Volcanic Island

The area known only as the Volcanic Island is a beautiful, but highly dangerous place, filled with greenery and abundant with life, it is also subject to frequent and unexpected volcanic eruptions, capable of devastating large swathes of the island with only a moment’s notice. Trapped between the Elemental Planes of Water and Fire, and sitting uncomfortably close to the Positive Energy Plane, the Volcanic Island is unlike any other known elemental demiplane.   As its name suggests, the Volcanic Island is dominated by one singular plot of land, spanning hundreds of square miles, with several smaller outlying islands, and a single central volcano so large that its peak breaks the clouds above. While this volcano is known for its frequent “eruptions”, what actually happens is that many smaller vents which sit on the sides of the mountain are known to unexpectedly and violently spew forth magma, often catching the population of the island entirely unaware. The island itself always recovers fairly quickly from these miniature eruptions, with the energy of the Positive Energy plane fueling quick growth by the plants surrounding the scorched edges once the magma cools. In all the records which exist that speak of the Volcanic Island, only a few mention the central caldera of the island ever eruption. These eruptions were supposedly marked by long stretches of time in which no smaller eruptions occurred, before all at once the island itself exploded, leading to such intense devastation that even the furthest outlying island weren’t safe from the mass of magma and lava which spewed forth.   When these major eruptions occur, entire societies are buried in minutes, and each eruption often marks the start of an entirely new era on the Volcanic Island. Thousands of creatures are fossilized at once, the only evidence that creatures once lived on the island previously, and totally new plants and animals eventually cover the island in the span of a decade or two. The cause of these sudden eruptions has yet to be determined, meaning there is no way to accurately predict them before they happen. Some theorize this is because of the random chaos apparently inherent in the fabric of the demiplane. Casting spells on the Volcanic Island occasionally leads to unforeseen and potentially disastrous results, with spells causing entirely different effects than what was expected. Most of these unusual changes seem to center around heat or fire, theorized to be a result of the connection the Volcanic Island has to both the Plane of Fire and the Positive Energy Plane. But such explanations avoid entirely the fact that the demiplane sits closely to the Plane of Water as well, which seems to have almost no effect on the magical weave of the island.