Isle of Dread

The Isle of Dread is a large, ragged island in the southern Stygian Sea, built around a chain of volcanoes that pour out ash and lava almost without pause. Ash piles up in drifts as deep as twenty feet, the surrounding sea runs murky gray with debris, and wherever the ash has not settled, lakes and rivers of lava make travel nearly impossible. Ordinary beings cannot last long there without magic.

No sailor has gone ashore by choice since the First Age, yet waterfront taverns still relish its legends. Atlanteans are said to have found it late in that age, when the empire was already corrupt, and discovered enormous, beautiful gems under the ash and among the steaming pools, including Black Diamond, a stone found nowhere else and worth ten times an ordinary diamond. A greedy wizard who secretly practiced necromancy later came to mine these riches with undead laborers and minor demons, and died in an eruption, but his inhuman servants are said to remain on the island still.