Welbems Island

Sitting in the North Blue, Welbems Island enjoys a mild climate of lengthy springs and summers, which makes it one of the region's pleasanter places to settle. The terrain runs from coastal shallows where sea lions gather to inland forests and rivers populated by monitor lizards, hippos, and crocodiles. A sizable mountain rises somewhere along its southern portion. The island appears as a non-canon setting in the novel Law: The Hour of Kikoku, tied to the backstory of Hakugan, who grew up there before throwing in with the Heart Pirates.

The island is cleanly split into two halves. Roughly two years before the novel's events, a pirate force under Nagels stormed the northern side and, in under three months, seized it completely. Nagels then crowned himself and established a domain bearing his own name across that territory. He governed it ruthlessly, conscripting every resident past the age of six into twelve-hour daily labor, then shipping out the minerals and crops they produced while pocketing the proceeds. The result was a starving, sickly population trapped in poverty.

The southern half tells a different story. Anchored by the prosperous Hakkuro Village, the southern settlements banded together to repel the Nagels Pirates' repeated raids, and the invaders never managed to break them. Hakkuro Village itself, lined with bars and weapon sellers, is Hakugan's birthplace; Law judged its cheerful surface to be partly a shield against the dread of the looming northern threat. The island also carries an old secret, as the cursed blade Kikoku was sealed in a small shrine there roughly two centuries ago, with warnings about its danger handed down ever since.

King Nagels rules the conquered northern kingdom and drives its citizens into forced labor. Hakugan and his family hail from Hakkuro Village in the south, the settlement that anchors the resistance. Shortly before the novel opens, the Kalik Pirates raided the southern coast and abducted a group of locals, Hakugan among them, before the Heart Pirates intervened and returned the captives home. Soon after, the Nagels Kingdom launched its largest offensive yet, striking the south by land and sea at once.