Post by Bluestorm on Jan 21, 2018 18:36:57 GMT
The Broken Isle
The Broken Isle, as told in ‘Geographical Almanac III’ by Alasyr Hart, was ‘the ancient stronghold of the Killenna Gnum of the Vimeni. At the coming of the Vimeni doom, the Killenna Gnum created a catastrophe of such magnitude that the isle split, and the eastern half was entirely desertified.’
It was shortly after the centaur civil war that a group of elven explorers reached the broken isle, and discovered the ruins of the Vimeni stronghold there. They built a small research colony there, and began to analyse the destroyed ancient technology. Little did they know, their small colony was soon to become a point of heated contention among the races of Eldyr.
As told in ‘Deverrin’s History,’ the elves were the first to lay claim to the isle. They began to send settlers there, to affirm the land as theirs. The gnomes, however, did not agree that the isle should belong to the elves, claiming that their Vimeni ancestry entitled the land to them. They blockaded the elven ships, stopping the settlers from reaching the isle. The centaurs of the Peragun Plains, at that time just emerging from a heavy drought, also claimed the land, claiming the survival of their kingdom demanded it. Finally, the centaurs of the Great Desert, being the kingdom closest to the isle, claimed that it should be their territory by virtue of its proximity to their kingdom.
The elves threatened the gnomes with military intervention if they did not allow their ships to reach the isle. The gnomes refused to stop blockading elven ships, and, with the backing of the centaurs, turned the situation back on the elves, telling them to stop sending the ships. At this point, the centaurs of the great desert, seeing a chance, sent a fleet to the isle to claim it as theirs. They were headed off, however, by gnomish ships, and the two fired warning shots at one another, until the engagement came to a stalemate and both sides backed off.
The plains centaurs and the elves were outraged about this, and threatened war on the gnomes once more. Seeing that war was imminent, the centaurs, unprepared for a war on this scale, called a peace summit between the kingdoms. After long weeks of negotiations, the only decided factor was that no one kingdom could own the island, but that settlers from all races would be welcome there. Each kingdom immediately tried to flood the island with its settlers, leading to fantastically fast development of the colony, now known as Haravanne.
However, it was quickly discovered that the island’s soil was next to barren. Whatever catastrophe the Vimeni had wrought had rendered the island nigh unfarmable. This led to a mass exodus of settlers at the same rate as they were immigrating. Haravanne was once more left almost deserted, but for a few researchers, as it had originally been.
A war throughout the whole of Eldyr had been narrowly avoided.