Sea Dragon's Spine

This article has been written as a response to a Summer Camp '24 prompt, it is a WIP and will be expanded and edited during July and after

Take care you who sail there as the breath of the dragon god makes the water boil and the air steam - Ancient sailing shanty

General Description

To the west of Kithanda, in the middle of the Svajan Sea, lays a long stretch of archipelagos, in a gently curved line that can be followed from past the equator to almost the northern pole of the planet.
The formation is called Sea Dragon's Spine because it resembles the curve of the dorsal spine of a sleeping dragon and legends claim that it is the actual body of the Dragon God laying in is millennia long slumber.
The same legends claim that the earthquakes and the mists, characteristic of the region, are the results of the dragon god breathing and stirring in his sleep.
More than two milion islands form the archipelago; from large, country sized ones, to those that are little more than an emerged rock on which a couple of seabirds can nest.
The Sea Dragon's Spine is subdivided in smaller archipelagos, sometimes with distinguishable borders, other times with a delimitation border so close that one can throw a stone from one archipelago and have it land on another.
Most of these have been claimed as residency by different groups of people and this can cause some attrition when the sailing paths and the fishing areas overlap.
The totality of these islands are of volcanic origin, with a variable level of activity, from the rolling hills that are the tips of a now extinct volcano, to deserted rocky peaks that are constantly covered in ashes and alight with the fires of an active caldera.
These once were the native lands of the dragons and represented their favourite nesting grounds, since it provided both the fire heat they need to incubate their eggs and the seafood that is their favourite food.

Climate

The climate is as varied as it's expected because of the range of latitude, but everywhere considerable more foggy and humid, due to the submarine volcanoes that create warm mists on the sea surface.
Along the equator the climate is hot and humid, with luscious forests that still hide undiscovered animals and plants.
Further north, the climate is more temperate, with deciduous woods and prairies and ideal ground for crop cultivation, that benefits from the rich ashes of the volcanic soil.
At the northern extreme, the islands are covered in ice that forms bridges between them, creating a continuous landmass that can be traversed by foot for thousands of miles and it's only interrupted occasionally by the lava of an active eruption that finds its way through the ice and into the sea.
Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis are frequent in the area and the  sea mists create an unsafe environment for the sea travelers. 
These proved to be a boon for all kind of people who needed to hide from society for any reason and for the dragons themselves, at least until the expansion of the humans became too difficult to handle.