The Blessed Isles

The Blessed Isles are a group of islands between Pyrrhia and Pantala. Five different tribes make their homes here.

Creation
According to the SilverWings, the Blessed Isles were a gift from the three Moon Sisters at the dawn of time. The first SilverWing was lost in the middle of an endless, black ocean, not long after the Sisters had created it.

The SilverWing begged the Sisters each night for five days, but the only help that came was a small pebble that fell from the sky. The dragon caught it in its palm, and, angry that the Sisters were mocking its will to live, threw the stone into the depths of the ocean.

It immediately regretted its decision, but when it tried to dive into the water and find the stone, the ocean began to bubble and boil. From that tiny pebble grew the Blessed Isles, and by sunrise, the first SilverWing landed on Silver Island.

The Island Tribes
There are five main islands of the Blessed Isles, each one named for the tribe that inhabits it. The smaller islands are considered largely irrelevant in the study of the Isles' geography. Here are the commonly accepted tales of how each of these islands became home to a tribe;

The first island to be inhabited was Silver Island. No one knows when the SilverWings arrived on its shores, but the island is covered in evidence that the tribe has resided there for a very, very long time. The southern green region is flat and low to the ocean, prone to flooding during the summer as glacier-melt flows down from the mountains in the north. Only the poorest of SilverWings make their homes here, commonly building houses that are more akin to ships than proper dwellings. In the high mountains of the north, the rest of the tribe resides, shaping the sharp stone peaks into magnificent villas and palaces, building their great temples and worshipping the Moon Sisters. The SilverWings rarely leave the mountains or their island, preferring to claim their superiority over the other tribes from the comfort of their homes.

Next to become home to dragonkind was Veil Island, named not for the VeilWings who live there but the thick, heavy haze of smoke that cloaks it from sight. The dragons who live here are said to have appeared one day, looming out of the mist and smoke to leer at passing SilverWings. The VeilWIngs were uniquely suited for the volcanic island, but claimed the small, fertile bit of land to the north from the SilverWings, saying that they deserved good, green land, too. While this is still hotly disputed, the SilverWings have never attempted to reclaim the island.

A great war on the faraway Pantala brought the next tribe to the shores of the Blessed Isles. Fleeing en masse from some terrible defeat, the GustWings arrived on the island between Silver and Veil Islands, naming it '''Gust Island. '''It is an entirely mountainous place, with cold, sharp winds that would make any normal dragon shiver in their scales. But GustWings are not normal dragons; their scales are covered with a thick layer of feathers, giving them extra protection against the harshness of Gust Island. Their leader, a strange figure known only as The Tempest, has long forbidden most outsiders from visiting the Island, so much remains unknown about this reclusive tribe of feathered dragons.

No one knows where the GlassWings came from. They say that their continent was swallowed by the ocean, and that of the dozens of tribes that had lived there, only they survived the flooding. It was this tale that sparked the interest of the SilverWings, who still owned the final two islands; seeing parallels between their own arrival on the Blessed Isles and the GlassWings', believed that the Moon Sisters had carried the new tribe to safety. They gave the GlassWings the largest of the remaining islands, believing that they would bring prosperity. The new tribe named it the Glass Island, and in a few generations, the small SilverWing population of the island had been absorbed into the larger GlassWing one. Small throwbacks to SilverWing blood still appear in GlassWing dragonets, and to this day their relationship with the inhabitants of Silver Island is quite warm.

The final tribe fled prosecution from the SeaWings in Pyrrhia; kept as little more than servants for generations, twelve SurgeWings conspired to murder the Queen of the SeaWings, and nearly succeeded. The backlash was so terrible that the dragons piled onto ships and into the wilds of Pyrrhia, fleeing as far as they could to get away from the wrath of the Sea Kingdom. Eventually, a pirate captain named Aleutian discovered the Blessed Isles and claimed the uninhabited islands between Veil Island and Glass Island. As word spread of this haven from the SeaWings, SurgeWings flocked to the islands, swearing loyalty to Aleutian in return for refuge. She became the first Pirate Queen of the Surge Isles.