Darva

From Mizahar Lore

Darva is the largest island in Mizahar, lying off the southern coast of Sylira. It is thought to be inhabited, but no expeditions sent to the island have ever returned.

Geography and Climate

Darva is a massive island composed of dark volcanic rock. The coastline is jagged, and the island is almost cut in half by Mystery Inlet. It is covered in tropical vegetation, which is thick enough to make travel difficult at best. Several peaks rise up thousands of feet from the sea, and due to the weather patterns around the island, they are shrouded in fog over 200 days out of the year. The climate is hot and wet in the south, and slightly cooler north of Mystery Inlet.

History

For starters, Darva was what people called it, but it wasn't its name.

It was an appellation decided on by the Zeltivan mariners who had first mapped its jagged coastline. They had to call it something, after all, given that it was the largest island any of them had ever seen and that there was no mention of it in the pre-Valterrian histories, and so the captain of the expedition had decided to tag it with the name of his girlfriend back at port. Given the island's appearance -- a tangled mass of lava rock and thick forest, shrouded with fog and impassibly mountainous -- it was perhaps not the sweeping gesture of love that one might have expected, but none of the crew were keen to mention this.

What the inhabitants of the island called it was unknown. The Zeltivan expedition had anchored in the deep bay that nearly cut the island in two, and sent a party ashore to get water, but they hadn't penetrated more than twenty feet from the shore, given the density of the vegetation. Later sailors had sighted smoke, and even seen figures along the coastline, but attempts to contact the people living there were unsuccessful. The Zeltivans, interested in establishing a base of operations further south, sent two further expeditions to colonize the island. Neither was ever heard from again; it was as if the island had simply swallowed them up. Their boats were anchored offshore, but there was no one aboard, and no indication of what had happened.

After that, the Zeltivans gave Darva a wide berth. Word of what had happened spread throughout Mizahar, and no one else was especially eager to try their own luck. There are no reports of anyone from outside attempting to visit the island between the last Zeltivan expedition in 441 AV and 513 AV, when Captain Charm Wright led an expedition there. However, Captain Wright vanished during the expedition, and though the remainder of the crew returned -- some of them reporting having seen humans on the island -- the mystery seemed no closer to being solved.

Demographics

Reports from some of the Zeltivan ships indicate that the island is inhabited, as humanoid figures were sighted along the coast, and the 513 expedition reported seeing humans near the shore. However, it is unknown how many of them there are, or to what other races they might belong.