The Broken Trees Islands were a cluster of islands on Veron located in the Sea of Graves. The Gazaran believed that the islands were the remnants of a large continent which was home to the first great Gazaran civilization. For reasons they did not understand, one day a great storm swept over the continent, destroying many of the trees. After several days of these storms, most of the land sank, leaving only the peaks of the mountains. Miraculously, some of the Gazaran were able to migrate to the other continents. Scientific expeditions to the islands found ancient Gazaran artifacts in the shallow waters and many tourists came to the area for aquatic expeditions. Any discovered artifacts were confiscated by the Department of History and Culture, although the tourist responsible for the discovery was given fair compensation. Despite this, the smuggling of artifacts off-world was a cottage industry for amateur archaeologists.