Playable?: Yes

You are welcome to create and play a Howler or Inlander although they are probably best as a secondary character or NPC.

Basic Information

Etymology of Name

The island chain’s name comes from the common or Trader’s Tongue of Aereth. It is based in the fact that, almost no matter where you are on the islands, you can hear the whistling and howling of the winds as they go in and around the many sea stacks and sea arches.

Other Names

• Howlers (people and islands)
• Southland Islands
• The Trades (refers to the constantly blowing Trade Winds)
• The Windy Isles

At a Glance

The Howling Islands are the primary home of a population of brigands, dragonslayers, pirates, and other criminals collectively known as the Howlers. These are not the cute Disney versions (Pirates of the Caribbean movies). The men and women are rough and vicious. Lives other than their own are held at a very low value unless they will fetch a good ransom. There are no pirate captains with a secret heart of gold. Its closest real world correlation would be to the islands of the Caribbean Sea.

Geography & Geology

Size & Location

The Howling Islands lay to the south of the continent of Cailleach in the Velatian Sea. This is a vast archipelago of volcanic islands although most of the volcanoes are now dormant or extinct. Many of them have eroded away, leaving karst-like formations jutting out of the sea. Additionally, as sea levels have changed over millions of years, there is a multitude of limestone karst formations dotting the seascape and landscape of the islands. Large ships take an incredible risk when trying to thread their way through the chain. Jagged reefs and submerged seamounts can rip ships to shreds.

The islands’ location also puts it at the confluence of the eastern trade winds and westerlies. It is rare for the winds to be completely calm. Since many of the islands’ formations have formed into natural arches and land bridges, the wind literally makes a howling sound.

Climate

The Howling Islands have a tropical maritime climate that is usually hot and humid. There are three seasons: the hot dry season or summer, the rainy season, and the cool dry season. The trade winds from the east do combat with the westerlies which keeps the climate less humid than it would normally be year-round.

Terrain

Mostly mountainous with secluded valleys. A few of the islands offer coastal plains and rich river deltas.

Geology

The Howling Islands are very seismically and volcanically active.

Flora and Fauna

Wide variety of plants, trees, mammals, sea life, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and insects. They are particularly known for a quasi-domesticated large wyvern called skrills. There are also some imported animals such as domesticated cattle, chickens, and hogs.

Skrill Domestication

To the south of Cailleach lay the vast archipelago known as the Howling Islands. The islands appear to be a tropical paradise. However, they are infested with wyverns. Beginning around the year 500, the often disenfranchised Grayborn began making their way south and settling there. In time other people joined them, eventually giving rise to the Howlers, a culture made up of numerous biped races.

One thing the Howlers learned after many of them were killed by the massive number of wyverns on the islands was how useful it would be to domesticate the big ones. Thanks to selective breeding, the largest of the wyverns, the skrill, consistently hatched offspring the size of an average to large horse. The Howlers learned how to incubate the eggs and be present when one hatched. This allowed the creature to lock onto the scent and voice of the person that had cared for the egg. This is the only way that the Howlers were able to tame them enough to be rideable. Even then, a skrill will happily eat its own fallen rider.

In the hundreds of years since the first people arrived on the islands, the Howlers became more and more entrenched and settled. They also learned how to survive by raiding ships. Over the last two hundred years, a fragment of their population has taken up residence on many of the mainland’s barrier islands. These land pirates are known as the Inlanders and are just as fierce as their sea brethren.

Note: There is likely a robust trade between some Howlers and mainlanders for unhatched skrill eggs since skrill nests are hard to locate on the mainland.

Government

Language(s)

• Common Tongue / Traders Tongue: Universal common language (English)
• Other: The Guild speaks a mish-mash of languages similar to Earth’s Cajun or Gullah patois.

Status

Generally, the most successful of the pirate captains, raiders, or dragonslayers are self-elected as the Pirate King until he or she isn’t.

Current Ruler(s)

Aerill Connaught

Hierarchy & Structure

There is a rough sort of parliament made up of the highest-ranking Howler and Inlander captains.

Military Structure

Everyone is capable of taking up arms.

• Ships/navy
• Skrill riders
• Inland Raiders (Inlanders; offshoot that lives and works on the mainland continents and just off-shore barrier islands).

Culture

There are numerous races represented since true Howlers and Inlanders are made up of criminals (escaped and those dumped in the islands), castaways, and the disenfranchised.

Fighting prowess is valued most of all, everything else is secondary. There is a segment of the population that stay mainly on the islands to tend animals and rice fields. The majority of the Howlers live aboard their ships while civilians live on floating houses or in houses perched on stilts over the quieter lagoons.

Physical Description

After several generations of living on the islands and the blending of ethnicities, native born Howlers tend to be tall, robust of build, and dusky skinned. Despite the many generations born on the islands, there’s also a large number of different phenotypes as some people preferred to marry or breed within their own ethnic group.