The Archipelago of Zoukhoï

The Archipelago of Zoukhoï

In just a few months the archipelago of Zoukhoï has become a strategic point of vital interest for all the peoples of Aarklash. The seven regions of its main island and the multitude of islets around it are the stage for the struggle between Bazûka’s forces, which are loyal to the Emperor, and the dissident clan of the terrifying Yakûsa.

It is said that that the echoes of the biggest waves travel across the oceans before dying on some unknown land to which they bring the clamor of the continent they originally came from. Maybe that is how everything started. Maybe the Dawn Ritual was one of these waves, carrying the noise of the Rag’Narok over the seas to the most distant shores.

Or maybe the opposite is true: One morning a whimsical butterfly flew over Mount Zoukhoï, and caused a conjunction that was favorable for the alchemical ritual in the Syhar desert. That’s the version preferred by Yakûsa and all those who, like him, see the future of the Rag’Narok on Zoukhoï.

Barely any bigger than the Chasms or the stone circles of Morn, the archipelago of Zoukhoï, forms a unique concentration for the strategic interests of all the peoples. Depending on their theories, the various nations have all elaborated a different view of this northern territory. Yet all of these views have an essential point in common: they place Zoukhoï at the heart of their preoccupations.

The Drunes, who are looking for signs of the Horned­One, have named this land the “last retreat,” the one where the barrow dwellers, the mysterious _Do-yaks_ of a thousand masks, dance in the glow of the eternal flames. The children of the Despot call it the “Eye of Blood” and have dug thousands of tunnels under the volcano from which the archipelago gets its name. To the other peoples – Sessairs, Lions of Alahan, Griffins of Akkylannie, Cynwäll, Syhars and dwarves of Tir-Nâ-Bor – Zoukhoï, is just a soulless piece of land. Yet it is a piece that cannot be ignored.

The rush has made thousands of troops land on this small island covered with pitch and soot where the fierce natives fight for every acre that is won. On the biggest of the islands the war is becoming bogged down before it has even begun like a miniature version of the conflict of the Age of Darkness. The other islands hold many secrets and surprises for those who hastily try to claim their riches.

The Island of the Seven Seals

The beautiful Sâa of the Conchs, the wife of Eü, the Little Father of Flames, fell in love with Tobo-Sahta-Sahta, the king of the apes. When Gham of the Breezes saw the couple in each other’s arms on the island of Zoukhoï, which was then called Banaii, he reported it to his king, who was no other but Eü. When Eü learned about his companion’s treason he broke the island into sever pieces before skipping them on the water like pebbles. Then he repudiated the beautiful Sâa of the Conchs and killed the king of apes.

Sâa lived in the ocean. That’s where she bore her children and placed each one on one of the pieces of the island scattered by her jealous husband. Because Gham saw Sâa becoming older due to her sadness and felt the day coming that she would have to leave the world, he had pity and showed her how to patch back together the scattered pieces of Banaii. Following his advice, Sâa roamed the surface of the earth to seek the powerful charms that would put the pieces back together. That’s how she discovered the seven wonderful magical seals and gave them to her children on the seven islands. With the power of the seals the pieces were reunited and Sâa began dreaming of seeing her family together again for her departure. Alas, their long stays on lands that were so far from each other had transformed them beyond all resemblance. Her sons fought her sons, waging a merciless war for the possession of the seals. Worse yet, Eü the rancorous sunk into the ground to shatter the island again, yet the seals’ power was so strong that he didn’t manage to do so.

Still today Eü grumbles beneath Mount Zoukhoï to bury the children of Sâa and the tribes of the island’s seven regions battle each other every time they meet.

Legend of the Manius

Beyond the naïve theories of the Manuis (the only peaceful people of the island of Zoukhoï), the first visitors have made long descriptions of each of the seven regions as if they were unique lands almost separate from their neighboring areas. High mountain chains even divide some parts of the island from their bordering zones, seemingly giving the legend a certain root in reality.

