Island of the Heavenly Lotus

History

The Zaratan

The Zaratan is a colossal Behemoth, formed at the unfathomable will of the Primordials during the Primordial Age. The creature resembles a huge turtle, nearly three miles from beak to tail, named in the most ancient texts concerning the Western seas but vanishing from the records by the height of the Golden Age.

In truth, the Zaratan was ever a slow creature, swimming near the surface so it might be warmed by the light of Sol Invictus, exuding a sweet and alluring scent whenever it opened its mouth, drawing fish and other sea creatures into its maw where it need merely close its beak to devour them. Its mind had some intelligence, but the activities of Primordials were too great for its scope, those of humans too small. It slept and slowly moved through the seas during the Primordial War and the centuries that followed, and the forces of the Solar Deliberative failed to find the massive creature, though they saw little reason to invest in the task given its harmless nature.

Embrace of Heavenly Lotus

As the Golden Age reached its zenith, many amongst the Celestial Exalted sought the islands of the West as shelters from the politics of Meru and the populous towers of the Threshold cities. Small Western islands, with white sand beaches and luxurious summer villas provided escape, and many Exalts developed such refuges as years went on. The Terrestrial Exalted, though their wealth was lesser, imitated Creation’s rulers, and the rich amongst mortals followed suite in their turn.

The Embrace of Heavenly Lotus grew out of this tradition. When a patrol of the Deliberative fleet came upon the Zaratan, several admirals thought it might be best to destroy the Behemoth so it would not threaten Creation in service to the Yozis. Calmer voices pointed out its placid nature, and the privacy afforded by the strange difficulty in locating it. With a back stretching out several miles, now covered in sand, soil, and vegetation, it seemed a veritable island.

Sorcerers studied the Behemoth, and laid powerful enchantments and works of magitech upon it to allow trained pilots to manipulate its course and bind it from diving beneath the waves. If the Zaratan objected, or even noticed, there was no sign. This base secured, architects and engineers set about building a beautiful resort upon the back of the Behemoth: beaches of white sand alongside docks for sailboat racers, brothels and massage parlours, arenas for sport and dueling, hotels for mortal guests and private villas for the Celestial Exalted, all manner of eateries and taverns and ingenious amusements from the First Age. Enchantments were also placed to control the Zaratan’s strange tendency to escape the notice of scouts and navigators, this deemed both an obstacle when seeking to bring on guests and a feature when those guests wished their holidays undisturbed.

Vivid Black Petals

The resort-island remained separated from Creation-spanning networks such as I AM, though the mechanisms used to control the movements and detectability of the Zaratan required more attention than the Exalted wished to devote themselves, and eventually a thinking automaton was constructed, titled Vivid Black Petals for the colour of its Iced Lattices and the seed-shape of its empowering hearthstone.

Vivid Black Petals was soon assigned responsibility for regulating a large number of functions on the Embrace, from bath temperatures to cleaning schedules to supply tracking, in addition to navigation and control of the Zaratan. It was a dutiful automaton, and visitors praised its efficiency in operating the resort without disturbing their revels... particularly its discerning eye for assigning appropriate consorts to guests of more ‘exotic’ tastes. The Embrace became known as a place where one could indulge in the most obscure and even dangerous games and experiences, and while the number drawn to such things were few, under Petals’ watch the Embrace was home to a scattering of discreet and curtained salons filled with the smoke of Hellish intoxicants and the screams of tortured playthings.

The Usurpation and the Embrace

When the Usurpation came, the Embrace of Heavenly Lotus had few guests, Calibration not a time for vacationing even in the Golden Age. The Dragonblooded were torn, for the resort represented at once the horror and decadence of the Anathema, and yet they (and their Sidereal allies) too had partaken of its joys and amusements... even if a Solar-crafted automaton atop a Behemoth could be trusted, Vivid Black Petals’ memories would remember that some of those who overthrew the Solar Exalted had been complicit in the sins of that toppled regime. The Zaratan would need to be purged from Creation, sent to the bottom of the sea to end the danger it represented.

The details of the operation to slay the Zaratan are lost to history. A Dragonblooded strike team landed on the island, easily overcoming mortal staff and guests terrified at the vanishing of the Solar world in which they had been well-rewarded cogs. Whether the bindings upon the turtle-island were damaged in the crossfire, or someone amongst attackers or defenders chose to disable them, the Zaratan dove beneath the waves, carrying the resort and all upon it into the depths of the seas.

