In 1554 an early English privateer named Bartholomew Graves, Captain of The Blood Oak, found himself lost in a storm while patrolling the Northwest Atlantic in search of a supposed pirate's lair. Three days of rain and sleet, gale winds and utter darkness, illuminated only by the lightning strikes that seemed hurled by the gods. But in a moment of inspiration, Graves took the wheel and steered the ship, asking nearby crew, "Can you hear them laughing? Can you hear the children laughing?" They might have thought him to have gone mad, but he quickly freed them from the storm, and when the skies cleared, the mists of the ocean parted way for them, revealing a chain of islands nobody recognized from any experience or map.
Too heavily damaged in the storm to be repaired, the ship was beached in its final moments. Scavenged for parts, it became the first shelters of a new settlement. Graves christened the town, and the island chain itself, "Angel's Laughter" for the sound of children's laughter that had guided him and his crew to safety. It would be three years before the final thirty survivors were found, bringing supplies, commerce, and new blood to the land of Angel's Laughter. Using the wealth of strange gems gathered over the past three years, Captain Graves convinced the monarchy to appoint him Governor over this new colony.
The colony expanded rapidly. As Governor, Graves had little concern for anything but amassing wealth through the acquisition of the strange coral gems found across the island chain, most effectively through mining. Adventurers and fortune hunters made up the bulk of the early populace, followed by those who profit from their exploitation. Law and order was entrepreneurial at best, so long as none crossed the Governor or the rest of the First Thirty, as the founders were known. It was a dangerous place, and nobody noticed if others simply disappeared without a trace.
1584, three decades after its origin, the Angel's Laughter Island was prosperous and bustling. Governor Graves, sole surviving member of the First Thirty, lay in bed attended by family and physicians. The Red Sweats had taken him, blood seeping from his pores. His remaining time measured in moments. Near the end, he was consumed by a fit of laughter, startling those nearby. After a bit, he suddenly quieted, said his final words, "They are not angels!" and screamed himself to death, heard by the entire town.
Today, the islands are known by a different name. The original colony is gone from any map. Some businesses and regions still bear the name "Angel's Laughter" like the lake and summer camp on its shores. But nobody laughs. People still disappear. and most signage bearing the original name has been vandalized to remove the word "Angel"