Tarback's Fortress
Fifty miles off the Spoiled Coast, rising from the eternal oil slick like a rusting mushroom, Tarback's Fortress towers several hundred feet above the burning sea. A crenelated warren of towers and gangways stretches out from the original oil rig platform, added to over the years by successive generations of inhabitants. Flame-topped spires rise from the petroleum fumes. Thick black tar encrusts the base where the concrete pylons meet the slick.
The Fortress began as a survival story. When the dead rose, engineers and workers rode out the Fall on the oil rig's platforms, separated from the plague by miles of contaminated ocean. Over generations, the descendants refined crude to power cranes, generators, pumps, and vehicles. They became isolated and ignorant, killing outsiders on sight for fear of the mythical plague they had never encountered.
Fifteen years ago, a group of slick-pirates led by Ulysses Tarback boarded and infiltrated the Fortress. Tarback killed the pale, wasted elders and used the still-functioning PA system to convince the bewildered natives of his divine authority. Within a month, pirate craft from the entire Spoiled Coast had flocked to the Fortress. The natives were reduced to slaves in their hereditary positions, and Tarback began to believe his own propaganda. He styles the Fortress as seaborne purgatory and himself as the Demon King.
One law governs the Fortress: anyone showing signs of plague is welded into a cage and dropped into the oil-choked ocean. Tarback and his inner circle practice dark traditions in the upper towers. Red-daubed slick-ships raid the mainland for goods, weapons, and slaves, loudspeakers screaming a litany of judgment as the pirates attack. Those taken to the Fortress are never seen again.
A PA system convinced an isolated people that a pirate was their god. The Fortress has been adding to itself ever since, growing outward from the rig like a tumor on the burning sea.
The Fortress began as a survival story. When the dead rose, engineers and workers rode out the Fall on the oil rig's platforms, separated from the plague by miles of contaminated ocean. Over generations, the descendants refined crude to power cranes, generators, pumps, and vehicles. They became isolated and ignorant, killing outsiders on sight for fear of the mythical plague they had never encountered.
Fifteen years ago, a group of slick-pirates led by Ulysses Tarback boarded and infiltrated the Fortress. Tarback killed the pale, wasted elders and used the still-functioning PA system to convince the bewildered natives of his divine authority. Within a month, pirate craft from the entire Spoiled Coast had flocked to the Fortress. The natives were reduced to slaves in their hereditary positions, and Tarback began to believe his own propaganda. He styles the Fortress as seaborne purgatory and himself as the Demon King.
One law governs the Fortress: anyone showing signs of plague is welded into a cage and dropped into the oil-choked ocean. Tarback and his inner circle practice dark traditions in the upper towers. Red-daubed slick-ships raid the mainland for goods, weapons, and slaves, loudspeakers screaming a litany of judgment as the pirates attack. Those taken to the Fortress are never seen again.
A PA system convinced an isolated people that a pirate was their god. The Fortress has been adding to itself ever since, growing outward from the rig like a tumor on the burning sea.
