Cursed Isles

	The subject of this article is undergoing testing and may be changed before implementation.
	Please see discussion on the talk page or check out the testing on the Ice Ocean.

Cursed isles are a feature currently only on the Ice Ocean.

As a lead-up to the release of the cursed isles, the 2008 Halloween events featured a riddle- and cryptogram-based puzzle. The solution to this puzzle eventually revealed that Vargas the Mad was plotting some spell that would destroy life on the oceans. Foiled by the pirates who solved his riddles, he instead turned to creating the cursed isles.

The cursed isles were released on the Ice Ocean on November 4th, 2008. Cursed isles are similar to Atlantis, albeit with some significant differences. For example, boarding battles are rumble instead of swordfighting, enemies are other ships rather than sea monsters, and the primary means of earning treasure is significantly different. Also, the board is designed to make it possible for small ships (sloops for example) to actively and successfully participate. As of yet, larger ships still seem to be able to survive and have successful trips (some reports claim they have higher survival rates currently). It is unclear if the developers intend to keep it this way, or if the cursed isles will be modified against larger ships in the future before its release.

All cursed isle battles are sinking.

Charting

Cursed isle league point

At present, maps to the cursed isles are exactly the same as Atlantis maps, which are in the form of special charts. During testing, maps can be acquired from Galene, who will whisk it to the location or nearest island, if required.

When a full release is made, it is expected that the cursed isle maps will be obtainable from pillaging battles or defeating skellies and zombies, and can be traded between players as normal. They mark a route between an island and a unique league point, which are similiar to flotilla league point markers, except that they cannot be memorized. To chart a course to a cursed isle, the chart must be placed on the ship's navigation table. Charts are "locked" to the navigation table while a route is charted to a cursed isle league point.

Entering a cursed isle sea battle board

The entry point for vessels on cursed isle boards depend on the size of the vessel. Smaller vessels like sloops, cutters and dhows start in the safe zone at the right-hand end of the board. Larger vessels such as the war brig, however, start more towards the center of the board, outside of any safe zone, and thus may come under fire immediately upon arriving. One consequence of this is that large ships are not able to enter and leave again immediately, but must travel back to the safe zone. This behavior has been confirmed as a bug; all ships should be entering in the safe zone.

The Sea Battle Board

An example of a cursed isle sea battle board

The sea battle board for an attack on a cursed isle is essentially similar to other multi-ship sea battle boards, with several noteable differences. Firstly, and most obviously, the board is much darker than other boards - it has been cursed, and is now under a permanent pallor of night. Secondly, much of the board is covered by a noxious green fog. Pirates on ships passing through this fog will suffer horrible nightmarish visions, reducing their effectiveness at duty stations, and the ship itself will take damage.

As the ship enters the fog, the following message is displayed:

The crew inhales the noxious fog, and starts to lose fine motor control.

Periodically while inside the fog, the following messages are displayed:

With continued exposure to the fog, the crew begins to see terrifying visions that distract them from their duties.
The visions become increasingly grotesque with more time in the miasma, and the crew spends as much time shrieking in fear as they do on their duties.
The hallucinations reduce the crew to doing little more than cowering on deck.

As the ship leaves the fog, pirates will start to recover:

A ration of rum dispels the worst of the visions and allows the crew to operate at greatly reduced capacity.
A confidence bolstering round of drinks restores some sanity to the crew.
The crew feel nearly up to braving the Cursed Isle after a mighty helping of rum.

When pirates are completely recovered:

Another draft from the rum kegs chases away the last ill effects of the vile fog.

Whirlpools on the sea battle board: normal (upper left) and cursed (lower right)

Lastly, the sea battle board also includes cursed whirlpools, which travel in the opposite direction to normal whirlpools - that is, counter-clockwise rather than clockwise.

Fog speculation

The fog does not seem to be random; it appears to be created by "generators". These come in a variety of sizes, such as 2x9 or 3x4; some "drift", or random edge coverage is also present. These generators seem to be created inside the "perma-fog" over the island, and move at a speed of one per three turns to one per turn (turn = 35 second, 4 movement impulses). Most move down the map to the shallow end; at the far end, some move sideways.

In one battle, the "fire" maneuver special seemed to "burn away" the fog -- the fog that was generated for two turns was slightly smaller than expected, and the fog bank/generator seemed to move sideways AWAY from the fire in addition to the normal "shallow-er" movement. This needs additional testing.

The Cursed Isle

The cursed isle surrounded by fog

The focus of the cursed isle board is the isle itself, referred to as "the gauntlet". The island is located towards the back of the sea battle board, and furthest from the safe zone, and it is always surrounded by the noxious fog. Sailing the ship into the bay at the south-east side of the island automatically starts the process of acquiring treasures. All pirates on the ship disembark, and stand on the island. When the pirates make land, the following message is displayed on the screen:

Ye land on the island, but an angry mob of its inhabitants stands between ye and yer rightful plunderin'!

Foraging for treasure

After a short wait, a horde of zombies will arrive to attack the group of pirates, with one or more Witch Doctors to lead them. The zombies will fight using rumble, like normal zombies, and always arrive with the same number of zombies as pirates, but are generally easy to defeat. Once the first fray is done, the following message is displayed on the screen:

With the islanders subdued, ye may forage their riches till they return.

