Skull Island
Skull Island, the land where God did not finish creation.
Lost in an eternal thunderstorm and fog bank, Skull Island is nearly impossible to find by sea. Skull Island is an area of unpredictable and highly volatile climatological and geological activity, so the environment changes much more rapidly than other places. Jungles move in some places and give way to barren fields in others, monsoon seasons are irregular, and dry seasons can last longer than they have in known history. Caverns on the island lead to Subterranea which connects to the Savage Lands, Monster Island, Dinosaur Island, and the center of the Earth according to legend. Once a mariner makes it onto the island they will encounter enormous creatures from nightmares and myth ruled over by King Kong. The local Iwi people have thrived in this hostile environment, a testament to their tenacity and the careful watch of Kong.
History
Skull Island was created with the break-up of Gondwana. The supercontinent of Gondwana also contained the landmasses of South America, Africa, the Indian sub-continent, and Madagascar nearly 40 million years ago. Ancient mariners survived the perpetual storm and fog bank and settled despite the foreboding dormant volcano whose face resembled a skull. If the challenge of finding the island wasn't enough, Skull Island hosts a biome of plants and animals that evolved separately from the current epochs with direct descendants of dinosaurs instead of just their avian cousins, megafauna lost other places after the Hyborean cataclysm, and florafauna or plants that also possess animal phenotypes. In its early history, the island was ruled by a community of enormous primates that resembled African gorillas but were wiped out to near extinction by some unknown predator that came ashore. At least that's how the native Iwi people tell it, but it's unclear if they were there to witness the event or how they came to learn this. Around the same time, humans started settling on other islands in the Pacific Islands and the islands in the Indian Ocean, the ancestors of the Iwi people made it through the fog and the storms and then survived until they could find a fertile valley on the island's interior to settle.
The Industrial Revolution
Around the time von Hindenburg named Adolf Hitler Chancellor of the German Parliament, a desperate film crew booked a ship out of New York City to unknown coordinates in the Indian Ocean. The talent, the film crew, and most of the boat's crew didn't know that the production company was drowning in debt to banks and less reputable lenders. The director demanded they continue in the face of dire warnings from a lone survivor from an earlier expedition to their destination, in the face of a wall of oppressive fog, in the face of monsoon weather that rises without any warning inside the fog, and in the face of Skull Island's dormant volcano and jagged shorelines. Most of the crew were lost in the storm and to the savage and enormous wildlife before they were found by the native Iwi who brought them inside the safety of their walls. The safety didn't last as the Iwi's living god, King Kong came and took the film's starlet into the jungles. After Kong battled many predators who tried to eat the actress, the film's writer found her, and they fled back to the Iwi village with the giant ape on their trail. The director and the remainder of the crew used bottles of chloroform to gas Kong but he destroyed the camera and most of the film before he collapsed. The director refused to leave empty-handed, so the crew took King Kong back to New York City to display as the 8th Wonder of the World.
World War II
Near the end of the war, American fighter pilot Hank Marlow and Japanese fighter pilot Gunpei Ikari crash-landed on Skull Island after a tense dogfight in the terrible storms around Skull Island. The two came face to face on the shore. The rounds in their guns were wet, so Marlow pulled out his knife. Ikari drew his Katana. Then from the ocean rose Kong, staring down at them after finally returning to his home after the catastrophe in New York. The two fighter pilots flee as King Kong trashes the landscape behind them, chasing them deeper into the island's interior. Marlow and Ikari agreed to put aside their differences and allegiances to survive until they could escape Skull Island but the years dragged on and the two became close like brothers. They were taken in by the Iwi and contributed a few advancements to their tribal living to increase the general health and well-being of the tribe. Unfortunately, Ikari was killed in a Skullcrawler attack when it learned to mimic the sounds of a small child and drew Hank Marlow and Gunpei Ikari in. Marlow built a large grave marker for Ikari and left his Katana with it.
Cold War Era
A pirate crew attempted to plunder a container ship in the Indian Ocean but came up against more than they bargained for. Their disabled ships were tossed and battered before they came ashore on Skull Island. Some men stayed behind to get their vessels seaworthy as the rest went deeper into the island and met the local wildlife. Only the crew's captain escaped and one ship left the island. After that, the swamp men, violent descendants of the Neanderthals from the savage lands came through Subterranea and attacked the Iwi and Hank Marlow. When things looked most dire, King Kong came out of the forest and pushed the swamp men back into Subterranea but not without severe damage to the island.
Near the end of the Vietnam War, an official and his assistant with a scientific organization called Monarch convinced the American military to scout Skull Island when it was discovered on satellite imagery. A platoon of Army Rangers was pulled from the failing efforts in Vietnam, along with a former British Captain to act as a navigator and scout, and a war photographer and assigned to escort the scientists from Monarch. The first plan is to use seismic charges to determine if the island is hollow, as Monarch had suggested before landing was considered. The explosions drew the attention of the mountainous King Kong who attacked the helicopters and knocked them out of the sky. Most of the crew were killed in the initial encounter and the survivors attempted to regroup. The savage, primeval wildlife took more lives and left barely a squadron to work with as well as their scout, photographer, and the lead official from Monarch. The commanding officer became obsessed with killing Kong despite the objections of others in the group and they laid a trap. When it seemed as though they would kill the giant ape, the reptilian Skullcrawlers assaulted the group and the scout breaks Kong free to get rid of them. The entire Army platoon and the Monarch officials were lost. The photographer and the British scout were left as the sole survivors who escaped the burning island.
When the pirate captain rebuilt his small fleet, he returned to Skull Island with a familiar need for revenge on the island. The captain sold the voyage to his crew suggesting that the relics they would recover on the island would make them all a fortune. When they broke through the fog and the storms, they found an island burning and ravaged from King Kong's confrontation with the Army and the Skullcrawlers. The captain finally gave up on his mission of revenge and they turned to go back through the fog and storms after many protests by his crew.
Near the end of the 20th Century Monarch sent several new expeditions to the island. The first expedition was aboard the SS Once Upon a Maritime, which was destroyed by a sea beast they called the Kraken. This encounter left them stranded on the island where they joined the survivors of the Iwi tribe. Another team came to the island under the pretense of confirming the findings of the first expedition, but the expedition's leader was looking for her daughter on a nearby island. They recovered the daughter and her dog but the kraken struck again and they found themselves living amongst the Iwi as well. Then the final Monarch team went on a secret expedition to Skull Island because the expedition leader wasn't sure King Kong was strong enough to defend humanity from his MUTO rivals. He became convinced when Kong ensured his survival and the supplies he brought allowed the Iwi to rebuild their defenses and community.
Superhuman Registration Era
Applied Experimental Technologies had mediocre success until the revelation of Godzilla's existence. They rebranded their company as Apex Cybernetics and began studying the massive unidentified terrestrial organisms (MUTOs) that were emerging across the planet. They collected the remains of many of the MUTOs killed by Godzilla and studied them to find technological replacements for their biological systems. Apex contracted with Monarch to launch more expeditions to Skull Island where they were able to study the local biome and establish contact with the Iwi. Apex established a permanent corporate research station on Skull Island to further its corporate agenda.
Aliases:
- Isla De Craneo
- Kong Island
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