So picture this: you’re in a clan when the apocalypse strikes. What do you do? Where do you go? Do you stay with your clan or venture off on your own? And most importantly, what do you do when the Atlanteans inevitably arrive seeking your blood? Well this Forum post seeks to answer those questions, in a real-life, strategic manner. (and yes, it INTENTIONALLY sounds like a youtube video.) This post will be split into 3 parts: analyzing Claw Island’s strengths and weaknesses (including location), what can be built to increase its strengths, and a conclusion, where I wrap everything up and give it to you all, in a nutshell.
PART ONE: GEOGRAPHY
Claw island’s position in relationship to other islands is…not the best. It’s close to two overrun islands: Forest of Masts and Sameria (completely speculating about Sameria). On the north side, it has the Dark Sea. Not ideal. As to the island itself’s geographical features, things get a lot better.
The island has multiple tall stone pillars on it, providing large, pre-built watchtowers, that could have mortars on top of them. It also has an arch. The arch could be used as cover for structures, as walls for a keep, more watchtowers, and even building a mini-fort on top of your larger one. Its many trees and rocks provide building materials, and also pinecones, rock salt, gems, and coal. Assuming that walls are built along the peremiter of the island, it would, presumably, only have two weak points: The small mini-island where the secret is, and the eastern beach. (Sorry for clipped image but you get the idea)
PART TWO: STRUCTURAL RECCOMENDATIONS
The eastern beach’s vulnerability comes from the fact that its pillar has a small beach area between it and the main platform. This means that walls would have to extend down to THE BEACH ITSELF, and beaches aren’t the most solid things ever, so the walls would have to be embedded several meters down. The mini-island’s weakness is that it exists. It would have to be locked down extremely tight to prevent it from being another front for the enemy, and then it would need some way for the defenders to get there and back. My solution to this would be to block off the smaller river with a fortified wall, complete with ramparts and culverins, with a bridge behind it, and rigging a gate for an escape ship, like in the image.
As for the rest of the island, it’s pretty good. Large areas for farms, storages, and housing. The food storages would, of course, be under the arch where there’s some cover, but with easy acces to the escape ship.
Walls, of course, are a neccesity. The tougher, the better, but also the cheaper, the better. Remember, when there’s a horde of crazed, mutated once-humans imbued with pure magic pollution, you’re gonna want a way to repair your walls eaisily. The walls would probably be around the piremater of the island, to minimize the amount of ground that invaders can have. This leaves a lot of open space inside the island for the defenders to do whatever they want to in there. Seriously, they could even make an entire mining operation. Have you seen how red the leaves on the trees are? Well red=iron. That’s the reason blooc is (usually) red, after all. For the trees to be this red, there’s either a lot of microscopic iron in the soil, or a massive iron deposit below the island. Or the trees are just weird.
PART THREE: CONCLUSION
Ah yes, that time of the post, where we wrap things up and uhhh… other stuff.
Claw island is an island in the northern Nimbus Sea, flanked by the Forest of Masts and Sameria, however both are on a more southern axis. It has good natural geographical features that make it a good choice for claiming in the event of an invasion. Overall, I’d say that Claw Island is doing…
Rating
In the long term? ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE. NOWHERE DID I SAY IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO NOT GO TO SCOCIETY. Think about it. In this fort, it would be you, your band of friends, and a horde of atlanteans knocking at the door. In fact, the only reason your clan would go and claim an island for themselves is that they know they don’t have enough reascources to get to a refuge. In fact, the reason I said you needed cheap walls was actually because you’re just going to abandon it the first chance you think you can get to a fort on Mount Othrys or one of the other safe havens. And when you pack up, you’ll want to bring all the supplies you can with you, so the fort is only gonna be used in the short term.
Outro
And that was my analysis of Claw Island, I hope you found it interesting and that you can potentially use it in a future Abyss Sea (or other) project.
Anyways, until next time. Don’t let the Atlanteans bite.
Raimon signing off.