may have been planted above the surface, but was quickly subsumed by rumbling eruptions.

Considerably later, much more recently at only around 35 years ago, there was a massive magically triggered explosion. Or perhaps the volcanic eruption caused a magic backlash, no one is certain. This caused a three-hundred mile wide section of the island to literally vanish along with the inside of the volcano. This included the Gate, which seems to have malfunctioned badly in the depths or under so much magma for hundreds of years. What reappeared in its stead was a chunk of land that promptly was flooded by the incoming ocean and collapsing walls of the volcanic mountain itself.

The island rivaled Griffinfall for sheer size of its mountain and volcanic areas, and for its height once upon a time. However only a tiny portion of the southern and north-eastern summits reach even a fraction of what they could. The southern rim is known as the Cusp, and stands 21,200 feet at its highest, averaging around 18,000 along a hundred-mile strip. The north-eastern rim is called The Maw, and towers at 22,500 feet or so in jagged cliffs and dangerously overhung blocks. Both sides of the crater have similar uneven and tooth-like rims, though why this has occurred no one really knows. There is a smaller volcano to the south-west, but it is so far dormant.

However, the island isn’t just a smoldering atoll at this point, as King’s Pride Atoll is an example. Instead of merely exploding into smaller islands, the Gate’s interaction did something miraculous and unheard of: it brought something to the world, as it vanished. Perhaps the Gate is somewhere on the other side? No one knows.

The land that arrived was mainly situated within the caldera’s sphere, and while some higher-ground portions survived this horrifying event, much of the lower lands and marshes, what might have been small inlets and lakes, all vanished under lava, lahar ash and mudslides, and the rushing-in of ocean water that was sucked in with the resulting loss of mass. The lake currently is fresh water, with some modicum of normal weather replenishing what might have fallen onto the peak in centuries past. The lake is around 400 feet above sea level, and the massive waterway has numerous large lakes and drops with waterfalls while heading toward the ocean. Many of the inhabited areas that were transferred to Dragondeep were lost forever, with the water once more sweeping out of the area, or even just burning up in the magma.

It’s unknown just how many people were in any of the settlements or cities, but those who survived tell of at least three major cities of around 100 thousand people each, which were never seen again. What is known is that there were no people on the island when it blew up, or if there were, they hadn’t had regular contact with anyone on the main continent in generations.

Outside the caldera lake area the island is reasonably serene, if a bit chilly on the northern side. It’s among the coldest inhabited parts of the planet, though still has a full complement of seasons. The primary climate is that of a Boreal or Temperate zone, with mostly pine and coniferous trees, though on the southern side of the island there are plenty of other types. Within the caldera area several of the remaining and intact cities that arrived are still thriving even though their entire world changed from under them. Whatever gardens, woodlands, and other natural features were on their original world came with this cluster of cities, and have largely blended in with the native wildlife. The caldera’s warmth has provided a radically different climate than the surrounding island, with hot springs, hardly any permafrost save at the very northern edge, and year-round opportunities for hunting and agriculture.

Many of the people who survived this upheaval, and had nowhere left to live, scattered to the Eminence’s broad forest and rocky beaches. Many local animals survived the encounter because let’s just say they weren’t stupid enough to live inside a volcanic cone.

See also Gelgelans for the inhabitants of this area.