Nightfall Isle
Two hundred and fifty miles long, but only eighty miles wide and aligned from east to west, Nightfall Isle is the largest shadowland in the South West outside the Font of Mourning. Eternally shrouded under a cloud of volcanic ash that blots out the hated sun, life in most of Nightfall is lived in twilight - at best. Sometimes grey ashstorms choke the coastal villages and towns for days on end, and the pale inhabitants stay under cover and only venture out wearing glass goggles and cloth over their mouths. Still, the stepped domes and towers of Nightfall architecture are well-lit by oil lanterns from the island's tarpits, and for all their strangeness both the living and dead welcome outsiders.
Unlike many major shadowlands, Nightfall Isle has withstood the influence of the lords of Death, and is fully independent. The nation is a necrotic theocracy, where dead Greater Dead priest-lords rule from ancient temples in the dark interior of the isle where no trace of sunlight ever falls. The living and lesser ghosts alike revere their priests as intercessory powers who can keep their souls safe from the malign creatures of the lands of the Dead. The island itself holds itself as a neutral port that will accept all - even the Lintha - who do not serve the deathlords, and there are many Southwestern merchants who will tolerate the disquieting environments to sell hardwoods and luxuries to the Dead in return for tarnished silver and more exotic curiosities from the Underworld.
Of particular note is Raiton Academy, Creation's largest and most prominent school of necromancy and necrotic sorcery. Founded by an ambitious ghost-blood named Seven Whips, it sits on the northern coast and looks out to sea. Even Dynasts from the Realm who have discovered a dark heritage within their own blood have been known to come to Raiton under false names, rather than risk the shame that might come from studying at the Heptagram - and that is without mentioning the many Lunars who have studied here. Raiton accepts all who apply, save for those who serve the Lords of Death. It remains to be seen whether ronin deathknights will study here too.
Government
The Dead rule Nightfall Isle, and fill all the senior positions in the Endless Hierarchy. Still, the living retain a fair degree of autonomy, because many ghosts are too consumed with their passions and their obsessions to care much for the petty concerns of day to day management. In practice, while servants of the Endless Hierarchy head up village councils and rule towns, most of the positions are filled with the descendents of the Dead who was granted that position, or members of allied families. An influential ancestor gets useful positions of authority for their descendents, who pay them back by serving well and avoiding shaming their patron.
The Circle of Hierarchs consists of six Greater Dead, the youngest being Seven Whips, headmaster of Raiton Academy, who ascended to the rank seventy years ago. He maintains his residence in the coastal academy, but all the others dwell in their own necropoli in the ashen wastes of the interior. The Circle are the high priests of the island, responsible for its spiritual well-being - by which they mean, the maintenance of the shadowland and the health of the ghosts and their mortal descendents. Over the years, their ghostly servants have acted to hunt down elementals that might have tried to heal the borders of the shadowland.
There are three great necropoli in the interior. Basalt-Above-Molten-Stone is an imposing fortress of dark rock that is built into the rim of Mount Thama, the largest volcano on the island. The red-robed Madame Tuksa rules alone there, overseeing the soldiery of the Dead who hunt down creatures from deeper in the Underworld who threaten Nightfall. Down below, red magma casts its light up on one side of the fortress, and tarnished silver mirrors reflect its light through the training courtyards and barracks of the Dead. Madame Tuksa is ambitious and rails against Nightfall's policy of neutrality. The island is wealthy and powerful! Surely it would be trivial for them to conquer the lands of the Dead of nearby islands.
The largest necropolis is Shrine-Of-Eternal-Shriving, once a shogunate town sitting beside an ash-choked lake. Ash falls like snow on its stepped domes and many of the buildings tilt every which way. The foundations of this necropolis are unsteady, and the dead here must constantly build and rebuild as the sandstone sinks into the ash. It was the genius of Hidden Lamb and Lord An-yai, who retain the love they had in life even after six hundred years, to keep their subjects with a purpose in their existence. Pale pomegranates grow from the ash around Eternal Shriving and strange fields of white flowers blossom under a sunless ash-choked sky. There is a wood demesne stirring here, tainted by the Underworld. The Hierarchs should act to be be rid of it, but the priest-lords of this place do not wish that to be so - so they cover it up.
The last great necropolis is Grave-Shared-By-All, once a mine built into an extinct volcano. The Dead took up residence in the old mineworks, digging out niches into the rock and building a labyrinthine warren that does not quite follow the rules of space that Creation abides by. Follow a network of passages in a great circle, and one might not end up where one started. Grave Shared expands ever outwards, digging out curiosities of the Underworld and strange metals which Nightfall exports. Lady Alis and Black Gull are starting to worry, because they fear that some of their subjects are mining too deep. In some of the low places of Grave Shared, the spiritual filth of the Neverborn has started leaking in. It takes the form of black water, and those who drink the stagnant corruption hear the whispers of the bloated corpse-titans and lose their minds.
