As it stands now, the Shattered Archipelago is a bunch of jungly islands featuring the ruins of an ancient and little-known civilization. There are hunter-gatherers living there now who descend from the people who built those ruins. Apparently, they blew their civilization up. There is actually Samantean record of trade with people to the south, and the Shattered Archipelago is directly south of the Samant. However, such record simply stops centuries before the Jami conquer the Samant. Both Samantean and Jamic records from such time record things like 'a great light, greater than the sun' and 'a deep rumbling of the earth'. Evidence that can be seen today lies in such things as the high cliffs of many of the islands, and how some of the islands have canyons running straight through them from end to end - old river valleys that no longer have water flowing through them. The Talurmen presence on the largest island is a hub for adventurers and scholars - the former going out to the ruins to find artifacts and such for the latter.