More profoundly, the seven seals of Sâa are surely one of the main reasons that the peoples of Aarklash are drawn to Zoukhoï. The most informed adepts and faithful see this Manuis tale as a metaphor for the primordial elemental conflicts that evoke the secret of life. They are aware that in every legend there is a piece of truth. No one knows what the seven seals are or where on the island they are hidden, yet the powers that they are said to have are enough to cause many to grow a taste for exploration.

Seal of Obsidian: Mount Zoukhoï

The black slopes of Mount Zoukhoï, a volcano of impressive size, are continually swept by swirling and blazing winds. The ground, which has become a carpet of chalky ash, gives life every day to lush new plants that form multicolored forests in the scorched surrounding brush. Vampire trees and snake vines, both animated by the same strange creeping, slither there looking for prey.

The few natives know that this place hasn’t always been so, that tribes of men with skin as black as night, the fallen of Obay, beat their skin drums all around the crater before performing their sacrifices. They speak of a time when the benevolent volcano provided fertile manna for the luxuriance of the jungles.

Though these tribes survived for a while as well as they could, these times are now over. No one knows what has happened to the fallen. Some say that they were decimated by diseases that affect all beings that breathe the volcano’s poisonous vapors for too long.

Seal of Clay: The Land of Ashes

Trapped by the uncrossable barrier formed by the peaks that separate Mount Zoukhoï from the Valley of Barrows, the volcano’s ashes drift to the steppes in the southwest. These are covered by a perpetual layer of soot and are ravaged by the eruptions of Mount Zoukhoï’s two younger sons who reach an altitude of 1500 meters.

These two volcanoes boil with chaotic and violent activity, drowning the scarce rivers with lava flows and sulfur vapor. It’s not surprising, seeing the conditions, that this land of ashes has become a true desert.

Yet aridity does not mean the end of all life. The continent’s most dangerous insects crawl all over this desolate stretch of land, greedily searching the ground for water and roots.

Seal of Alabaster: The Valley of Barrows

Protected from the ash-laden rains coming from the three huge volcanoes in the north of the island, the Valley of Barrows is a stark contrast to the nightmarish steppes bordering it. Benefiting fully from the nearby cold currents that flow along its pebble beaches, it stretches along the coast in a landscape that is hilly, green and bathed by the sun.

Further inland, however, the underground volcanic activity dries up the vegetation, thus giving birth to prairies of burning straw. There the Valley of Barrows becomes a land of fire dominated by reddish and golden colors. The eruptions that occasionally shake it destroy vast plains of sun-scorched grasses in the blink of an eye, turning them into carpets of flames for as far as the eye can see.

The Do-yaks, a barbarian people, haunt this valley, performing their sinister rituals around the fires. These warriors wear huge horned masks carved from the wood of the scattered bits of jungle that remain in this inferno. This tribe maintains the relations required for its survival as a people and for the continued practice of its religion, which is based on human sacrifice.

Recently Drunes have been spotted in the region, most probably to try to take up contact with the Doyaks whose horned god can remind of Cernunnos.

Seal of Emerald: The Haunted Jungles

The Haunted Jungles cover a large central part of the island. High volcanic hills drown their foliage in eternal mists deployed is stringy layers pierced by the rays of the low-lying sun. There the song of the soogloo – a bird whose cry sounds like its name – rivals that of the tree-dwelling peacock in an eerie duet that can’t be heard anywhere else in the world.

The rains that drench the jungle cause such lush vegetation to grow that all paths are quickly hidden. Therefore, this region is a dangerous trap for all enemy armies.

The goblins of Zoukhoï lived there in bands united by the fear of ogres before Yakûsa’s arrival. Ûraken’s former disciple has subjugated these tribes, which now form the biggest part of the clan’s bizhus.

Yakûsa’s guerilla army is far from being the only threat faced by the Haunted Jungles. Indeed, the latter get their name from the presence of Tobo-Mahta, the great white ape. This gigantic creature is worshipped like a god by the most backward tribes of native brats, the ones that never wanted to follow Yakûsa. These pygmies, who are fiercely independent, have abandoned the cult of Rat for the one of the great white ape to whom they sacrifice their prisoners. In no way is Tobo-Mahta an animistic philosophical principle; he is very real and attracted by the smell of blood. He is constantly on the move and is therefore hard to locate. What more, the strong protection that his brat worshippers grant him (out of fear that enemies provoke his wrath) makes meeting him very hazardous.

