Wuqì Island (Woo-shi Eye-land)

An island home to thousands of abandoned weapons both huge and small, memorials to the fallen and forgotten

The warrior's graveyard - where the memories of millions are entombed in metal and mud.
A special place. A somber place. A powerful place - A memorial to millions and the dreams they had.
Just standing there was enough to give me goosebumps - I could almost hear their voices, calling out to me on the wind as it howled through the blade-encrusted canyons like a funeral dirge.

— Excerpt from the journal of Giancarlo Vandire de la Imperiana, founder of Axiom and explorer extraordinaire.

Geography

Wuqì Island is a moderately large isle that is largely full of wide-open, rolling plains occasionally punctuated by hills and the occasional small mountain or mountain range poking up over the horizon - it is a place of great natural beauty full of trickling brooks and rushing rivers, with even the occasional standing lake reflecting the sun that hangs in the sky above the isle. It is surrounded on all sides by the gentle and all-encompassing Oseishin Ocean, some ways west of the Ustanan Concord in the far-western reaches of the archipelago which surrounds the concord itself.
Most notable aspect of its geography, however, are the seemingly endless weapons for which the island has gained its fame and its name - endless fields of weapons both old and new, large and small, and advanced and simple embedded in vast numbers all across the isle with blades both rusted and gleaming alike that each reflect the glinting light of the sun and moon, the faded grips, pommels, tassels, and decorations on each weapon slowly decaying and swaying in the wind. These weapons can be found in even the most unexpected places, from embedded in the bottom of rivers in the riverbed to the tops of the highest peaks on the island, or deep in the deepest caves found along its banks or its steep hills.

Ecosystem

The ecosystem of the island is sparse - due to the overwhelming number of weapons which sit rusting away in its soil many parts of the island have become difficult to live in for most mundane animals, though some specialized megaflora and megafauna have evolved into strange forms to subsist on the iron and metal-rich soil of the isle. In truth, Wuqì Island has a very unique ecosystem - almost every flora and fauna that lives on the island has taken the abundance of metal on and in the island into their very beings and developed strange adaptations to survive there such as metallic hides, the ability to digest steel, the ability to sense precious metal deposits in the ground, and more.
As for the weather, it is often a rainy and mediterranean climate which sees hot and dry summers with cool and wet winters - though uniquely, the island sees the only recorded instance of the unique meteorological phenomenon known as Acid Rain in all of Zheng-Kitar, believed to be a result of the pollution brought to the island by the countless weapons left to rust and seep into the soil. However, despite this acidic rain, the weapons embedded in the isle never seem to be affected by it - a phenomenon which lends itself to the popular theory that the island might be alive in some esoteric capacity, protective of the weapons left to its care.

Ecosystem Cycles

Wuqì Island's ecosystem goes through many of the normal cycles that any normal island goes through, with the passing of the seasons and how the native creatures on that island react to it - the one exception to this is a period of one week that seperates each of the isle's seasons called The Curtain Call(Described in the "Localized Phenomena" section). Aside from this period of time, the island's creatures and native organisms go through a relatively normal cycle and period of seasons as is normal to the area the island inhabits.

Localized Phenomena

Most notable of the island's unique and localized phenomena is a period of time known as The Curtain Call - a one week period where the island is shrouded in a powerful acidic fog thick and potent enough to rot wood and rope after mere minutes of exposure, with metallic ships only able to last for hours at most before succumbing to the corroding fog. During this time, the isle goes through unknown changes - as none have ever survived through this time and told the tale, all that remains is heresay and what others have noticed after this period has ended: most notably, the island seems "refreshed" somehow, the weapons restored somewhat, and all belongings left adrift on its banks, in its shoals, and laying about its hills and plains organized and stacked...as if an invisible warden cares for the island every so often.
Aside from The Curtain Call, there exists a phenomenon that has come to be coloquially known as "The Voice" - a strange phenomenon that is only questionably of mundane or mortal origin that can be heard by those who walk the island's somber shores, often proceeded by a howling wind that picks up out of nowhere, howling across the blade-encrusted canyons and plains that make up Wuqì Island's geography with a strange, eerie whistling and moaning that almost, nearly sounds like a strange approximation of a mortal vocal range. This strange, possibly supernatural wind pattern appears at irregular intervals in complete odds with the current weather patterns at the time, to different results - some who hear it claim to hear a voice speak to them, others claim to hear a chorus of furious, psychotic screams resonating in their ears...while in one particular case, a troubled man by the name of Qulaine Teutorus was immediately gripped by a most vicious heart attack and died mere minutes after hearing this mysterious Voice. Only later, did it come to light that he was a man who enjoyed the habit of shattering the weapons of his foes and breaking apart the belongings and armaments of others with vicious abandon...a fact which shed some small degree of insight into the methods behind the mystery of the The Voice.

