Editing Acrozatarim/Gazetteer (section)

==Thunderbreak==

An island of substantial landmass in the southern reaches of the Marble Sea, Thunderbreak is a province of High Kyros that consists of jagged peaks, smouldering volcanoes and fertile ash-plains that sweep down to the crashing waters.  Masyra's Landfall, the provincial capital, is the main port on Thunderbreak and a key naval bastion.  Much of the island remains a savage, untamed place where the menaces of volcanic activity and brutal weather make the idea of escape for Thunderbreak's extensive slave population an unlikely notion; chain-gangs of prisoners work in relentless conditions to hew out valuable ores and minerals from Thunderbreak's rocky skin.  The ash-plains provide the townships of the province with farmland, but the winds and storms that hammer the island during the stormy season mean that it is not the abundant breadbasket that it could potentially be.

Thunderbreak is where the first of the High Kyros colonists made landfall, and served as a staging post for the further journey on to the Drakkath landmass.  While it remains an important port location, it probably would have mostly been left undeveloped were it not for the discovery of the mineral wealth that the island hoards beneath its surface.  Even administrative duties on Thunderbreak are often considered a punishment assignment for magi and officials; it is a remote post in a bleak landscape.  That said, the shipments of minerals and ore from the island are important to the economy of High Kyros, and for the canny there is money to be made.  The naval defence force for Thunderbreak is a potent flotilla that has in the past repelled attempted invasions from White Bay city-states and Ara polities, and even held strong during the internal turmoil of the Two Councils a century ago that temporarily plunged High Kyros into civil war.

Outside of the High Kyros settlements, there are few other inhabitants on the island.  Occasional small bands of escaped slaves manage to make little enclaves for themselves in the remote, broken northern coastline of Thunderbreak, but it's a poor life; Thunderbreak is too far from the mainland for any hope of escape without a proper sea vessel, and sahuagin septs have no compunctions about raiding such poorly defended settlements.  There are several sects of elemental practitioners, adepts of storm and tide, scattered around the peaks and coasts of the island, and a single famed order of flame practitioners who live a perilous existence amidst the fuming volcanic vents of Thunderbreak's most active volcanoes.  A few inhuman beings lurk in the island's more distant reaches, but the greatest threat comes from the elemental entities that sometimes emerge from the lava or the storm-wracked skies; for some reason, Thunderbreak seems to attract many such beings, and they can prove difficult to comprehend or deal with when invigorated or enraged by the primal energies around them.