Ancellyon

Before the offshoot elven races of the Sidh walked
the face of Tanicus, the Danaans, also called grey elves, dominated the Faerie
Isle and the distant islands of Ancellyon (an SELL ee ahn). After the Second
Incursion of Chaos, when it became apparent that the Sidh were the new normal
and the ancient world beloved by the Danaans was coming to an end, the
remaining grey elves retreated to the mystical shores of Elysium.

For
millennia, they lived there in peace among the Grandfather beasts and the
Eladrin. Then, shortly after the reawakening of the chromatic dragons on
Tanicus, a group of heroes led by the paladin Karik Dragonhall visited Elysium
looking for the Danaans on a quest to learn the secrets of dragon-kind. While
they were there, however, the manipulations of the goddess Cymber caused the
heroes to be captured, put on trial for thievery, and sentenced to execution.

Fortunately
for the heroes and the ultimate resolution of the Second Dragon War,
Dragonhall's company escaped with the information they sought. This would prove
unfortunate, however, for the future of Ceilar, because unbeknownst to Karik
Dragonhall, his rogue companion also left Elysium with a great deal of the
Danaan's historical treasures.

That
would have been reason enough for enmity -- and it did result in the Danaans
sending out a pack of moon dogs to hunt down the company -- if not for the
intervention of the Lady of Anguish and her thrall Kolen, the younger of the
Dragonhall brothers. Under the guise of the company, the two traveled to
Elysium and attacked the Danaans, nearly wiping them out under the Dragonhall
banner. By the time the Danaans recovered, the goddess Catira returned in her
true form to offer the Danaans a chance at vengeance against humanity and the
Sidh who had forsaken them.

In
the year before the Worldquake, without the knowledge of the allied races, the
Danaans returned the Ceilar on the island of Ancellyon. Renaming themselves the
Ancelyn, they began to secretly reach out to the dark races of the world
seeking allies for their coming plans. Unbeknownst to many, it was an agent of
the Ancelyn acting on instructions from Catira that initiated the Worldquake,
joining the islands of Ancellyon to the mainland and putting the last pieces in
place for what would become known as the War of Vengeance.

Much
like Wilder, however, Ancellyon suffered a major cataclysm as a result of the
coming of Az. A few months before the archangel's return, a group of
adventurers carried a long forgotten keystone to the center of the Standing
Stones north of the Ancelyn capital and set it back into its position amidst
one of the circle's inner rings. That act tore open a rift that allowed, and
still allows, the feywyld to overlap the material plane for hundreds of miles.

The
Blackspire Forest, the waters to the east, and the plains as far as the Weeping
Lake were transformed into the dominion of the Gloaming Court under the direct
auspice of the Queen of Air and Darkness. Thousands of Ancelyn were killed by
swarming fey creatures escaping into the mortal realm, their army nearly
decimated, and the survivors were forced to flee into the mountains.

Falsely
believing the circumstance to be a pre-emptive strike by the Sidh of the Faerie
Isles, the Ancelyn naval fleet set out, sailing south of the continent, to
confront the Sidh on their ancestral soil. The naval blockade of the Faerie
Isles lasted throughout the archangel's war on the gods. It was finally broken
by a coordinated attack between the Lwnasidh and Quasidh just prior to Az's
final battle, laying waste to the majority of Ancelyn's remaining martial power...
a loss from which they are still recovering.

In the
central wastes of the peninsula known as the Sea of Desolation, once a savage
land populated by competing orc tribes once beholden to the Ancelyn, two of the
great tribes of the orcs broke free of the dark elves' yolk. Now that land has fallen
completely under the dominion of warring orc and bugbear hordes, including
those orcs still under the command of the Ancelyn, fighting to bring their kind
back under control.

The
Blackspire Forest and the Weeping Lake remain under the dominion of the
Feywild, and erstwhile travelers beneath its canopy often find themselves swept
away into that strange plane. Despite the presence of the Ancelyn, orcs, and
bugbears, there is perhaps no place in Ancellyon more dangerous than the realm
of the feywyld.

The
dark elves now sequester themselves in the mountains of the north, hidden in
their glistening, obsidian towers veined with scarlet, forming
beautifully-sinister cities. That dark queendom is inhabited almost solely by
the dark elves. The only non-Ancelyn living within the city are their slaves
and a few spies that have somehow managed to escape the Bloodspeaker's notice.
Few people willingly come to visit much less live among the dark elves, as
their civilization is driven by vengeance and ambition, and the light that once
burned at the center of Danaan civilization has been replaced by a lust for
power and fulfillment only through inflicting pain and anguish.

The nation of Ancellyon, fractured
though it may seem, does maintain some tentative alliances. The Korvin have
fought beside them when an alliance is mutually beneficial. The Bloodspeaker once
appeared to have some sort of tenuous pact with the Lich King beyond the
World's End Mountains as well, but the recent magical devastation between their
two realms resulting from the cataclysm in Wilder, and the rise of the Soarsidh
capital city in the southern forests of the peninsula, seems to have greatly
hindered their ability to maintain an alliance. Every other civilized race on
Ceilar -- and especially the Sidh of the Faerie Isles -- counts the Ancellyon
among their enemies. The greatest danger to the Ancelyn, however, is the
Blackspire Forest and the Feywild, which remembers the great race that they
once were, and despises what they have become.