The Crow and the Lotus Petal

The Zaratan was not heard of again throughout the years of the Dragonblooded Shogunate, and does not emerge again until centuries following the Great Contagion, when the pirate vessel Cutlass of Cold, limping mastless across open waters after being caught in the storms of the Roiling Abyss, encountered an island covered in ruins, not present on any charts. The vessel’s captain, Ravenous Crowfeather, took crew ashore in search of treasures and supplies... they discovered these aplenty amidst the ruined villas and bordellos, but while the crew contented themselves with ancient vintages and imperishable silks, Crowfeather delved deeper, spending days upon days unraveling the secrets buried beneath the ruins.

When, after months ashore, the crew of the Cutlass demanded their captain return abord or be left behind, Crowfeather revealed the extent of his discoveries: an ancient intelligence inhabited the island and directed its movements, and it had been bound to his will. The island had been slowly moving at his command, and to punctuate his statement lookouts declared land on the horizon... the island of Anchorstone had come into view.

Under Crowfeather’s direction, repairs were undertaken to restore some of the island’s buildings and facilities, establishing a Free Port for his fellow pirates and Scavenger Lords. To render the venture profitable, full advantage of the ruined First Age resort was taken to provide for the desires of Western pirates, merchants, & Scavenger Lords whose purses were too heavy from their dealings... but wealthy adventurers and scions of the Scarlet Dynasty journeying the Western waters also seek out the delights to be found here.

Layout

The island moves slowly, allowing the earth-covered shell of the Zaratan to be ringed with docks of First Age materials, which ensure other vessels can be moored and carried along securely... as there is no sea floor rising beneath the island, even vessels of deeper draughts can approach close to shore. Towards the tail end of the island, the curve of the coast lessens, and a fine beach of warm, white sand can entertain those who wish to enjoy the simple joys of the West. Sometimes, creatures such as seals or Sunners will beach here to warm in the rays of Sol Invictus, and colourful Sugar Crabs are regular inhabitants.

Further inland, plants have grown up to cover the land (or perhaps persist from times long past), with paths winding through scrub and grasses, even trees for kindling and carpentry (though the environment has not supported tall mast-worthy trees such as Teak or Coastal Conifer). In some areas, animals can be found in still-fenced hunting preserves, though the original exotic beasts (and, if some of the carvings on certain stones are to be believed, humans) are gone in place of seabirds and mundane creatures such as Boar, Island Ponies, and Peafowl. These provide the island’s kitchens with some variety, and visitors can rent preserves for hunting parties, a rare amusement on the small isles of the West’s Open Seas.

Centuries being left in ruin, some possibly sunken beneath the waves, were not kind to many of the structures once making up the resort, but a number have survived: what were once the inns and taverns catering to the mortal and Terrestrial guests fared worst, and those that remained were stripped early on to furnish the establishments that had originally served the Celestial Exalted: the private villas of the Solar Exalted transformed into inns packed with mortal sailors, fine dining establishments that once presented the heights of Motonic Gastronomy now serve up Rum and charred hunks of meat to rowdy pirates. Gambling halls still house games of chance, with some of the ancient game-devices still operating alongside cards and dice, though the bets here are in Silver coins not The demonic courtesans still bound to the finest brothels no longer take Lunar and Sidereal lovers to the heights of sensual experience, and their companions are no longer the finest mortal concubines in Creation but the poor young men and women who seek escape from their lot through the sex trade as the Zaratan drifts past their island homes.

The Gleamshell Spa, a large domed edifice whose walls are formed of some imperishable white material with a pearlescent sheen, is a notable attraction: within, a vast warm pool bubbles with scented soaps generated by some unknown mechanism. For sailors who have little small chambers off this grand bathing hall lead to smaller private baths where the water moves in vigorous currents, and massage parlours where white-jade automata ply those who rest upon their couches with expert tendrils. While this feature has much appeal, it also brings with it risk... more than one parlour has been sealed off after its automata-masseuse was moved by malice or malfunction to grind a guest upon its couch to death.

The most fortified building on the island is the squat ‘administrative facility’, overlooking the head of the island. Here, the descendants of Ravenous Crowfeather continue to administer the island and its port, assisted (unbeknownst to those visiting the resort-island) by the thinking automata Vivid Black Petals.

Location

The Island of the Heavenly Lotus follows a slow course across the West. It is difficult to find when it is underway, even when one predicts its course and tries to intercept... somehow overlooked within the vastness of the seas. It does, however make regular appearances in certain regions: south of Anchorstone in the Fire Season, west of the Seaweed Fields in the Water Season, and west of Port Foul in the Earth Season.

Source: Expanded from concepts for Heavenly Lotus Isle and Hidden Shores
from BrilliantRain on the unofficial Exalted wiki, and legends of giant island-turtles.