Lake Encarthan and the Isle of Terror

Lake Encarthan is one of the most heavily traveled bodies of water on Golarion, with regular shipping along its coasts. Four national capitals sit on Lake Encarthan’s shores—Caliphas of Ustalav, Kerse of Druma, Tamran of Nirmathas, and Thronestep of Razmiran—and several other key cities besides, such as the Molthuni naval city of Eranmas and Kyonin’s port of Greengold. Although the lake harbors pirates and monsters, the opportunity for profit makes navigating its waters worth the risks.

Today, Lake Encarthan is more dangerous than ever, due to the Whispering Tyrant’s activity on and around the Isle of Terror. This large island at the lake’s center was never a place visited by the sensible. Strange storms whipped the lake for miles around it, and the island’s rocky shores provided few safe places to anchor. Now that the Whispering Tyrant has returned, the negative energy storms around the island roil constantly, and the island contains an even greater undead presence. Unlike in the Gravelands, where mobs of undead roam under the guidance of undead officers or Whispering Way necromancers, the undead on the Isle of Terror are almost all powerful individuals who serve in Tar-Baphon’s courts and aid him in his plot to scour the lands of the living. Flying and swimming undead range further than ever before, sometimes as far as the coastal settlements.

Powerful adventurers willing to brave the Isle of Terror have only one relatively reasonable harbor: the bay around Fort Landing.

Once a fortress marking the road to Tar-Baphon’s underground city, Fort Landing stands on the white sand beaches at the mouth of the Whispering River. The river’s dark, poisonous waters flow down from the Three Furies, the mountain range at the island’s heart. Deep in the Three Furies yawn the Wizard-King’s Pit and its Well of Sorrows, a trap that Tar-Baphon set for Aroden millennia ago. The trap is rumored to still be active and poised to snare careless explorers.

Not all inhabitants of the Isle of Terror are beholden to the Whispering Tyrant. The terror wolves that prowl the island’s forests are a threat to any travelers, and the living trees in the Shadow’s Heart forest bear a passionate animosity toward all intruders. A powerful undead dragon named Karamorros hides on the island, fuming and plotting. Karamorros had planned to murder Tar-Baphon due to an old vendetta, but her hasty attack on the returned Whispering Tyrant recently led to a humiliating rout. Although Karamorros and her minions, the Whisperscale lizardfolk, might serve as allies for those who wish to confront the Whispering Tyrant, she is every bit as crafty and wicked as her enemy.

The Isle of Terror fades in and out of cosmic alignment with the Negative Energy Plane, and entire sections of the island periodically become overwhelmed by the void of that empty, life-hating realm. During this alignment, creatures can step out of the Negative Energy Plane and onto the island, where the Whispering Tyrant presses them into service.

The lands touched by this joining can take decades to recover.

ARAZNI

Aroden’s former herald was slain by the Whispering Tyrant, forced into lichdom by the necromancer Geb, and escaped centuries of serving as Geb’s queen by her own cunning and tenacity. She is a patron of the abused and broken, commanding her followers to survive at all costs and to never forgive those who have hurt or abandoned them. She holds a following among those surviving knights of Lastwall who feel resentment over how badly their leaders failed them, although most goodly knights eschew her harsh views and vindictive nature.

ARAZNI FEY BARGAINS

Some fey offer supernatural boons in exchange for strange currency, such as the ability to see the moon or the first syllable of the buyer’s name. Breaking a fey bargain usually brings a dire curse, and negotiating to end one often bears an even heavier cost. Fey normally grant the buyer the ability to use a focus spell as an innate spell a certain number of times—usually three times —ever. A bargain for beauty might grant the captivating adoration focus spell, while a wish for protection might win the skin of thorns focus spell. The focus spells are of the primal tradition, even if they would usually be from a class that casts them via a different tradition, and the buyer is trained in attack rolls and spell DCs with this focus spell, even if they normally aren’t trained in primal spells.

More powerful fey offer more powerful focus spells.

KARAMORROS