None know where Hand-and-Foot dwells, or where his grave site lies. He and his brood of unruly Dead venture into the Underworld and often return with some treasure he has found. Other times they return with half their numbers missing, or pursued by some fiend. Madame Tuksa loathes him, but none can deny how useful he is to the island. Seven Whips refuses to leave the academy that he founded, and some of his disciples have likewise lingered there. Some wonder if some day, Raiton Academy might be considered a great necropolis in its own right.
Culture
Nightfallers are kin to the Tengese, and before the Twin Catastrophes their society was an extension of Tengese culture. Since then, however, their isolation and unusual conditions has led to substantial drift. Life still revolves around the flow of the seasons and the tropical cyclones that roll in off the Great Western Ocean, but on Nightfall death is always close.
The living on Nightfall live around the edges of the island, where more sunlight manages to creep through the haze of volcanic ash and some plants can grow. Much like their distant kin in An Teng, Nightfallers are matrilinear. Inheritance passes down the female line and men take on their wives' names. However, while both societies believe women are the more spiritual sex, in the shadowland this translates to much more concrete power. If a woman fails to honour her ancestors, they will not merely turn their faces from her family and cause bad luck. No, they will make their displeasure clear in person. As a result, women hold both secular and religious authority and have the final say in all the family's decisions. The risk of offending the ancestors is too great to countenance.
Nightfallers have a sometimes shockingly prosaic attitude to death and their ancestors. For example, ancestor spirits who do not show up at a family temple regularly and provide assistance to their kin get no veneration and no offerings. In the eyes of their society, they are lazy layabouts who are failing their duty to their relatives. On the other hand, a grandmother who finds that she has not been given burnt offerings by a grandson is not content to give him fearful dreams, but will harangue him in the street in front of his neighbours - if she doesn't simply give the ungrateful brat a good boxing around the ears.
Unlike many other shadowlands, Nightfall Isle is not entirely comfortable with the reanimation of dead bodies. It is thought to bring shame to the deceased, and so is only practiced with the bodies of debtors or criminals. When someone leaves a ghost, their corpse is usually mummified in the bone-dry ash and then interred within the great necropoli in the dark interior of the island. The preservation rites of Nightfall Isle permit the spectre to literally dwell within their own mummified corpse. When they wish to rest, they crawl into the mouth of their former body, and it is said that the feeling of sleeping within one's body leads to extremely calming slumber during the day. Those who leave no ghost are usually cremated and the ashes interred within the family resting place.
In place of animated corpses, the priests instead make golems from clay mixed with grave ash. These faceless vessels have lesser shades from the Underworld bound into them, and these unthinking echoes are what work in the island's interior where the ash cuts up the lungs so those who breathe it in for too long find themselves suffocating on their own blood. However, the rituals to make such a golem are notably more complex than the simple reanimation of a body, and each priest-lord's collection of golems is a valued treasure they jealously watch over.
Raiton Academy
From low beginnings, over the past two hundred years Raiton Academy has grown to be one of the foremost schools of the study of the Dead in Creation. It is a major tool of the foreign policy of Nightfall, and has led the founder to the ranks of the Greater Dead and a position on the ruling council of the island.
Built in the old Tengese style of temple complexes, the stepped domes and spires of Raiton overlook the bay it is built on. Its location on the north side of the island means that it gets the most sunlight of anywhere on the island, so all the classrooms are windowless. Students at Raiton swiftly get used to the peculiar timetabling, where any lecture given by the Dead - and that includes all the advanced classes - are given at night. An acquired skill, however, is the capacity to catnap when inevitable timetabling clashes means you have lectures at both midnight and midday.
Much of the faculty of Raiton has passed on, including the headmaster Seven Whips, who founded the school in the first place. As one of the Greater Dead, Seven Whips is a potent ghost - and utterly obsessed with protecting his school. He sits on the Circle of Hierarchs and thus university law is the law of Nightfall. Rambunctious students who try to bind their teachers to compell better grades find harsh punishments directed their way.
The study of magic that invokes the Neverborn is illegal on Nightfall and utterly forbidden at Raiton. This leads to both its relative respectability in the eyes of Creation and its lower esteem among true necromancers. While its classes on consulting the Dead, divination with the stars of the Underworld and shadowlands geomancy are first rate, there are entire fields of study that Raiton refuses to accept as legitimate. Every few years, a student or a teacher decides they know better. It never ends well.
Economy
In stark contrast to most shadowlands, Nightfall Isle is prosperous and tied into the local trade networks - both of the living and the Dead. Its position as a major shadowland makes it a hub for trade between the two realms, and its location on the Great Southwestern Current means it is a stopover point between the Far Southwest and An Teng. Fewer captains will willingly dock here than would if it was not a shadowland, but those not overly swayed by the gods can see a good chance to trade for the products of the Dead. The island itself has silver mines, though they are running dry, and exports a fine black silk from silkworms that feed off the fungi that grow in dark places on the island.
