The Island of Betel is a moderately large island south of the mainland, officially part of the region of Skysea Adalay, but in practice the mainland and Betel rarely interact, with governments in charge of each side. The island is about 3/4th’s the size of the mainland region and is notably more mountainous than the mainland.

The island is roughly split into three general sub-regions. The first is the most eastern side, that being the “Aeroaen Peninsula”. Modern settlements include the capital city of Aeroae and the city of Harrows’s Hill. This part of the island also contains the area known as “Sond’s Breach” but that will be covered later. Despite the ecological damage present in Sond’s Breach, this part of the island hosts very fertile farmland and is home to numerous small farming communities.

Everything east of the Fable Mountains and west of the Aeroaen Peninsula is the second area. There is no official name, but the residents of the island affectionately call this sub-region “The Rockies”. This area contains four settlements, Sebosa to the north, Fable Pass in the center, Tomerata in the south, and Mizquia. The latter of which is a non-human settlement of Mizquen and Mizquen-ajacent peoples. Also in this area, just southwest of Fable Pass, is a location known as “The Sacred Falls”, which is the home of “The Goddess”.

The last area is everything west of the Fable Mountains. This area includes Blanche’s Rise in the north, Everfou in the middle, and Bardoqua in the south. There is another place in this area named “Dragon’s End”, but that will be covered at a later point.

There are two other locations of interest near Betel. To the east is a set of three islands, and another two islands in the west. The three to the east are formerly “The Three Sisters”, which were utterly razed to the ground during the events of “Sond’s Folly”. The other two are unnamed, but it is known that a small conclave of beastmen reside on the northern island. Diplomatic missions between Greater Legoria and the island have been unsuccessful, so they are left alone.

The History of Betel predates its human occupation, and begins an indeterminate number of years ago, where modern Mizquia resides.

Mizquini story tellers claim that their people discovered the island thousands of years ago, during a time when there were “Great Storms” that scattered their people. The Betelian Mizquini came to reside in the Mizquia area and formed settlements in the seabed near the island. They remained there for many years until contacted by others of their species. With this, they formed more structured settlements on the land as well. They continued like this for a few hundred years before the founding settlement of Aeroae in the north.

Due to their peaceful nature and the human colonists' inability to kill what amounted to sentient water, there was a begrudging peace settled between them. The Misquini had no need for the rest of the island, and as such didn’t fight very hard for it. Some have argued that this situation was an abuse of the Mizquin’s nature and by rights the island shouldn’t have been colonized as it was. However, the greater civilization of Mizquin has made no strong feelings on the matter known.

This brings us to the beginning of Betel’s human history.

Roughly 450 years ago, the city of Aeroae was founded, though not willingly. The original founders of the settlement were criminals and castoffs sent there by the rest of the growing Legorian Empire. This was declared as needed by the capital, as the Third Magi-Medean War had just concluded and there was a massive population of criminals that needed somewhere to be. The solution was to send them to the island, with the not so veiled plan of hoping they just succumb to the elements. It is a well known feature of both Skysea Adalay and Betel that they are highly prone to storms, and this is the primary reason for a lack of previous settlement interest.

The original founding expedition of Betel was headed up by a woman by the name of “Vivian Betel”, a native to Aegisrancor before it’s collapse and a leading expeditioner in her field. She, a number of her friends and allies, as well as a sizable population of criminals, travelled to the island.

The Capital city of Aeroae was settled within a few years, and expeditions throughout the island were undertaken in short order. It was discovered shortly after that the population of Mizquen was present on the island, as previously mentioned there was little trouble.

The population continued to grow, and the island developed due to the abundant natural resources present on the island. Unfortunately, due to the nature of its existence as a colony, the majority of the wealth left the island and further funded the otherwise more profitable mainland section of Skysea Adalay. This, coupled with the remote location, lead to slow growth on the island.

In the two hundred years following its founding the island remained mostly peaceful, with only occasional conflict breaking out between Betelian Separatists and Legorian Loyalists on the matter of independence, but otherwise the island grew prosperously. With all but one of the major settlements already mentioned being settled, the exception being the area known as Blanche’s Rise.

