Small and rocky, this island turns into a packed rookery for seabirds and wherries during the spring and summer. The rocks are coated with guano and the crevices of the rock filled with it. In this fertile ground, hardy ironwood trees grow, giving a home to the birds which provide the fertile soil.

To the north-east of the mountain ridge lies tundra and scrub; to the south-west the calm strait that divides the Western Continent. The mountainous area of Moonrise is volcanic and treacherous, often steaming or smoking. Occasional earthquakes rock the unstable cliffs and ashy cones. Hardy boreal trees forest the mountains and make for a lovely, though inhospitable background.

Windward is far wetter and more hospitable than its larger and colder sibling. Currents of water from the south keep the clime temperate, while the mountains capture much of the moisture coming from the western ocean. The forests here are temperate rainforests, with boreal forest covering the leeward eastward sides of the extinct volcanoes that form the ridges. In the high mountains, constant clouds and mists make for a unique ecosystem – one where it rarely rains but is never dry. Complex and dangerous cave systems pock the mountains and serve as a last-resort hideout.

This wet island is so named for the multitude of reeds which grow in its one harbor. The sound of the trade winds blowing through the reeds is not unlike the thrumming of a stringed instrument, and is eerily beautiful. The island is swampy and dangerous, with parts composed of mats of vegetation floating on inland lakes.

A mostly-round island, the underside of this rocky island is cavernous. The waves booming into the enclosed sea caves turn the entire island into a resonator, whose sound can be heard underwater for miles. The vegetation of this island is grassy and spare.

Named for its shape when seen above, this island is home to a number of mockingbirds, some of which even “boom” like the nearby Drum. This island is forested and wet, with almost daily rains and fickle weather.

Just offshore of Harp Island, the name of this island refers not only to the particularly nasty wherries which roost there, but is also a play on the idea of a “little harp.”

A huge whirlpool swirling between Windward, Lyre Island, Harp Island, and Victory Rock, this dangerous current makes ship travel in the area all but impossible. The pull of the current is strong enough to keep a ship trapped on the open sea, drive it into rocks, or even splinter the hull, all depending on the vagaries of the ocean.