Lof Tura ("Island of Death")

Ruler: None
Population: Unknown
Capital: Unknown

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1. About Lof Tura
2. The Curse of Nofsa Galin

1. About Lof Tura

Lof Tura dominates the central Vohoun, and not just because it's the largest land-mass between the Amedio and Hepmonaland. The island's a nexus for the strange and magical powers pulsing through the region, and its dense forests and mist-shrouded valleys hold all manner of dreams and nightmares.

Explorers who have visited the island report that creatures out-of-time populate its many rifts and canyons, as well as some of the smaller islands clustered around it. Immense reptiles, intelligent lizardmen and wingless wyrms can be found here, as well as monsters of a less terrestrial origin.

Two active volcanoes --one on the island's northern half, another on its southern half -- periodically erupt, blocking out the sun with dark columns of ash and sending tendrils of lava crawling to the sea. Weak to strong tremors routinely shake the island and pose a significant threat to anyone attempting to explore the island's interior. Intelligent races have been attempting to settle the island for generations. Adventurers report finding traces of Olman and Touv cities and villages on the island, as well as ruins left by less-identifiable peoples.

At any given time there are a handful of small -- 50 to 100 people -- villages on the island, but these are usually transitory in nature. Some are escaped slaves who've come to the most dangerous land in the Vohoun in the hopes that their tormentors would not follow, while others are folks fleeing enemies and hoping to lay low for a while. Still others are explorers who set up base camps in hopes of discovering one of the island's many animal and mineral treasures.

The island's name, Lof Tura, is Suelese for "Island of Death". Adventurers in the Principality of Oldrin have given it another name: Monster Island.

2. The Curse of Nofsa Galin

The island's name -- and much of its current reputation -- come from the Suel. In 532 CY the Scarlet Brotherhood became intrigued with reports coming in from the island of bizarre new monsters and unfathomable magical energies.

The Brotherhood sent a small fleet to establish a permanent, fortified colony on the island's northern shore, with the explicit goal of uncovering the source of the island's magical energy, and capturing its denizens for use established monster breeding programs. The colony, known as Ulmis, was made up a few hundred loyal Suel and about 300 slaves.

Using magic and slave labor, they quickly cleared land in northern jungle for their new town, and erected city walls using a combination of local hardwood and basalt hacked from old lava flows. A subterranean level was created to hold research animals for experimentation, and reinforced iron barred pens were constructed both inside and outside the village's walls for the same purpose

From the very beginning though, the island spelled doom for the Brotherhood colonists, who quickly began calling it Lof Tora, or "Island of Death". Fierce monsters --some mutated versions of traditional jungle animals -- began attacking the town, slaying slaves and even taking down the occasional Brotherhood member

The great reptiles of legends, who's footsteps shook the earth almost as much as the earthquakes, discovered the town and its slaves. Within weeks the Brotherhood's slave population had been decimated, crippling the colony's ability to raise crops and forcing it to allocate more time to fishing and to sending food gathering expeditions into the forest.

These activities in turn revealed even greater mysteries and dangers. Brotherhood explorers found lost cities with incredible treasures, monsters like carnivorous, self-propelled plants capable of chasing their prey, and what survivors later claimed were portals to other planes and times. But their single greatest discovery was a race of pre-sentient lizardmen that appeared to be the devolved remnants of an ancient civilization.

Sensing the potential for an excellent slave race, the Brotherhood captured many of these humanoids and brought them back to their village for experimentation. The specifics of what happened next are unknown.

What is known is that the island's mists suddenly grew far thicker and menacing. Passing ships reported seeing large explosions and strange lights rippling around the island's northern shore. Finally, both volcanoes erupted, creating immense clouds of ash that blocked out the sun around the region and actually lowered temperatures around Oerik and the Flanaess for nearly a year.

When the eruptions ended, and the first brave (and foolish) adventurers returned to the island, they found that the Scarlet Brotherhood encampment had been destroyed and that all of its inhabitants -- Suel and slaves alike -- had been slain.

Since then, a new legend has come into existence: the Nofsa Galin ("the Scarlet Terrors"). The terrors take the form of a seemingly sentient scarlet mist that encircles and then subdues or slays its victims. The mists apparently can move quite quickly as gusts of wind, and some report that the mist's attack is more like a whirlwind than it is a slow descending of evening mist.

In any case, some of those attacked by the mist have died instantly after having the life drained from them. Others have passed out only to awake only to find themselves transported to another part of the Vohoun. There seems to be no rhyme or reason beyond the attacks, and the Suel are just as likely to be attacked as runway slaves.

Some claim that that the Scarlet Terrors were created when the ancient god of the lizardmen cursed the Suel for their horrid experiments. Others claim the Suel brought upon the transformation themselves in an attempt to fight back at the force that attacked them when the volcanoes erupted. Still others say that the Brotherhood's agents found and used an artifact from another plane of existence that transformed them. But in truth, no one knows exactly what happened, and most chalk it up as one more reason to never, ever visit the curse island of Lof Tura.