SHARD

Shard is a smaller island in the southern portion of the Crater. Shard is the first stopping place for many returning pirate ships, as it carries an excellent natural harbor on its western shore with abundant food and water. Due to the ever-present storms, no one lives on the island, but otherwise the island is a lovely place to be.

However, pirate lore states that the island is to be avoided on nights of the full moon, as entire ships have been known to disappear on such nights as the moon passes overhead. Some explain the disappearances by postulating that the island is inhabited by lycanthropes, whose bestial forms destroy all vestige of human life on the island on the nights of the full moon.

Others postulate a huge sea-creature sleeping at the bottom of the harbor; when the full moon rises, the creature surfaces, attracted by the light, and destroys all it finds there. Still others scoff at all explanations - but they do not disturb Shard's sanctity on those nights.

The truth is stranger than any of those. Although Shard's harbor is excellent, it is formed in such a fashion that tides in the harbor are extremely high. Nights of the full moon have the most severe tides here, so that the water literally rushes from the harbor in a whirlpool, sucking down everyone and everything in the harbor. Any ship afloat in the harbor is immediately dragged to the bottom and pounded to fragments by the force of the whirlpool. So far, no one has witnessed this devastation; any who did would be likely to believe the great sea monster explanation, as tides (except for their timing) are something of a mystery themselves to the sailors of the Crater.