Kebuan, remembered ominously as Sailor’s Bane, was first recorded by the famed explorer Nelso, Lord of Oceans, during his legendary voyage across the vast Mother Ocean—a sea many believed to stretch endlessly beyond the edge of the known world.

Weeks before reaching Kebuan, Nelso had successfully laid claim to the distant Lonely Isles south of Marcia. Yet no such claim was ever made upon Kebuan. From the moment his fleet approached its shores, the islands revealed themselves as places utterly hostile to human life.

Upon landing on the southernmost isle, Nelso’s men encountered a landscape overrun with predators. Giant insects crawled through the undergrowth, monstrous bats shrieked through the skies, and unseen creatures stalked the jungles by night. Men vanished from campfires, dragged screaming into darkness, and before long the island earned the grim title of the Predator Isle.

Seeking safer ground, the expedition crossed westward to the middle isle. At first, it seemed almost peaceful. Vegetation flourished in abundance, yet strangely little animal life could be found. The silence itself unsettled the crew. Soon they discovered the terrible truth: the island could not sustain human life. Every fruit, root, and creature they consumed proved lethal. Some men died within hours, others lingered for days in agony, but all who fed from the island eventually perished. It became known among the survivors as Poison Isle.

Starving and desperate, Nelso and a handful of his remaining crew pressed onward to the third isle in hopes of finding fresh water and refuge. Instead, death greeted them almost immediately. Within moments of locating a stream, three men were struck by venomous snakes hidden among the rocks and reeds. Their deaths came swiftly, and with them died any thought of continuing the expedition. Nelso ordered an immediate retreat.

The largest island of Kebuan remained untouched. Neither Nelso nor his men ever dared set foot upon it. From the sea alone its silhouette inspired dread—a colossal mountainous pyramid rising unnaturally against the horizon, as though carved by something other than nature itself.

When later asked how his surviving crew endured the return voyage across the Mother Ocean, Nelso reportedly offered only a hollow grimace before muttering the words:

“Gulls… and five-eyed squid.”