Nightfall lacks tree coverage due to its eternal twilight, and so it is a major buyer of tropical hardwoods, especially teak which is used for shipbuilding. Though the volcanic soil should be rich, life grows poorly within it and so the inhabitants of Nightfall depend on the sea for food. The island lacks the great rice fields of An Teng and must instead make use of hardy cereals that can survive the blighted land. Many years, crop failures means it must import food from surrounding islands and An Teng.
Raiton Academy alone contributes significantly to the economy of the island. Not only does it charge high fees to foreigners, but it attracts notable talent. Nightfall tries hard to remain on good terms with its graduates and others who visit. Its extensive libraries get scholars visiting from thousands of miles away, and the thaumaturgical innovations from its halls aid the island greatly. Trained Nightfall exorcists are another export, because Raiton teaches harmony and the art of negotiation with the Dead.
History
Nightfall Isle was little more than a Solar princeling's personal tourist destination in the High First Age, with most of the island kept underdeveloped to avoid ruining the lush jungle, volcanic lakes and untamed demesnes. With the rise of the Shogunate, these places were capped with manses and the island - then called An Yar - settled with labourers under the seventh Five Year Plan. The island's association with beauty and tranquility remained, even as cities were built around the coast, and several Gens built temple-mountains here. These complexes served the dual purpose of thanking the gods for their success and also serving as a permanent resting place for their dead. The purge of Gens Balu saw its occupation by forces loyal to the ninth Shogun, but the Treaty of An Malu saw those forces withdrawn.
However, around 200 years before the Great Contagion one of of the volcanos on the north side of the island erupted, and the resultant pyroclastic flow destroyed a city of fifty thousand souls who died screaming through scorched lungs. So much death opened a shadowland that covered a quarter of the island and many of the ash-burned dead rose again, their voiceless hungry ghosts puppeting their bodies. The ash blotted out the sky in the shadowland, and the trees were left as bare white bones. The Shogunate could not close such a shadowland, and instead they built white jade pillars around the unholy land and joined them with salt, that the malign influence of the Dead could not reach out.
But then the Contagion came, and the wound in the world was torn open until it covered the entire island. Since that day, the sun has not shone on Nightfall Isle. Ash fills the sky and falls in place of rain on the land. The great princes of chaos did not step foot on this island, for it repulsed them, and so many people from the surrounding islands fled to this place of the Dead. The lesser chaos-beasts who did attack Nightfall were repulsed at great cost by levies of the Dead.
The early years of the Realm saw the subjugation of An Teng by the Realm, and the resultant escalation of tensions with the Blue Monkey Shogunate. The Shogunate invaded and occupied Nightfall in RY89, seeking to contain the Realm's expeditionary influence. The ghostly armies which stood against the Dragonblooded were slain where they stood. Building a naval base on the current site of Raiton Academy, the Terrestrials sought to deny access to the Far Southwest to the Realm Navy.
In this they proved successful and allowed the Blue Monkey Shogunate to achieve dominance over the present day Anarchy, but Nightfall Isle earned its present name from Shogunate sailors and became known as a cursed posting. The ash caused lung diseases and wrecked the health of those stationed here, while the Immaculate Orthodoxy of the Blue Monkey Shogunate complained about the moral degradation of sailors who consorted with ghosts among the local population. The Shogunate only controlled the coast, while rebel ghosts held the ash wastes of the interior. Malicious hauntings caused more and more damage to vessels, and by RY170 all naval postings had been moved off Nightfall Isle to more hospitable islands, with only a nominal holding left to prevent Realm influence from expanding.
With the beginning of the War of Tepete Linara's Nose in RY258, the waters around Nightfall became hotly contested. Realm naval vessels based out of An Teng engaged the fleet of the Blue Monkey Shogunate as they fought for domination over the trade route from the South West. The War ended in a pyrrhic victory for the Blue Monkey Shogunate, for despite the Realm Navy's failure to seize the South West, the Battle off Nightfall saw the sinking of the Claw of Mela, the irreplaceable flagship of the Second Fleet and many other Shogunate vessels. The Second Treaty of An Teng banned the Blue Monkey Shogunate from constructing naval bases on a number of islands including Nightfall, and as a result 'that ash-choked hellhole' as one admiral referred to it became de facto independent.
The withdrawal of the Shogunate left the rebel ghosts of the interior as the main power on the island, and the remaining temples of the Immaculate Orthodoxy were quickly purged by ancestor cultists. The long Terrestrial occupation had left the ghosts of Nightfall stiff-necked and nationalistic, wary of outside influence. As a result, the Eternal Hierarchy rejected all efforts by external powers of the lands of the Dead to bright Nightfall into their sphere of influence. Over the years Nightfall has withstood multiple probing attacks, most notably in the early sixth century when the First and Forsaken Lion sent a major expedition up the buzzing waters of the River Malaria which was only repulsed at great cost by Nightfall's blackwater navy. It was in the aftermath of that failed assault that the Circle of Hierarchs gave permission for the founding of the Academy.
