Tour Guide Tuesday: Commoduce Island

This unassuming island in Semoulian Bay hosts the largest, most notorious prison in Rothganar, from which visitors are always turned away and most prisoners never return. Today I’ll take you there, if you’d like to go. Lucky you — you’ll get to come back.

On the south side of the island, as far from the city as possible, is a great firepit kept constantly burning, to consume the bodies of the dead. Some surviving prisoners make soap from the fat and ash, and this is sold on the mainland as a curative, as well as (in different packaging) a tchotchke for the morbid tourist. If the wind is wrong, the choking smoke from the prison’s permanent pyre floats over the city.

The prison itself is a square building with a central courtyard in which executions take place, though the executions often prove unnecessary. Square windows in the thick walls, too high to exit from safely, enable prisoners to see the gallows and the headsman’s block, though some choose to fling themselves out of one. The prison contains seven floors and maintains a guard station for each. Most guards have no other home, and are often disgraced watchmen. Tents or blankets hanging from the low ceilings provide the only privacy.

If a family’s sole support is imprisoned, often they all simply move to Commoduce Island. Forgotten children make up a large portion of the population.

Survivors of the prison include Lucky Max Bradley, Wynn, and Ripper Jones.