Alphar Isle

Alphar Isle was an island in the Pirate Isles in the Sea of Fallen Stars.

Geography
The island lay just east of the northeastern stretch of the Windrace, a strait known for its strong prevailing winds. It enabled speedy sailing from the Bowl in the heart of the Pirate Isles to Alphar Isle and beyond, but made the return journey quite difficult and time-consuming. Another strait, called the Spoon, ran from Alphar Isle's southern coast to Ilthan and back to the Bowl.

Alphar Isle was only slightly smaller than the Dragonisle and had a greater area of usable land, but was actually less attractive as a pirate port, owing to its less defensible and smaller harbors. Moreover, it was too close to Procampur and Tsurlagol in the Vast, allowing their ships to make patrols and raids with ease, and too far from the trade routes to Chessenta, Mulhorand, and Thay, unlike the Dragonisle.

Description
There were several harbors on the island, and each could hold 10 to 30 ships. The westernmost harbor was the largest and was home to a flourishing settlement of almost 5,000 people circa 1359 DR, also known as Alphar or Alphar Port.

Activities
It was common for pirate captains of the Inner Sea to resolve their feuds by challenging one another to a race, starting at Mirg Isle, crossing the Bowl, and heading up the Windrace to a finish at a harbor on Alphar Isle, with the first to reach it declared the victor. Alternatively, they might make it a round trip.

It was the custom of the pirates to maroon on Alphar Isle any crew-mates who were too injured or ill to sail or who carried an infectious disease, as well as captives they no longer had a use for. The castaways could starve, even fall to cannibalism, and their clothes decayed until they were near-naked. In a number of incidents, pirates had ransomed a noble back to their family but left them on Alphar Isle to await retrieval by their kin, but stripped them of their clothes as a crude joke. Some secondhand story of all this reached the village of Maskyr's Eye in the Vast, becoming the basis of an in-joke there, describing anyone or anything that looked particularly messy, broken, or filthy as "the latest style in Alphar Isle."

History
Local pirate tales told that Captain Immurk the Invincible established his first pirate hold on Alphar Isle, some time in the late 12 century DR. However, if true, he likely soon realized its disadvantages and moved on to the Dragonisle. As it proved more useful to pirates and settlement on that island grew, Alphar Isle became less important.

According to legend, in the, King Verovan Lorndessar challenged a Red Wizard of Thay to a race from Alphar harbor, down the Windrace, around Mirg Isle, and back. He was going quite well until he used his whip on his oarsmen, found the deceitful Thayvian had secretly swapped it for one made of cockatrice feathers, and that he had turned all his oarsmen to stone. His ship was wrecked on the rocks of the Neck and he himself was petrified.

In the, the pirate ship the Stirge returned to the Dragonisle by way of Alphar Isle after a raid on Teziir. Adventurers sought to intercept it there aboard the captured sister ship Wind's Slave.

Inhabitants
The folk of the island held tight to their pirate traditions. In the mid-to-late 1300s DR, Alphar Isle was something of a sanctuary for pirates who'd upset their more powerful peers in Immurk's Hold. Overall, the island's harbors were populated with almost 3,000 pirates circa 1370 DR.

Notable Inhabitants

 * Azla, a defeated young pirate who based her ship at Alphar Isle for more than six months circa 1359 DR, daring to make the odd raid while avoiding the Alphar militia.