Elwynn (region)

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Elwynn is a region centered around the northern Elwynn River and extending across parts of Shireroth, Elwynn, and Ashkenatza. It contains many diverse cultures with a shared history.

History of Shirerithian Elwynn

In 2001, the Kaiser of Shireroth united the unincorporated lands to the north of Shirekeep into the Duchy of Elwynn. Elwynn was originally conceived as a semi-barbaric northern land of forests and tundras inhabited by the Elw, a Nordic race similar to the ancient Vikings or primitive Germans. Over the next few years, the Elw gradually became more civilized, and the Duchy acquired a capital at Eliria.

Shireroth tended to stick most of the dual citizens and ideas it didn't know what to do with into Elwynn, leading to a fast proliferation of cultures. Menelmacari immigrants established a thriving community centered around the Great Forest. More important for the area's future history were two other migrations of this period: a group of Babkhans led by Ardashir Osmani who migrated to the area after a failed coup in their home country, and a gradual wave of Raikothin colonists. The Babkhans settled in the cities of Ardashirshahr and Islus in the south, and the Raikothin tended to remain in the freezing northern islands. An uneasy peace in which the land was ruled by a Babkhan baron under a Raikothin Duke quickly fell apart due to the two cultures' differing values, and the land entered several years of war between the two communities for domination. During a period of Babkhan ascendancy, Ardashir ordered the genocide of the Menelmacari inhabitants (derisively terms "Elfinishi" by the Babkhans) and the enslavement of many of the Elw. The next few years saw various reversals in fortune in which either the Babkhans or Raikothin controlled the area, as well as a resurgence of the Elw under their Prince Ísur-Ai.

By the fourth millennium ASC, the Elw had regained their political power, and the war-torn Duchy was led by a majority-Elw coalition government in Eliria that managed to keep the other parties away from one another's throats. Gradually, the region's cultural diversity became a feature to be celebrated, rather than a spark for conflict. This period also saw the emergence of important Treesian and Natopian minorities in the area.

During the brief but fruitful Age of Allot, the young duke Andrew Allot took the throne among a wave of messianic fervor from the Duchy's Treesian inhabitants. Allot restored the prosperity of Elwynn, but also faced a series of increasingly implausible disasters, from kidnappings to battles between Treesian deities to the rise of an entire race of superpowerful insects no one had ever heard about before. This age ended as quickly as it had begun with the death of the young Duke and the restoral of the status quo.

When the Kaiser declared a transition from Duchies to Noble Houses, Prince Daniel of the Elw founded the house of Kalirion, named for ancient Raikothin royalty. House Kalirion was relatively successful, but fell apart in the general chaos surrounding the end of the House system. A coalition of Elw, Babkhans, Natopians, and Treesians took advantage of the chaos to secede from Shireroth, possibly at the urging of foreign powers, and found the Elwynn Ríqi Adurellion. Raikothin- and Kildari- controlled areas to the north remained loyal to Shireroth.

History of Ashkenatzi Elwynn

In 2009 after the Ashkenatzi annexation of Tellia, Ashkenatza's territories on the banks of the Elwynn River to be the Trans-Elwynn Autonomous Republic (formerly a military frontier with Amokolia), envisioned as a region inhabited by separatist Elw who were always agitating for greater cultural recognition and perhaps political union with their brethren across the river. Elwynnese leader Prince Ísur-Ai was envisioned as its leader but did not maintain much activity in the region. Trans-Elwynn was important as a military frontier between Ashkenatza, Shireroth, and Elwynn.

Although Prince Isur-Ai of the Elw made a visit to Trans-Elwynn to establish cultural ties, the general feeling in Shirekeep was that the Trans-Elwynn was potentially a trap to lure Shireroth into a war with Ashkenatza, and the Kaiser did his best to ignore it. After the Amokolian War, due to the region's inactivity, the Trans-Elwynn Autonomous Region was formally annexed by Ashkenatza and once again administered as a military frontier, before tensions with Shireroth over the autonomy of the Elwynnese living in the region made the Ashkenatzi government once more refer to the region as Trans Elwynn, though now only as a province of the Republic with cultural autonomy, similar to the Ashkenatzi regions of Thither and Hither Tellia, as it remains today.

Elwynn Today

Elwynn today is relatively quiet due to consequences of the Shireroth-Elwynn split. Independent Elwynn contains remnants of the Elw and Treesian cultures, and Shirerithian Elwynn contains remnants of the Raikothin culture, but neither seems capable of significant cultural or historical development in the absence of the others. Daniel Kalirion, Scott Alexander, Iain de Vembria and Nathan Shepherd, among others, continue to identify as Elwynnese.