Island of the Garden of the Hesperides is a supernatural location, a zone of temptation and trial, possibly outside normal space and time. The group meets it during the journey toward the Templar sanctuary, on the crossing to Tyre.
| Type | Place (supernatural) |
| Encountered | Templar phase, crossing to Tyre |
| Spanish entry | Isla del Jardín de Hespérides |
Description
A barren island with a solitary tree at its center, sixty feet from the group. Female figures (“maidens”, described as “young, probably friends”, with “golden apples”) stand around the tree. A hooded Shadowy Being / Emissary is present as guardian. It is perpetual sunset, with long shadows and a soft east wind.
The trial
A spell of suggestion falls on the group, extremely hard to resist. It brings pleasure and sensory hallucinations (synesthesia: colors felt as caresses). The group must choose between staying (eternal pleasure) or leaving (sacrificing the horn, a relic). They leave, losing the horn, and Lirio kneels weeping as they depart. It is the group’s first true encounter with extradimensional supernatural power, a test of will rather than martial strength.
Mythological connection
The entry links the island to the golden apples of the Garden of the Hesperides in Greek mythology, to Atlas, and to Odysseus and the Lotus-eaters (pleasure and forgetting of duty). It cites an explicit allusion to the “maidens of the species” of the Atlas and Hesperides myth. See Mythological Connection.