Fauna & Flora

Though not overly rich in flora and fauna, the ones that Wuqì Island does have are strangely adapted to its unique ecology - often possessing steely hides and incredibly durable bones, with strange biologies that allow them to feed off metals and eat high concentrations of iron, copper, tin, and such for sustenance. They tend to range on the larger size compared to others of their kind, and many unique "Dire" variants of monsters can be found exclusively on the shores, in the watery shoals, and atop the plains and mountains of Wuqì Island and no where else.
However, rather uniquely, Wuqì Island's flora and fauna are peaceful things - there has never been a single instance of unwarranted aggression from Wuqì Island's flora or fauna as long as the island has been recorded in history, even in vast excess of what the intelligence of its flora and fauna should allow for. This has been somewhat of a conundrum for those who study the island, as its beasts seem to be almost smarter than others of their kind, and unnaturally kind unless provoked to violence - after which the island's flora and fauna has an incredible ability to recognize aggression and charge the offender(and the offender alone) in unnaturally massive droves.

Natural Resources

Wuqì Island is unnaturally rich in iron, tin, copper, and other various metal deposits - as well as being home to the world's largest natural supplies of Adamantine and Mithril veins. This is likely due to the massive number of weapons of all varieties of metals found in the island's soil - both big and small - that have decayed over time and seeped into the Island's soil and eventually become part of its natural resources.

History

The history of Wuqì Island stretches back all the way into the dim times of antiquity - to thousands and thousands of years ago, during the Advent of the Spirit Kings, where the The Spirit Kings themselves are said to have placed their weapons after slaying the last of the foul beasts and Yema to plague the island, an act of penance for all the lives they took during their advent that they now laid down their mighty arms for, weeping even then for the beasts and beings taken in by the corrupting whispers of The Yema.
Though the truth of this tale has been ever disputed, the truth of things remains - Wuqì Island has long served as a sacred place for Adventurers, Warriors, and all who seek for a life of excitement and combat, a place of spiritual importance that creatures journey from all across Zheng-Kitar and beyond to visit that they might be gifted a vision, prophecy, or be rewarded with a weapon of their very own for their troubles to guide them in their efforts. For more information see "A place of Beginnings and Endings" on the side of the page.

Tourism

Many visit Wuqì Island at all times of the year - though most of them are warriors, knights, adventurers, or those in similar professions who come to pay respects to the island to either leave a weapon embedded in its soils in honor and remembrance of a friend or comrade, or to seek a vision to help guide their paths in life as they begin a new venture or a new chapter in their lives.

Alternative Name(s)

The Somneum Mortuary, Armament Island, The Graveyard of Dreams

Type

Island

A place of Beginnings and Endings

Long heralded as a sacred place for warriors, adventurers, knights, all those who seek to start on a new chapter in their lives, all those who seek lives of battle and excitement, and more, Wuqì Island is a sacred place of Beginnings and Endings for the people of Zheng-Kitar. To them, to many, it is a place that remembers the fallen, the dead, the scorned, slain, and forgotten - a place where many journey from all over the continent and beyond to undergo the sacred Ritual of Joining that sees them plunge the weapon of a fallen comrade, friend, foe, or even of they themselves into the island's rich soil to symbolize letting go and entrusting the memories and legacies of the weapon and their wielder to the island. This ritual symbolizes new beginnings, and moving on - and has become a dearly, dearly important tradition for countless millions stretching back thousands of years into the dim, dim years of antiquity.
In contrast, Wuqì Island is just as vital a place to those who wish to start a new path - it is an incredibly common practice for any who wish for guidance in their lives, to recieve some measure of help or simply those who are lost with no where else to turn, to come to Wuqì Island and undergo the Ritual of Discovery that sees them entrust themselves to the Island's grip, that they might be gifted with a vision to aid them, a whispered blessing by the legendary Voice of the island, or even the right to pluck one of the Island's many weapons out for themselves - a gift across centuries from one ancient warrior to another who fights to embark on a new path in their lives.
Regardless of the why of why one visits the sacred Wuqì Island, one must be dearly careful not to disturb the myriad weapons and resources that lay motionless in the island's soil - each contains one, two, or even multiple lifetimes of memories and are considered sacred memorials to the dead and those long-gone, and taking one is tantamount to grave robbing of the highest order which many believe earns one the wrath of the island itself. This is best exemplified in the island's only man-made structure - a single stone obelisk hundreds if not thousands of years old with simple writing carved into its front:
To those who disturb this sacred place, beware - the gates of death yawn wide for you. The darkest pits of oblivion await thee who disturbs the memories of those entrusted to the care of this most sacred isle.