Geography & Environment
The Immortal Isle lies within The Sea Realm, far from the coasts of eastern Tolria, shrouded for centuries in veils of sea-mist. Its terrain is both brooding and beautiful, a reflection of its cursed inhabitants—the Valar. From the craggy peninsula of Crown's End in the east, where sea-cliffs weep brine into the churning Abythis sea trench below, to the gentle, wind-brushed autumnal forests of the western vales, the island is a study in contrasts: wild and cultivated, cursed and consecrated.
The center of the isle is dominated by onyx mountains, a serrated range of volcanic stone running north to south. Black peaks cut the sky like blades, their slopes wrapped in silver pines and gnarled birch. Below them, a patchwork of fertile valleys yields moss-choked rivers, glimmering fungal groves, and glades of strange, moonlight-colored flora known to bloom only under the stars. The forests shift with the season in endless twilight hues—fiery orange, blood-red, and gold even when other lands see green.
On the western shore, a narrow strait separates the main island from Temple Isle, a solemn, windswept islet where the Temple of Valor—part mausoleum, part shrine—houses the honored dead of the Valar. The sea mists that once rolled across these shores held whispers of Draugr curses and ghostly wails, remnants of the Night Mother Nyx's hex upon the Valar bloodline.
The climate is cool and humid, often cloaked in a wet chill. Rain is frequent, rolling in grey sheets from the sea. Fog banks drift without wind, lingering like ghosts at sea level and coiling through mountain passes. Only after the curse was lifted did glimpses of sunlight begin to filter through—pale and soft, as if uncertain it was welcome.
Wildlife & Fauna
The isle is home to ethereal creatures adapted to its strange twilight ecology. Silver-horned stags roam the forests, followed by flocks of black-winged magpies with violet eyes. Shimmering moths, large as a hand, flutter through the nights, their wings glowing faintly with otherworldly patterns. Beneath the surface of quiet lakes, it’s said pale serpents twist in silence, drawn to the crescent moonlight.
Draugr remnants—sailor-wraiths cursed to patrol their old shipwrecks—still rise occasionally on foggy nights. The Valar watch the coastlines carefully, and shrines have been erected in hopes of appeasing these lost dead.
History & Settlement
The Immortal Isle was uninhabited before the Valar arrived in the Third Age (Age of the Elves). They came not as conquerors, but as exiles—cast out from the elven civilization of Itelion (in Tolria) after King Athelstan Valarion, a once-renowned Vanir noble, consorted with a vampiric cabal of occult aristocrats loyal to the Night Mother Nyx and drank from her cursed chalice. Thus was born the Valar curse: immortality without joy, sunlight without warmth, and life without end. Driven from their homeland by their own kind, they sailed east across uncharted waters in a fleet of black-sailed ships, guided only by the pull of their own will and the need for sanctuary.
Athelstan and his kin found it on this island, and named it the Immortal Isle. With his followers, he founded the city of Valheim on the western coast, nestled beneath the Onyx Mountains. The island, once untouched, soon bore the touch of melancholic culture and civilization—statues, gothic manors, black iron lanterns swaying in the wind.
But the Valar curse soon followed them to their new homeland. A fog settled upon the land, blanketing the island in twilight for millennia. None who died at sea could pass on peacefully—Draugr, those cursed undead, would rise from the depths to plague their kin. It was said that none could lift the curse until the crown of Athelstan—the artifact Nyx herself had gifted him—was destroyed.
That day came in the Fifth Age, when Edward O'Bannon, a drowned Valar sailor - turned Draugr, descended into the Abythis Sea Trench and shattered Athelstan’s crown after assisting The Sunsations in slaying the World Eater Serpent. With that act, the grey veil that smothered the Immortal Isle began to break.
Legacy
Though the curse has lifted, the weight of history remains. The Immortal Isle is no longer shrouded, but its soul is still cloaked in shadows of what was. The Valar remain a people of poise and sorrow—immortal artists, warriors, and seafarers seeking meaning in a world that fears their blood and envies their grace.
To walk its woods is to tread on forgotten poetry. To stand atop Crown’s End is to hear the crashing hymn of waves singing of banishment and rebirth.
And to live as a Valar on the Immortal Isle is to seek beauty... in eternal mourning.