Elan

Elan is a country on the central part of the Great Bear. Its capital is the city Fortuna.

History

A nation founded by artists and intellectuals, knaves and mountebanks, with not a farmer nor a tailor amongst them. Nissus.

The country of Elan was founded eighty-five years ago by the exiled natives of the city state of Caratia. The exiles were the first to bring large scale government to the continent named Great Bear although there were several indigenous cultures including significant numbers of elves.

Genesis

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Following the Great War, the three nations of Arnia having fought themselves to an impasse agreed to end the conflict. The Accord of Smla apportioned no blame to the nations of Hanoria, Battle and New Eden and redrew borders to reflect the pre-conflict state. However for the nation of Caratia, whose fleets had fought for all parties and whose coffers had swollen and influence had grown, the accord settled for nothing less than a renouncing of the city state’s right to exist.

Whilst Caratia had once been at the cultural, political and intellectual centre of the great continent of Arnia, now they were outcasts. Political influence held within court waned as the noble families of Arnia, once Caratian allies defaulted on debts raised through the war and renounced allegiance. The noble houses of Caratia faced with imprisonment or exile took their great fleets and headed West across the Sea of Dreams to the Great Bear, the wild continent that had never known the civilising hand of the nations of Arnia.

For seven months the great fleet moved down the coastline of the Great Bear, establishing small colonies from Battle Sound, south to New Hanoria before finally founding the city of Fortuna at The Waist. Here the five noble families elected Count Foeman Crestfell, ‘The Navigator‘, to rule as President Elect over the new world from his seat in the Palace of Voices in the city of Fortuna.

Fortuna flourished with the bountiful resources of the new world and within a decade, the great fleets had begun trading back to Arnia. Stories of great fortunes to be made in the new world brought immigrants to Fortuna but the Palace of Voices had a long memory and only the most valued immigrants were granted citizenship.

Early Years

In the first two decades, all efforts were directed towards establishing the apparatus to maintain a stable state. To this end many powerful magicians invested a great deal of their energies to secure resources and build infrastructure. Each of the significant founding houses grew in stature according to the magical resources that they could commit. Harmony was granted because all worked in common cause, however as the city state began to develop some stability this harmony floundered and the political scene became more fluid.

The five Founding Houses that were elevated above all others were Rubius, Crestfell, Lions, White and Caradagon. Beneath these were the twenty Ironshield Houses of Caratia - those that commanded some part of the great fleet. Then there, the eighty-three Base Houses were those associated with various trading divisions.

Betrayal

In the twenty-second year following the genesis, as it became clear that the exiled people of Caratia had emerged again as a significant world power, the nation of Hanoria sent a great fleet to blockade Fortuna and demand tribute. The Elan fleet was principally merchant and unable to offer significant resistance, and their magical resources had dwindled in the establishment of the new state.

Refusing to bow to the aggressors, Foeman Crestfell called together the greatest wizards of the five Founding Houses and with them committed every last resource to raising an army of water elementals. Saltmouth Rubius was perhaps the least of the five wizards however as the cabal summoned a great elemental army before the city, he called down a storm of thunderbolts and struck down the four wizards before they could command the army.

The Hanorian fleet sailed passed the writhing elementals who, commanded by Saltmouth did nothing but observe.

The Iron Yoke

Saltmouth Rubius was placed as governor at the head an appointed council of cronies and in the twelve years that followed all rival wizards were struck down or fled persued by assassins. Fortuna, which had over the past twenty years grown into a beautiful city of wide open streets, manicured parks and fine architecture, was bowed low beneath the governor's tyrany and in this period the only growth was in the slums and docs.

It was from the slums that he had encouraged to come about that the revolt and subsequent assassination emerged. After four weeks of fighting during which time significant portions of the city were burned to the ground, the leader of the Stevedores Guild Nodric the Bald a man of eighty years bent low over a walking stick met with Saltmouth in a parlay. To this day, no one knows what happened, but two men walked into the room and one walked out.

From the anarchy that followed several leaders came and passed though it was twenty years of careful negotiation and diplomacy before any leader could call himself President and not Governor.

The Great City

For a little over forty years the city has known constant growth and considerable prosperity. The four remaining Founding Houses now fill the Palace of Voices governing under a President Elect, whilst the Ironshield Houses have grown the fleet to be once again the greatest trading fleet in the Sea of Dreams.

Counties of Elan

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