Anchorstone

Anchorstone is an island of the Western Threshold, located to the northwest of the Forest Bank, east of the Roiling Abyss and the Starfall Stone, and southwest of Rainbow Boulders. The Island of the Heavenly Lotus can often be found in the waters to the south of the island during the months of the Fire season.

The island of Anchorstone is mostly flat, with only a few scraggly trees, but its appeal is the deep harbour cut into the coast, whose rocky walls provide shelter from passing storms. Shielding the harbour (and the township grown up around it) from the landward side stands a large pyramid of ancient construction, no entrance discernible, fashioned of massive leaden bricks.

Anchorstone is home to a fishing fleet, but much of its economy is based on providing shelter for ships passing through the stormy weather which rolls eastward from the Roiling Abyss, threatening vessels with thunderstorms, typhoons, and cyclones should they seek to take the fast currents linking the open oceans with the Northwestern seas. The harbour can easily accommodate dozens upon dozens of ships, and the town in the shadow of the pyramid bustles with commerce designed to satisfy the needs of mariners coming ashore: several inns, numerous taverns and gambling dens, a number of brothels, and a market for all manner of goods imported from the surrounding isles.

Anchorstone does not deny berths to ships of the Realm, but pacts with The Guild and the Coral Archipelago see the captains of those powers better able to wield local law to defend their interests: if one is a pirate who captures a Realm ship on the Open Seas, one can find a buyer for it at Anchorstone with little chance its former owners will be able to mount litigation.