The Faerie Isles

While the Danaans lived as much on the continent of

Ceilar as on the once solitary Faerie Isle, the archipelago of the Faerie Isles
is perhaps the most well known home of that oldest of civilizations. The Faerie
Isles is a temperate forest in the middle of the sea speckled with mountains
and small rivers. It is idyllic by most standards, full of music, art, and
sylvan beauty. The Autumn Tree, an ancient oak in a perpetual autumnal state,
stands on its own island, a lone sentinel that has become the symbol of the
islands and their people.

The
archipelago was once a single, large island inhabited by the Danaan race,
ancient progenitors of the Sidh born before recorded history. Millennia ago, as
the younger races of Tanicus began to spread across Ceilar, the primordial
magics of the Danaans began to wane and they retreated wholly to their island
home. Fearing that their immortality may be coming to an end, the Danaans began
to magically manipulate their own development in an attempt to find a form more
suitable for their survival in the changing world.

The
results of these experiments were the races of the Sidh. The Lwnasidh (LOO nah
shee) were created to maintain the islands lands and cities. The diminutive
Grynsidh (GREEN shee) would be the tenders of the forests. And finally, the
Danaans created the aquatic Quasidh (KWAH shee) to be the curators and
guardians of the seas.

The
Danaans only "failure" involved the natural birth of an albino
subrace sensitive to light among the Lwnasidh. This race, the Bahnsidh (now
called the Saoirsidh), was cast out by their creators. They fled from the
exterior of the island and sought shelter in the caves and tunnels of the deep
dark beneath the surface.

For
centuries, the Danaans and their Sidh servants lived in peace with the younger
races and with each other, even as the numbers of the true Danaans continued to
fall. Then came the Lwnasidh conjurer Mallorian mac Dworddyan, who resented the
attitude of superiority that he believed was rampant among the Danaans, and
sought to liberate his people from their control... under his rule.

Mallorian,
with the assistance of his mate and co-conspirator Melaryss man Ullaryen, stole
the Cask of Sear and brought it to the Danaan capital of Mydderil. Through magic
and deception, the duo called upon the goddess Cymber and, with her help,
opened the Cask. The conspirators, however, quickly found themselves the
victims of the goddess' guile, and the energies released by the Hand of Kaos
were not used for their ends but for those of their deceiver.

As a
consequence of Cymber's newest attempt to resurrect Kaos, demons and devils
poured onto the island, resulting in a war between the forces of the lower
planes and he armies of the gods' celestial host. The four years of terrible war
that resulted from the primordial deity's release brought with them the
destruction of Mydderil, the near extinction of the Danaans and Sidh, and the
sundering of the Faerie Isle into the archipelago that it is today.

In
the aftermath of this Second Incursion of Kaos, the remaining Danaans left the material
plane for Elysium, abandoning their Sidh descendents in the world of mortals.
The Sidh, more personable than their ancestral creators, quickly began
diplomatic efforts with the mainland and reasserted themselves as a valuable member
of the allied races.

And
so they remained for over a thousand years until the archangel Az's war on the
gods and the rise of the eidolons. Once again, the Faerie Isles found
themselves at the center of a new Incursion of Kaos. The archipelago survived
the war among the gods, but in the decades that followed, the majority of the
Sidh on the mainland were called home to aid in the reconstruction and then...
something happened.

At some point in the century that
followed, the island Sidh on the mainlands were recalled because of a
"great emergency." The nature of that emergency remains a mystery to
historians, but shortly after, the Faerie Isles apparently disappeared. Without
warning, navigation to the island became fraught with difficulty... as if the
archipelago was actively hiing from the world. Now, mystery has begun to shroud
the islands as thickly as the strange navigational hazards that conceal their
location.