Origins of Tortuga

An island that rose not from earth,
but from wreckage.
A graveyard of ships lost to storms and greed,
fused together by salt and time.

The first to find it were not men,
but shadows — creatures with eyes like storm glass
and names long swallowed by the sea.

It was a place of exile and awakening.
A shore that welcomed no one,
but offered refuge to those the world had cast off.

Merchants with cursed cargo.
Runaways marked by kings.
Survivors who had tasted fire and refused to kneel.
They built not a town, but a code.

No crowns.
No borders.
No gods but the tide.

And so the Bay endured — hidden behind storms that never cleared,
guarded by reefs that tore open any ship without a blessing.
It became legend.

A place spoken of only in hushed tones,
in taverns where maps are burned
and compasses spin.

Now, its signal returns.

Not in words,
but in symbols.
In relics.
In the mark left on those who sail from it.

The tide is rising.