The pygmies use the venom of the religious spider, a poison that is mortal even for a Wolfen or an ogre. This increases the difficulty of combat against the primitive tribes that don’t hesitate to use the slightest confrontation as a magnet to attract Tobo-Mahta and leave the enemy at the creature’s mercy.

Seal of Bones: Skull Bay

The region of Skull Bay, a wide inlet of the sea deep into the land, is covered with rice paddies structured into artificial terraces by hordes of bizhus. Its well-kept roads made it much easier for Bazûka to invade from the Southern Jungles.

The envoy of No-Dan-Kar’s bloodthirsty troops have deployed all their strength against these “villages of resistance” and have destroyed them, straw hut after straw hut, while plundering and killing all those who fell into their hands.

The attitude of Bazûka’s goblins has pushed the bizhus who were still hesitating to flee to Yakûsa, who they have been starting to worship like a god. Their road to the south being blocked by the imperial troops, they had to cross the Valley of Barrows, travel along the mountains and enter the haunted jungles to join the guerillas.

During their long march the bizhus had to confront the fierce Do-yaks, insects, disease, snakes, spiders and, worst of all, Tobo-Mahta. They were 5000 when they left, but only 30 managed to join Yakûsa at the limit between the Haunted Jungles and the Cliffs of Howls.

The bizhus remain convinced that their flight wasn’t useless. Indeed, as soon as Yakûsa was informed of their ordeals in Skull Bay, two enormous tsunamis crashed onto Bazûka’s victorious troops, killing more than half of his army and forcing Izothop’s envoy to retreat toward the Southern Jungles.

These two events have turned the region of Skull Bay into a huge salt swamp, a true no man’s land. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the Do-yaks have invaded the region. There they prowl in long dugouts, looking out for any signs of enemy movements... meaning for any signs at all.

Seal of Jade: The Southern Jungles

The shores of the Southern Jungles could have been one of the most enchanting landscapes of Aarklash. Giant palm trees wave in the warm winds over acres of lush jungle buzzing with thousands of forms of life. Pools of cool water spread between the blooming magnolias and reeds, echoing with the guttural mating call of the storm-toad and the cries of the golden lemurs.

The war has turned this paradise upside down. This is where Bazûka and his bûshis landed, chopping down the trees to cut a passage to Skull Bay and the Cliffs of Howls. The stench of naphta quickly replaced that of floral essences when the troops of No-Dan-Kar encountered the island’s first pygmy brats and enslaved them. The resistance, organized by Yakûsa, peppered the jungle with deadly traps that decimated the invaders as well as the natives with equal efficiency. Among the pygmies some were even drugged, strapped with naphta bombs, and hurled at the columns of Bazûka’s troops.

Since then, the rebel clan has been holding the higher grounds, spotting enemy troops thanks to khawaï spies. They then send small contingents, which include everything from the upholders of the sacred art of war to the most dangerous assassins of the goblin empire, to eliminate them in their final struggle against the imperialist movement.

Seal of Granite: The Cliffs of Howls

Yakûsa’s troops and their orcish allies of the Black Rock tribe use the unreachable region of the Cliffs of Howls, located at the southeastern tip of the island of Zoukhoï, as their main base.

Here the war has eliminated all native forms of life. The landscape has become a barren land of barriers, trenches and ditches filled with spikes or naphta.

The Guerrillas

The attempts to take the Yakûsa clan by surprise from the Haunted Jungles (which have been made often since Bazûka’s arrival) have met the resistance of the guerrillas. Guided by a native tracker, the troops of the dissident clan seem to be everywhere at once, using all the mystical and technological means at their disposal and working together with contingents of ogres. They transport pieces of light artillery through the jungle and gather around torii erected as signs of courage. Split into small units, they strike and then retreat to their countless hideouts where they wait for the rain to become stronger again before striking their assailants again.

