Seawn

The northernmost territory on Ceilar, Seawn (SHAH
oon) is recognized by most as the birthplace of human civilization. A
collection of duchies tied loosely together into the Grand Duchy of Seawn, the
nation survives primarily through trade, shared defense, and a charismatic
ruling house.

Once
a single city-state known as Sear (SHAR), its inhabitants were forced to flee
across the Eternal Mountains to the east when their great city sank into the
Immortal Sea during the First Incursion of Chaos. Banding into
loosely-organized settlements, the Searian (SHAR ee ahn) humans begin to spread
out across the land. Hostile goblin and gnoll tribes, however, began to disrupt
trade and communication between the settlements, turning the Searians to
shipbuilding as they tried to find ways around the dangerous humanoids that
infested their new lands.

Their
culture disrupted time and again, first by their meeting and alliance with the
shipwise Firbolg dwarves of the east, then by the arrival of the Rakasta from
the north, and finally being at the center of the Dragon War, the Searians have
become survivors, willing to stand up for themselves and do what was necessary
to keep their culture alive.

Seawn
as it is today began about a millennium before the founding of Kærn Kronus when
a fishing village in the southernmost regions of modern Seawn became plagued by
werewolves from the Gray Wood. A group of explorers led by a chief's son called
Ioffren Oakheart arrived on the scene and pushed back the werewolves, finally
slaying their Alpha of Alphas and bringing an end to the lycanthrope plague.

During
the conflict, the bard Sercha Wayminder had a vision of a city on the bay with
towers that reached into the clouds. Taking the vision as a sign, Oakheart
claimed lordship over the fishing village and renamed it Highspire. Over the
following decades as word spread of the great deeds done in the name of
Highspire, local chiefs arrived to pledge their fealty to the Oakheart banner,
and the Gem of the North grew into the largest city on the continent of Ceilar
and remains the capital of Seawn to the current day.

The
Grand Duchy of Seawn spans from the Lake Seannon at its west to the shores of
Lake Aeron to the east, and north to the Starlight Sea and Lake Noren. Its
borders encompass the Gray Wood, the Plains of Gold, the Forest of Bone, and
the Echoing Mountains. A nation of diverse landscapes, Seawn is both a place of
great beauty and great danger.

While
gnolls haunt the northeast reaches, hostile lizardfolk called
"skinks" the west, and goblins nearly every place in between, the
greatest dangers come from the Rakastani Imperium to the north and Korvis to
the south. The city of Shar, once the southernmost reach of Seawn, was annexed
by Korvis during that nation's violent formation.

And
time and again the Rakasta have invaded from the north, those conflicts
eventually resulting in the cold war that continues to this day. In recent
history, that stand-off was escalated when the Grand Duke of Seawn, during the
tumult of the Third Incursion of Kaos, accepted Rakasta refugees fleeing the
Rakshasa, granting them land once belonging to the now-lost Quickling race. Now
known as Cho, the nation of allied Rakasta living on the borders of Seawn
remains a lingering sore spot in the hungry eyes of the Rakshasa seeking to
reclaim their slaves.

But
despite those dangers, Seawn is not without its allies. The nation of the
Gnomes, Barag-Bromel, rests within its mountains, and remains a staunch ally,
as do the G'kota lizardmen of the Stoneharrow Fens, who still recognize the
Searian people for their aid in liberating them from their evil Skink brethren.
And of course, the Firbolgs of the Once-Sundered Mountains to the west have
been long allies. And since the nation of Wilder fell to become the Troubled
Lands, most of the Warriors of the Broken Tribes have, with the Grand Duchy's
blessing, relocated their camps and villages into the borders of Seawn.

Some
of these friendships and alliances have been recently tested, however. The
nation of Kæryn to the south, which in ancient times was born of Searian
explorers, has long been Seawn's most dependable ally. However, their increased
zeal after the goddess Arwin's survival through the Third Incursion of Kaos and
constant stalemate with Korvis left Seawn without their support during the last
conflict with the Rakastani Imperium and, more recently, the Troll War that
ravaged the duchies from Midway east, causing a breach in trust that still
lingers to the current day.

The Ædar of the city of Carak,
northernmost reach of Barak-Alorak, have closed their doors since the Third
Incursion of Kaos, blaming the humans and the Sidh for the devastation it
wrought, cutting themselves off from the surface. And the Sidh of the Faerie
Isles have all but disappeared from the world in the wake of the war led by the
archangel Az, whose prison had been hidden at the heart of their archipelago.
Of that race only the Saorsidh, recently restored to the surface world from the
homes in the Underdark, remain active on the mainland where most of their newly
recovered cities can be found.