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Overview:
Muit Island is the ancestral heartland of the Tabaxi — a remote, revered land that pulses with the echoes of tradition, heritage, and cultural pride. Formed from an ancient volcano, its rich, fertile soils nurture a vibrant tapestry of endemic life found nowhere else in the world. Each year, Tabaxi from all walks of life undertake a sacred pilgrimage to Muit Island, gathering to exchange knowledge, trade rare trinkets, and celebrate the ever-unfolding story of their people.
Description:
Muit Island is a large and ecologically varied landmass, though it is broadly defined by its lush fertility and natural beauty. Encircling the island is a dense tropical rainforest, which spills into the shallows as tangled mangrove forests, acting as both a natural barrier and a cradle for diverse coastal life. Hidden within this outer ring of forest, the Tabaxi have long cleared and cultivated sections of land, taking full advantage of the island’s volcanic soils to grow a wide range of crops. Most Tabaxi villages are nestled in these cultivated lowlands, where forest and farmland intertwine.
Further inland, the terrain begins to slope upward as the flanks of Mount Muit rise toward the island’s heart. Here, generations of Tabaxi have carved the land into tiered terraces, designed to harness both the island’s heavy rainfall and gravitational flow for advanced irrigation and sustainable agriculture. These verdant steps grow thinner as the elevation climbs, giving way to sparser vegetation, rocky outcrops, and wind-swept ridges.
At the island’s core lies the caldera — a sacred, windblown basin of black stone and ash. Though barren and seemingly lifeless, it is a place of deep spiritual significance to the Tabaxi.
History:
Though the precise origins of the Tabaxi have been lost to time, all traditions point to Muit Island as their birthplace — the cradle from which they first emerged into the world of Staterum. From this verdant homeland, early Tabaxi took their first cautious steps beyond the island’s shores, gradually spreading across the continents. Despite centuries of integration into societies across the globe, every Tabaxi shares an enduring spiritual and cultural connection to Muit. For many, the annual pilgrimage back to the island is more than tradition — it is a rite of belonging.
Muit has long remained protected, not only by its remote geography and the fierce guardianship of the island’s native Tabaxi, but by the deep cultural respect their people have earned across Staterum. Few outsiders ever set foot on its soil, not due to law or hostility, but because to cross Muit’s borders uninvited is considered a grave breach of respect.
Within the island, the Tabaxi have embraced change without sacrificing identity. Innovations from the wider world have found their place among ancestral customs, creating a society that is both deeply rooted and ever-adapting. Life on Muit continues to flourish — a living testament to the harmony of tradition and the active integration of innovation and growth.
Significance:
Muit Island holds profound cultural and spiritual importance for the Tabaxi. It is their ancestral homeland — the sacred heart of their identity, tradition, and kinship. Beyond the Tabaxi, however, the island bears little relevance. Its remote location, lack of exploitable resources, and fiercely protected borders have rendered it largely insignificant to the wider world. Often overlooked or entirely forgotten by outsiders.
Notable Features:
- Muit Caldera: This sacred site lies at the island’s heart — a vast, wind-swept basin of volcanic stone. Within its walls are etched countless stories and legends, gathered by Tabaxi. At its centre lies a hoard of eclectic offerings: trinkets, relics, and oddities gathered over lifetimes of wandering, left as gifts to Skoteinos.
- Bastis: One of the largest and most well-known Tabaxi villages on the island, Bastis rests at the base of Mount Muit. It serves as the central gathering place during the annual pilgrimage, transforming each year into a bustling hub of trade, storytelling, and celebration.
- Haptet River: Flowing from the high slopes of Mount Muit, the Haptet River cuts a winding path past Bastis and through the encircling rainforest. It offers the most direct route from the island’s shore to its heartland.
- Whispering Mangroves: These thick coastal groves fringe the island’s outer rim, where rainforest meets sea. Shrouded in mist and teeming with life, they are known for the eerie, melodic rustling of wind and tide through their roots.
Local Legends or Stories:
According to Tabaxi lore, Muit Island was once home to the shadowy god Skoteinos, who dwelled deep within a hidden chamber beneath Mount Muit. It was here, surrounded by darkness and echoing stone, that she used the stolen gift of life from the deity Contrbastem to shape the first Tabaxi. Crafted not merely as children, but as clever agents of her will, the Tabaxi were sent into the world to seek, collect, and uncover — to gather secrets, trinkets, and truths, and return them to their divine patron.
Though Skoteinos has long since ascended, her influence lingers in tradition. Every tale shared at the caldera, every curious object returned from distant lands, is an echo of that original purpose. The Tabaxi no longer serve as proxies for a hidden god, but the calling to explore and return remains etched into their culture — a sacred inheritance from the shadow beneath the mountain.
Current Status:
Muit Island remains a place apart — carefully preserved, quietly revered, and largely unchanged by the passage of time. While its villages have welcomed select innovations from the outside world, the island as a whole resists intrusion. Life on Muit continues much as it has for generations — marked by seasonal rhythms, communal knowledge, and the enduring call of the pilgrimage. For the Tabaxi, it is a living sanctuary; for the rest of the world, it is little more than a myth — a name whispered occasionally, then forgotten.