When the island was first being explored and settled, a large tower on the western side was discovered. Besides the structure itself, there was no suggestion as to who or what may have created the tower. Despite this, a circle of mages made their home in the tower, and named it “Blanche’s Rise” after the leader of the mages “Verista Blanche”. However, the settlement around the rise did not come to be until after a more significant event.

At this time, it is noted that settlements across Betel reported sightings of a great light erupting from the top of Blanche’s rise. The mages who resided in the rise then disappeared without a trace. Following this disturbing event, the entity referred to as “The Goddess” was sighted at a previously unnotable, yet aesthetically pleasing waterfall southwest of Fable Pass.

This entity referred to itself as “The Goddess Entripia”, and took residence in the falls. The small Medean population of Betel took to calling the waterfall “The Sacred Springs” and to this day is a pilgrimage site for Medean Travelers. The entity itself is actually still there to this day and often acts as a voice for peace whenever interisland turmoil starts to brew.

The connection between the disappearance of the Mages in Blanche’s rise and the appearance of the entity are noted, but no evidence supported the idea that the two events were connected. To this day, the missing mages are still unaccounted for.

The region surrounding Blanche’s rise was soon settled by the now unemployed, yet still sizable, population of non-mystical residents. In the years since, the settlement has grown to match the others of Betel. The titular tower has hosted small collectives of mages and other groups in the years since, but the ever present fear surrounding the tower has meant they never stayed long.

At this point, the prosperity of the island and the still sizable amount of raw resources being produced lead to increased activity by independence seeking parties. The greatest of which was the one led by one “Sond Ver DisMonte”, a born native of Betel and a populist who rallied for independent status as a region apart from Skysea Adalay.

Over the following years, the movement grew in size and verbosity, eventually growing in power enough to call an official vote of independence by the combined council of Betel. The vote passed on the Betelian side, but the Adalayen side refused, and due to the seat of power legally residing in the mainland section, the capital ruled in favor of the mainland. This led to riots across Betel, as well as one particularly violent case of the presiding marshal of Sebosa (An outspoken Loyalist) being hung in the streets.

The turmoil reached it’s peak when the entity (for the purposes of brevity, it will be referred to as “Entripia”) denounced Sond Ver DisMonte as a traitor to the Betelian people for his continued calls for violence. This message, along with a further denouncement at the hands of the Medean Church in Halth, lead to Sond and his followers to be outcast from the city.

Without anywhere else to go, he and his followers retreated to the forested peninsula southeast of Aeroae. This was considered an even greater act of disrespect because this region was believed to be the final resting place of Vivian Betel.

Then, for reasons scholars are unsure of even to this day, a massive breach in the fabric of reality was formed in the region the following year after his denouncement. This is the event known as “Sond’s Folly”, and the region was henceforth named “Sond’s Breach”.

It should be noted, that neither Sond nor any notable followers of his, were experienced in the mystical arts. Especially not any that would incur this level and severity of interdimensional breach. It is contested whether his people have anything to do with the event unfolding as it did. Even beyond that, a breach of this kind was not, and still isn’t understood even in the modern day.

Sond and his followers disappeared during this event, presumably caused by the sudden and violent appearance of unnatural creatures that spread throughout the island. These creatures were formed from the unnatural energy released from Sond’s Breach when it infected natural living creatures in the area. Needless to say, a grand scale extermination campaign was executed by the Legorian empire to prevent this invasion from spreading to the rest of the country.

While the breach and a majority of the monster (technical term for the creatures) population were exterminated within the following years, the mutation to the general population of wildlife could not be quelled as easily. The island occasionally endured bouts of “Incursion”, where the monster population would rise alarmingly quickly and threaten populated areas. This continues to the modern day, and researchers are unsure as to the cause. These events, as previously stated, lead to the death of the Betelian independence movement, and strict controls on the government of Betel. Unfortunately, the woes of the Betelian people did not end here.

The next major event that befell the island was not actually one they endured themselves. Instead, the mainland, and specifically mainland Skysea Adalay, was the beachhead for a massive attempted invasion by the beastmen of the western continent.