Pirates are automatically sent into the foraging puzzle to forage for treasure. Intead of foraging for crates of fruit, pirates will find chests of treasures. After a short period of foraging, the enemy forces regroup for another attack, only this time, pirates are assulted by a group of cultists, who fight using swords. The number of cultists will be greater by a small amount. than the number of zombies previously faced. When the cultists are defeated, all of the chests found during the previous foraging session are transferred to the vessel's hold. After this, foraging resumes.

Cultists attack!

This pattern continues. After a period of foraging, the zombies attack again, with slightly greater numbers and slighty more skill than before, then the cultists attack once more, again with greater numbers and more skill. At any time, the captain of the vessel may order the pirates to return to the vessel - this means that the next time the pirates would be attacked, they instead return to the ship, with the treasure they have hauled so far. Alternately, the pirates may lose the fray, in which case, they are returned to their ship, but lose the treasure they hauled in the previous session.

When the zombies arrive, the Enlightened Ones announce:

"spy ye afar... a ship wrecked on stones...

the chaos priest cries out in ruinous tones..."

"rending of timbers... clatter of bones...

a gracefullness marred... a ruined hulk groans..."

When cultists arrive, two of them shout:

"Thou gleeful dung-flock! The BLADE of CHAOS is SINGING! SH'lugg Xeruth-mikkash!"
"Oh sweet moon-LEAPER, shadow-SWEEPER, stab-DRINKER! G'laroth Bhin Cearow!"

When another group of enemies is approacing, it displays:

Look lively! The cultists are regrouping for another attack!

When the group arrives, a duty report is displayed to all foragers, and the following message comes up:

A larger group of islanders approaches, intent on driving ye back to the sea. Ye stop yer foraging to decide between making yer escape and preparing for the onslaught.

Foraging

Main article: Foraging

Foraging for chests

A foraging duty report

The foraging puzzle is played in exactly the same way it is when foraging for fruits, save that it is always unrated, and the crates of fruit are replaced by chests containing treasure. As with the fruit crates, there are three sizes of chest - a 1x1 bone box, a 2x2 fetish jar, and a 3x2 cursed chest.

At the end of each foraging session, a duty report is generated which shows performance of all pirates to the whole ship, unlike the regular foraging report. It is similar to a treasure haul duty report in that it shows icons of what chests each person hauled, and displays the total haul during that foraging session at the top. To reflect the fact that the foraging is performed with a time limit, the foraging report also has its own performance names — from lowest to highest, these are:

Asleep
Lethargic
Steady
Brisk
Swift
Frenetic

Enemy Vessels

The sinister sloop.

Roaming all over the sea battle board, cursed versions of the standard player ships may be found. These ships appear to have all of the same abilities and performance as the standard player ships, but their names appear in red.

Witch Doctors and Zombies

The Witch Doctor rafts.

As well as the standard ships, small rafts swarm around the battle board all of which are entitled "Raft of the Dead" as you can see when the sever shuts down while in the Cused Isles. These rafts take only one small cannonball to sink them, and they have no offensive capability of their own, but the danger comes in the passengers of the ship, rather than the ship itself. For when a raft collides with a player vessel, the raft sinks, but its occupants, a Witch Doctor and a number of subservient zombies, board the ship, attack players and start to hinder performance on puzzles. Players may engage the zombies in one-on-one combat, or may volunteer to join a group defense effort.

This behavior is similar to the performance of dragoons in Atlantis, with two major differences. Firstly, like all zombies, they fight using rumble. Secondly, rumble board starts with an equal hinderance on both sides (approximitely 1/2 max damage if it were a pillage) to seemingly cut down on the time spent dealing with the boarders.

Maneuver Tokens

The cursed maneuver token in a sailing board.

While on the cursed isle sea battle board, pirates at stations may contribute towards maneuver tokens, in the same way as Atlantis, flotillas and blockades. However, as well as the standard four tokens, pirates in the cursed isle board may produce a fifth token. The token causes zombies to fight for you instead of against you.

The silver version of the token will remove attacking zombies from the ship. The golden version, however, will turn any zombies on the ship into thralls, each beholden to a specific pirate on the ship. However, the token does not convert Witch Doctors or Enlightened to thralls, nor does it knock off all the boarders on the ship. Typically, the silver token takes out two zombies, while the golden token takes out approximitely 5 (there is some variance) and gives between 1-4 thralls (possibly dependant on the Witch Doctor to zombie ratio of the boarding party).

In future swordfights and rumbles the thralls will fight with you, even when you land on the cursed isle. However, if the owner of the thrall is not fighting in a ship boarding fray (say, not chosen, or does not volunteer) the thrall does not appear to fight in the ship either. If the thrall is ever eliminated during combat, he will vanish from the ship. Note that full-ship boarding battles will commence when there are the same number of attackers as pirates on a ship, just as normal, meaning any thralls on board will count as extra fighters of behalf of the defenders.

A pirate and his thrall.

Cursed Isle Exclusives

Though none have been released yet, cursed isle exclusive items and clothing are likely. When the cursed isles were released on the Ice ocean, players were asked to vote on what color they would like to see as a cursed isle exclusive color ^[1].

Booty Division

At the end of the pillage, booty is divided in the usual way, with a few exceptions. The treasure chests acquired from foraging are divided based on various tasks completed during the voyage. Below is a complete list of reasons a treasure chest may be awarded to a pirate.