Four islands brimming with challenges
Ysslandril
Heil! Welcome to Ysslandril!
Skirt the coast at world's end until the sun sets to your left. Hold course toward the mists and turn right when your sunstone glows blue. Then sail straight on until dawn. Then look back.
There was a time when the magical isles of Ysslandril rivaled the sun's own reflection upon the seas. The fine sand of their shores gleamed like gold; their mountains — proud giants — rose to the heavens, playing with the clouds that caressed their peaks; and their flowers… ah, their flowers!
Perhaps it is what I miss most, and what pains me most to recall. Scattered across the land, painted in a thousand hues, they defied all logic with their shapes, whispering to the wind their rain of petals.
There was a time when spring followed winter, and summer gave way to autumn. The magic of Ysslandril flowed with the turning of the seasons… until one spring day, as the first dandelion took flight, Fulvinter the Pale Wyrm unleashed its icy breath.
The Harsh Winter plunged all life into eternal slumber. The winds tore the flowers away, the trees stood bare, and snow hushed the land. The cunning Fulvinter, driven by resentment, had prevailed.
Today, Ysslandril still holds a drop of magic — a spark of hope. Four youths, imbued with magic and armed with the boldness of youth and ignorance, journey to the peak of Nifl, to the lair of the dragon Fulvinter. Will they succeed where others have failed? The Cunning Rival still keeps many tricks in its claws. It may be that this old one must yet teach some wisdom to those hollow helms…
Ysslandril's islands
Nifl
Isle of the Dragon
At the most remote and forgotten edge of the archipelago — treacherous to reach — this colossal glacier rises, dominating the horizon and towering above all other mountains.
Though it is a massive bulk of ice and ancient stone, its depths conceal echoes of an old autumnal forest. Gnarled trees with scarlet leaves twist their thick roots through the ice. The grass, pale as frost, blankets the ground like a snowy meadow, each blade swaying slowly in an endless glacial breeze.
Jotun
Isle of the Old Enchanted Wood
Deep within its most secluded valley, the shadow of a colossal tree not only shelters its millennial gloom but shrouds the entire isle in mystery.
Ancient texts speak of streams and pools of magic water, where reflections unveil another reality — yet few have ventured far enough to confirm it. The same tales tell of an age-old civilization of giants who once trod the mud and pebbles of the underbrush; of a dense forest where larches and white birches peer into the abyss of grottos and cliffs that carve the rugged shores.
Muspell
Isle of Emberfalls
They say that on this isle, fire was tamed. Rivers of lava snake through rock formations black as night, where ember-creatures emerge to watch over their domain.
Like a living circulatory system, its veins and arteries pulse slowly, weaving in and out of the volcano's raw stone walls and floors. Within its hollowed heart — carved and shaped into courtyards and terraces — lies the ancient kingdom of the forge: now bathed in lava-heated springs that turn the humid air to steam and warm the exotic chambers.
Nidavell
Isle of the Abyssal Depths
Sinking their foundations into the deepest abyssal waters of Ysslandril, the mountains here grow upside down. Within their hollow depths, the echo of dozens of hammers still rings — chiseling stone, yearning for the warm glow of gemstones that speckle the walls.
The once-bustling mine has known better days. Its narrow, abandoned tunnels watched as time filled the void of its chasms with dust. Rusted, ingenious machines carry on their relentless cycles, prisoners of an eternal spark of will.
Etymology
Ysslandril is a word handed down to us from the ancient tongue of the giants, of which little is known. It is composed of the following elements:
- Yss derives from the verb Yssr (or Ussr), meaning "to sink, to submerge", but also "to hide, to conceal", and even "to lie" in its most poetic form.
- Landr from Landurr, our "anvil", though literally "great iron rock", and symbolically, "a person of great patience or little initiative.
- The suffix -il is used to designate lands washed by the sea or any body of water ("shore, bank, coast").
I am the avalanche fallen from the sky,
the Twilight of Seasons,
Doom's own Herald,
and the Winter-Thrice.