1432

## **Lantan swears fealty to the Stonehearth Coronet**

### **1432****DR: Some 32 years after Search and Rescue jumped worlds…**

There was one unquestionable foundation that could be built on: *Stonehearth valued their allies*.

House Stonehearth didn’t let cataclysm impede their relationship, reaching through a portal to Abier to find the good people of Lantan. There were licensing agreements that allowed Lantan partners to power their mechanical devices with the powerful magic they’d developed.

What was now stealing the spotlight from the magic and mechanics was the little pocket polity that Stonehearth had carved out from its own precious territory to reward the loyal. The Mageweave Barony was a political laboratory, itself the culmination of a study of the political history of Toril as recorded in its great libraries (Candlekeep and well beyond).

Now, growing to appreciate the politics as much as the arcane technology, the Lantan Collective saw the egalitarian Stonehearth Charter as perhaps the most important potential export the marquisate could provide.

### **The *other* factor…**

Lantan and Stonehearth had been jointly studying the effects of the 1385 Spellplague. Ripping an island from Toril and dumping it in Abeir, both planets were studied in pure comparative geography. The relationship of Abeir-Toril was now fairly well known, if incomplete.

For the decade stretch of the Wailing Years, where weave-based magic ceased altogether after the Spellplague, the connection to the original event was traced back to Mystra’s assassination at the hands of Cyric and Shar.

The critical element was foreshadowed in Stonehearth’s ability to create portals to the two worlds, an act thought impossible save for pre-existing natural portals. Stonehearth had a theory that might be able to reverse the transpositional damage of the Spellplague and bring Lantan back from the world of the blue sun – which by solar observatories, was found to be the same sun, but whose light was out of phase.

This was a bold, audacious plan – and Lantan wanted to make it happen…

### **The Wake of the Portal Ships**

The portal-ships of Toril (of Stonehearth, specifically) were sighted in their exploration and eventually contacted. Some contacted in poor fashion, and the cannon of Stonehearth was found to be just as potent on Abeir as it was on Toril. That raw power developed an instant clamor across Abeir for diplomatic relations, especially for the enemies of those who'd taken on Stonehearth and lost.

Word soon spread among primordials, dragons, dragonborn, dwarves, genasi, halflings, and human societies. The Dragonborn were looking to import potions and spell scrolls, and were willing to trade information and alliances. Their deep history was eventually corroborated by the sarrukhs of Okoth, back on Toril. That, in turn, shaped Stonehearth diplomacy on Abeir.

It did not take a history lesson to fall into conflict when Aboleths of the Abolethic Sovereignty attempted to mind-control the Stonehearth ship – *and failed miserably*. Stonehearth has since enacted a policy of taking a shot on the Aboleth every chance they get – and since Stonehearth controls their own portals, the damage inflicted on the Aboleth is spreading rumors in Abeir that the humans’ turn as the dominant Creator Race may only be just beginning…

## **Stonehearth-Lantan Relations**

### **The Mutual Admiration Society…**

Lantan had a collection of Houses, led by a central Council of Elders. That Council had a loose Articles of Incorporation acting as a charter, but nothing that granted collective authority or guaranteed rights in the same way as the Stonehearth Charter.

The decision was made in the Council of Elders to adopt the Stonehearth Charter as their own. This was a massive political commitment, elevating the Council of Elders to a new level of power – *and accountability*.

Lantan elected to organize themselves at a level lower than a kingdom, they simply didn’t have those kinds of resources, but reflecting their remote, somewhat precarious geographic position, higher than a marquisate. *It was warranted*. Lantan became a self-proclaimed *Principality*.

As the Lantan Collective enacted the document, Stonehearth reached out to be the first to establish official diplomatic relations with this new Principality – swearing to support them any way possible. That’s when the Council of Lantanese elders – now a *parliament* – knew what it had to do.

### **The Swearing of Fealty…**

Stonehearth may have “only” been a marquisate – and a marquisate in orbit of Baldur’s Gate – but they were the architects of the Charter. They were the spiritual leaders. Lantan didn’t want to give that up. Given the licensing agreements, they couldn’t give it up.

With some negotiation on subsidiary tax, technology sharing, and an expansion of military alliance and mutual defense terms, a new section of the charter was drafted governing the relationship with suzerains.

With the language and guarantees in place, the Principality of Lantan swore fealty to the Coronet of Stonehearth.

### **The evolution of the Stonehearth Parliament**

As Lantan took their place in the Parliament, held in North Point Keep, there was a general assumption that this was an expatriate government in exile, ruling with their lands in absentia. Publicly, there was no official correction to that perception. Privately, it wasn’t much of a secret that this was *actual Lantan* taking a seat at the Stonehearth Parliament.