Geography

Alqualonde is a small island off the eastern coast of Auridon, raised from the sea at the close of the Elven Wars. Its present condition, in the aftermath of the Second Impact, is unknown, and no account of recent date has reached the chronicler.

What is recorded of the island before that disaster describes a landscape typical of Summerset: forests, groves of pink cherry, and meadows of bright green grass. No road, settlement, or quarry was ever made on it. The only structure ever raised upon Alqualonde is the Mausoleum of the Hortator, set at the island's centre, where Nerevar was laid to rest.

History

Alqualonde was raised by Nerevar himself at the close of the wars, in the hours after the battle of Mount Ator. He had come down from the summit alive but spent past any recovery, and with the last of the power that had been concentrated into him at Tanzelwil he lifted the island from the sea and made his way to it alone. The Tribunal's accounts hold that no other living mer accompanied him on the crossing, and that the working of the Mausoleum was completed by Nerevar before his death.

For the remainder of the Merethic Era the island was kept as sacred ground by the Tribunal Temple. No visitor could set foot upon it without a permit issued by the Triumvirate directly, and such permits were issued rarely. The records of those few visits that were granted have not survived in any form the chronicler can verify.

With the opening of the Age of Men, the question of access ceased to be a matter of permit. The shipbuilding of the human peoples of Auridon has never reached the standard required to cross the seas that surround the island, and no vessel of theirs is known to have made the attempt and returned. Alqualonde has gone untouched for the whole of the present age.

The Relics of the Saint

The legends that gather around the island concern what is said to lie within the Mausoleum. The Tribunal liturgy holds that Nerevar was interred with the regalia of his office and with the weapons by which he had fought the war. The most insistent of the rumours name Trueflame, the sword gifted to him by Dumac Dwarfking at the marriage to Almalexia, as resting at his side. The other known relic of the Saint, the Daedric Mask of Terror, was kept on Alqualonde until the Tribunal Temple removed it to an undisclosed location, where it remains in the Temple's keeping. No claimant has retrieved any of the remaining contents of the Mausoleum, and as far as any record indicates, it has not been opened since Nerevar closed it behind himself.