Saint Ark's Island where discovered on the Feastday of Saint Ark, giving them their name. There are three major islands with a handful of minor islands surrounding them.
The most densely populated is Arkland, home of Saint Ark's Port. This was the first outpost established on the three islands to act as a harbor for ships to restock and resupply. Later, it became a major shipping port as a place to recharge your Shards safely while traveling between the two continents. Now full of sailors with nothing to do but wait, it quickly established a vibrant entertainment industry. Saint Ark's Port is known worldwide for its gambling, drinking, and other fun vices as a result. It is also incredibly diverse thanks to being situated between the two continents, travelers from across the world must pass through here to get to the other side of the world (or to spend all their money in the casinos).
Larger but with a smaller population and less traffic is the Cigar, named after its still-smoking active volcano. Despite its less holy name, it caters to the more wholesome side of tourism. The volcanic activity meant the island was home to several hot-springs that later developed into an "Island Paradise" tourist resort. With pristine beaches, a water/amusement park, and access to several nearby reefs it is almost as popular with foreigners as Saint Ark's Port. Typically international visitors will first arrive at the larger city, taking a boat or smaller airship to the island afterword.
Lastly is Forsaken Island, medium sized with no known human residents. Its owned by the jungle and the monsters therein, its waters filled with aggressively territorial creatures making even approaching it a challenge. Its shores are filled with the ships that tried and failed. Still it is not without its uses to the locals, Saint Ark's Guard uses it as a training ground as part of their duties to cull the local monster population. Foreigners who lost everything in the casinos are known to come here to hunt monsters in a last desperate bid to make a few coins for just one more game that will surely turn their luck around.
Saint Ark's Guards act as the local law enforcement, military, and monster slayers all in one. Their military duties are treated like a technicality, effectively in times of war they would be drafted as a militia and in times of peace they maintain military equipment. As they are in a strategically important location they act as a deterrent to invasion, but as their land size and population can't compete with world powers they would only be effective in stalling a determined enemy at sea. Thus Saint Ark's relies on a web of alliances to keep itself safe from invasion - in times of war that stalling is all they'd need to do. Fortunately this web of alliances cover most nations that would have reason to invade it in the first place. Effectively it is secure in peace.
The monster slayer and law enforcement rolls are divided into what they call the "Night Shift" and the "Day Shift". Day Shift focus on keeping the law, a big job in SAP thanks to the high volume of people, trade, and seedy casinos with a relatively small amount of officers to patrol everything. Most major crimes are dealt with swiftly, but smugglers can often finish trading and leave before the Day Shift can get to them. As the name suggests most officers are active during the day, most organized criminal activity thus takes place at night when the Guard is busy dealing with the newly-arrived monsters. Especially after the arrival of the Lords. Night Shift focuses mainly on defending the town from monsters, which tend to be active at night. A few patrol the town to take out anything that managed to fall inside of it, but most man the perimeter to keep everything that fell everywhere else out. They technically share duties - a Night Shift worker can arrest someone if they see a crime and a Day Shift worker can shoot a monster if they happen across it. The training is different enough between the two jobs that one side will usually call the other to deal with their specialty. It is perfectly possible for a Day Shift worker to be active at night and vice versa, but isn't very common. Monsters are less active during the day, so most daytime Night Shift activities are responding to monster sightings. While criminal activity is more common at night, the fact that most their backup is tied up beating up monsters means its a less than ideal time to act against criminals.
It was a normal morning in Saint Ark's Port. Massive ships moved cargo in and out of their holds. Sometimes that cargo was people who rushed eagerly to the neon lights of the city or the transit to the Cigar. In the center of the clear tropical sky was the sun sending its pleasant rays down to its favorite islands. In the park in the port, exotic birds sang on palm trees. Children made castles in a sand box. Nearby stores had open windows to let the cool island breeze inside.
Nobody saw the unprecedented daytime invasion happening.
They came from the sea. An attack from underwater nobody was expecting. Hundreds, then thousands of monsters emerged from the ocean. Despite their individual weakness they seem to have tactical direction. They first overwhelmed the daytime defenses. They entered the city through the openings they made. They split up. Half went to wreak havoc in the city, half began to sabotage the military equipment. Saint Ark's Guard scrambled into action. They'd be ready to face the threat in minutes.
In other words, they'd be ready too late. Civilians began running from the incoming tide of monsters. Shops slammed their doors and windows, then began boarding the place up as if preparing for a hurricane. Everyone took shelter. Those on the far side of the city had the luxury of enough time to get to safety.
Those in the park where too close to the ocean for that. The flood was here before anyone could react. Maybe the shops could become shelters just in time. But those in the park would never be able to make it inside.
A young girl in an angelic dress emerges out from one of the surrounding shops. She stands defiantly in front of the sandbox and the trembling children within. Her amulet grows as bright as a beacon.
It is clear to anyone with combat experience that she doesn't have a chance. She's not strong enough to even defeat the Slimes before her. She'd be lucky if she was even able to hold them off long enough for a single person to escape the park.
((And that is [[Probably]] where you come in. As fate would have it, a
hardened military veteran,
a mage from the far north,
and an aged scholar capable of holding back the tide of enemies happen to be around this park. Will these men rise up to the occasion and become heroes? Or will they ignore this plot hook, let civilians die, and derail the GM's plans?
The park is near the a port, you can see the ocean from here. Passed the destroyed wall. You'd have to walk through here to get to the main city, or to transit to somewhere else. It is surrounded by shops and businesses of whatever type that you could be in and see everything that was going on outside.
If you want, you can explain what you where doing in the park before saying how you're reacting to the monsters. The monsters in the park are currently Shades and Slimes, clearly Level 1 fights, but there are a significant number of them. ))
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Topic: Shards of the Sky IC: Attack on Saint Ark's Port (Read 2455 times)