The Chelonate

Waves lap the slabby sides of a vast turtle-shell - bigger than any cathedral. Chelonites loaf on wooden docks around the shell-sides, staring sullenly. Lamps hang like decorations in a festive butcher's window. All around you, the sea is rank with scraps of ancient flesh.

The Chelonate is an island-sized, rotting zee-turtle corpse inhabited by crazed monster-hunters called Chelonites.

Live Bait

The corpse is still rotting, as to be expected, and the monster-hunters here are extremely hostile to visitors. Strangely, duels and brawls occur where the stench is the foulest. Some members of the Chelonate have dealings with the Fathomking; let's just say he doesn't like it when they make unreasonable demands.

Despite the fact that it's located near the Gant Pole, where zee-monsters go to die, the Chelonites are very quick to point out that their ancestors actually slew the monster they're living on, and the proximity of the Pole is just a coincidence. They will point this out with whatever weapons happen to be nearby.

A temple to Storm resides in the Chelonate, and his presence might explain the locals' unpredictable and violent natures.

A dangerous ship called the Eater of Names patrols here; its bow and figurehead are gant.

The Gant Pole

The leathery carcasses of hollowed-out beasts line the ventricles of this stone heart. Ancient blubber bubbles up around paths of bone and hide that squelch with every step. A distant drip carves eternity into hours.

Located under the Chelonate and away from the stink, the Gant Pole is where zee monsters go to die.

Its mazes are only inhabited by elderly zailors, barely able to fight, and one haruspex, who tells the future in the entrails of zee monsters and might be as old as the First City. One who inquires into her past will learn that she was exiled from Whither after answering a question. She is searching for an unavoidable question, a question that not even the Whithern can avoid answering.