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The Struthian Isle is a small island south of the Port of Tropes. It has a largely tropical climate, though some areas on its eastern coast are desert.




The Struthian Isle is home to the Struth people, and the only place that Struth eggs can reliably hatch.

The isle has special magical properties that seem to make both flora and fauna thrive. The Struth have a special affinity for the magic of the aisle, and say that they were once only common birds before the magic of the isle transformed them into the bipedal, language and tool-using people they are today.

This has been replicated in living memory, as in 1870, an invasive species of lizard (no lizards were native to the isle prior) was somehow imported onto the island. Over the course of a few decades of reproducing on the isle, these lizards went from 12-18 inches long to up to 12 feet long by 1923, and started to gain greater intelligence and the ability to work together. At this point, the Struth were forced to abandon the isle to the invasive lizards. When a return was made in 2023, it was discovered that the lizards had continued their evolution, becoming a bipedal race with humanoid intelligence, language, tool use, etc. Unfortunately, they were still highly aggressive. One of these invasive lizards even became the Gila Dragon.

It is unknown why only some species are caused to evolve into humanoids by the isle, while others only seem to thrive but remain in their original natural state. It is also unknown why the Struth's evolution has seemed stable, while the lizards' included extreme aberrations like the Gila Dragon, the Hulking Lizard and the Lizard Lurker. This uneven effect across the species may be because the lizards were not native to the Struthian isle. However, perhaps the phenomenon of some Struth individuals being marvelously long-lived is evidence of the magic not always being evenly applied between individuals. Perhaps the Struth are just better adapted to receiving this magic?

Cities

The Struthian Isle once had several major cities, but by 2023, they had been reduced to ruins by the lizard invasion. Now that the Struth have been returned to their home, presumably those cities will be rebuilt over time, or perhaps new ones will be created.

Rainbow Bridge

At some point in the distant past, the Struth erected three giant prisms that form a rainbow bridge between the isle and the mainland for about a week, beginning on the first official day of Spring, This facilitates the Struths' migratory instincts, allowing them to roam the mainland but return on foot to the Struthian isle when they are ready to start a family.

In 1923, the invasive lizards banded together to break the prisms that formed the rainbow bridge, precluding further migration by foot until their repair in 2023.

A town called Rainbow was formed in the location where the rainbow bridge connects to the mainland. Its economy is largely based on fishing, but up until 1923, it also had an important "tourism" season when its people opened their homes as bed and breakfasts to returning Struth waiting for the bridge to form, as well as other folks who just wanted to see the phenomenon.

Design of Struthian Isle

Kim created the coastline of the Struthian isle by pouring a bag of rice onto a piece of poster board, arranging it a bit with sweeping gestures into roughly the desired shape (she wanted the bulk to be horizontal so it would fit well onto the screen), and then tracing around the rice with a sharpie. The rice was then swept into a bowl and cooked for dinner that night.





A photo was taken of the resulting outline and traced in Affinity Designer, where Kim proceeded to hand-draw the features such as the mountains, rivers, trees and other landmarks using a tablet.