The guerillas’ mastery of the terrain thus largely makes up for their numerical inferiority.

The Far Reaches of the Sea of Silk

The flight of the crows,

Decorates the summer boat.

The whole sea blood red.

Mi Sao, poet at the court of Iga.

The Sea of Silk begins at the northern tip of Zoukhoï, and stretches to the confines of unexplored lands. The big island from which the archipelago gets its name is surrounded by smaller islands, which each have their own traditions.

Iga With the Misty Peaks

Not far from Zoukhoï, the island of Iga lives isolated from the clamor of the Rag’Narok. That’s surely why this is where Ûraken found the source for his new philosophy of martial discipline.

The steep slopes of Iga are spotted with palaces that serve as fortresses for the leaders of the families opposed to Izothop’s.

The island’s peaks, which are hewn with steps and ramps, are the sacred places of the most fantastic of Aarklash’s pilgrimages. Every year pilgrims from all over Iga and the surrounding islands climb the paths that lead to the summits to leave offerings on the altars of Rat. The order of Kaolin, which is made up only of warrior monks, has built many monasteries on Iga and teaches its martial arts to the visitors who are worthy.

The island is peopled with goblins as well as humans who are heirs of the people of Kel’s traditions. There are also several groups of marauders of Vile-Tis. They all live together under the yoke of enemy war chiefs who have been fighting for the island ever since the death of Empress Grenat, their common mother. The endless battles that ravage the countryside of Iga attract all kinds of mercenaries and stateless warriors, of which some are organized into companies and call themselves the “Blood Brothers.”

Tako, The Island of the Octopus

All the way to the north of Iga a thin strip of land that is under water during the nine months of the rainy season connects the island to the free port of Tako.

The inhabitants of Tako, who are fiercely independent, have built a huge port that is used as a base for all the pirates of the Sea of Silk. The latter roam the sea in overcrowded junks and attack ships of all sorts using rifles and unique spells. The junks of Tako, emblazoned with a purple octopus on a sand-colored background, cause so much terror that most of the other filibusters have deserted the archipelago’s waters.

Kakufu, The Island of Vice

A small island in the middle of hot currents that make it very hard to reach, Kakufu prospers due to its shady dealings. To get there, voyagers from the four corners of Aarklash take precarious boat lines run by unscrupulous captains or even pirates.

Kakufu is the refuge of all the forms of entertainment of the known world. Its streets, which teem with palanquins and carnival floats at all times, echo with the noise of dice rolling on the famous lacquered tables for which the island’s craftsmen are renowned. The natives of Kakufu, who are always smiling and servile, run countless shops in which they provide carnal pleasure, comedy shows and gambling.

The colorful clientele that crowds the brothels and gambling houses are of great interest to the recruiting agents of the “Blood Brothers” who have settled on the island of Iga. Indeed, on Kakufu you can find adventurers of all sorts attracted by easy money and the many conflicts shaking the archipelago.

Nonga Nonga Island

The island of Nonga Nonga, in the far north of the Sea of Silk, hasn’t been reached by civilization yet. Aboriginal tribes live there, united in a shared violent fervor inspired by a local god who encourages cannibalism and demands that victims are regularly thrown into the crater of Mata-Kata.

The untouched jungles of Nonga Nonga teem with rare birds and red trolls, which are the most dangerous and least docile of all the trolls of Aarklash. The natives of Nonga Nonga, who are mainly goblins, also have bright red skin. They live in villages built on mats of woven palm leaves floating in the lagoon.

The peaks of Mata-Kata are dotted with many troglodytic sanctuaries that date from before the arrival of the aboriginal people. These caves, which are sometimes gigantic, suggest that the volcano was a sacred place for the giants of the Winter of Battles.

Some of these sanctuaries lead to tunnels that reach deep beneath the waters to the undersea lairs of forgotten marine monsters.

Notes

The Archipelago of Zoukhoï excerpt is from Cry Havoc volume 7.