This occurred roughly fifty years ago, and left much of mainland Skysea Adalay in shambles, leading to widespread poverty and disaster throughout the region. Due to the convenient geography of Skysea Adalay, the Legorian Empire was able to form a monumental resistance against the invasion, leaving nearly the entire rest of the country undamaged. This came at the cost of leaving mainland Skysea Adalay destroyed in the process. While this invasion was met swiftly by a counter invasion and suffrage from the western continent, the damage was done and a difficult situation occurred. The mainland was now practically useless for near any form of agriculture and the population was devastated, so an exodus from the mainland was made toward untouched Betel.

Strangely, in the years following the invasion, various interviews and interrogations with the beastmen revealed that the existence of Betel was unknown to the beastmen, and if they had known better they would have staged the invasion from the island. This remarkable bit of fortune was almost single-handedly the reason that Legoria survived as well as it did given the circumstances.

With Betel’s population on an explosive rise, as well as the increased focus due to its accidental savior status in the eyes of the rest of Legoria, Betel ironically grew to be the focus and seat of Skysea Adalay’s power.

Perhaps understandably, the native population of Betel did not take kindly to the influx of refugees, and strife once more started on the island. However, before things could ignite too much more, Entripia stepped in to quell the now mixed peoples. The way this was done was by Entripia performing what some considered a “Miracle”.

Because of the unrest that coursed through Betel, and specifically the capital Aeroae, many people were killed and vastly more were injured. This led to the only confirmed sighting of Entripia appearing outside the Sacred Falls in the hundreds of years. She arrived in Betel and healed many of the injured, but the miracle that was witnessed was more significant.

According to eyewitness sources, a couple made up of a Betelian woman and an Adalayan man were killed in the riots. When this information was made clear to Entripia she visited the grieving families of the two and performed the only known act of resurrection in modern history. Though it was not an instant solution, The Medean population of Betel soon fell in line with Entripia’s example and acted as peacekeepers between the two groups.

As it seems is the case, there is one more final world event that took place in Betel, and that was the birth of the Argent Dragon. Though the story of the Argent Dragon is not one that can be told so easily, too many were lost to give it only a few lines on a page. This author will still do their best to summarize.

An indeterminate amount of time ago, miners in the region of Ferrin Felborrough discovered a crystalline structure deep below the earth. At the time it was unknown what this structure was, so it was excavated and presumably delivered to the capital for research. Even with the top minds of Legoria, it was found to be impossible to discover a natural explanation for how this unique structure came to be.

Time passed, and eventually it came into the possession of a trader based out of Bardoqua on Betel. Due to the substantial length of time it remained in Legoria’s hands, along with it’s relatively unremarkable existence, more detailed records do not exist. But it is known that the first stirrings of the structure started roughly 25 years ago.

It is then recorded that the structure (which before was only the size of a ball before) had ballooned in size to be larger than any single building in the city. Within days, the structure splintered and cracked, revealing a creature inside.

The creature is described as a massive, hulking beast with the body of a bull, the legs of a lion, and the head of a vulture. Instead of fur or feather, the creature's body was covered in crystalline veins of silver metal that jutted out in spikes all along its body. In no time, the creature rampaged across the countryside until it ran headlong off into the sea west of Bardoqua. It was thought at first that the creature had ended its own life by accident, but when investigated it was found that it was eating the western coastline. In the few hours after it’s birth and before it was found, the creature had tripled in size and was now taking massive, meter long, chunks out of the side of the island; Easily half a kilometer of earth was devoured before it was discovered.

Due to the severity and danger of the creature, a rapid response was set up, followed by a three-day-long battle with the creature, who in that short of time had further grown to nearly a kilometer in size. Thousands of mages and medea from across the country fought against the creature, which by this point was now being called “The Argent Dragon”.

It finally died when one unnamed mage began a ritual using nuclear sorcery was eaten by the creature. The subsequent explosion caused by the ritual failing caused massive damage to the coastline, as well as incidentally killing hundreds of mages, and injuring thousands more.

Due to its enormous size and practically unbreakable hide, the Argent Dragon’s corpse was left on the coast, draped over the crater that it had created. In the years since, its flesh had rotted away, leaving only a skeleton of an unknown material that resembles crystal, but has the properties of metal. The location of this battle was named “Dragon’s End” and a memorial to the battle was built nearby.