Rock Crescent
Rock Crescent is an island of the Western Threshold, a day’s sail southwest of Wu Jian, and east of Pelican Narrows. The island itself is barren and treeless, rising steep and windswept from the sea, but its encircling shape provides a sheltered harbour. Due to Wu Jian’s neutrality, squadrons of the Imperial Navy moving between the Western Oceans and the Inner Sea must dock in the Crescent, a more difficult journey.
Most of the structures on the island were built by the Imperial Navy, barracks and storerooms dug into the rock. While this shelters them from the wind, it makes them cold and damp, with poor ventilation: unpopular amongst Navy crews, particularly as they know their peers in the Imperial Merchant Navy and Kaizoku pirates enjoy the superior amenities of Wu Jian. A system of pumps keeps the lower chambers from flooding, though its original essence engineering has failed and now it is powered by human labour: the Navy does not use slaves for this task, but rather employs it as a penal duty for its sailors. Officer posts on the Crescent are unpopular to say the least, and assignment to one also serves as a punishment of sorts, most often for officers whose superiors deem them lazy and lacking ambition.
A small population of fisherfolk dwells on Rock Crescent, providing fish to the Navy and making a few coins selling Sea Sponges cultivated on buoyed ropes. They are few in number, and politically the island is considered a possession of the Navy rather than a satrapy or tributary state, though this is sometimes disputed (along with myriad other minor jurisdictional matters) when relations between Imperial Navy and Foreign Office grow acrimonious. The bulk of food and other supplies must be shipped in from Wu Jian, an annoyance the Navy has not found a solution for.
In navigation, reaching Rock Crescent from the Blessed Isle or Inner Sea is a direct matter, the waters between open and devoid of obstacles… it is not an easy matter to search out the island, but far simpler if one has access to the Navy’s detailed charts. The second leg of the journey, between the Crescent and the West, is far more difficult: the powerful winds which sweep the island continue in a westerly direction, pushing any sails they catch towards the danger of the Pelican Narrows. Ships seeking to avoid this route mush push directly south, adding several days to their journey as they circle around: heading north to Wu Jian is slightly shorter, but passing within sight of that free port allows easy observation of movements by the enemies of the Realm… and those hostile to Navy within it.
