The Medrenesse

The Medrenesse is the long coastal strip running down the middle part of Orithea’s western coast, facing the Sea of Wyrms. It is sometimes called simply "the Western Shore" by those in other lands. Geographically, it consists of a mostly narrow ribbon of low-lying land some eight hundred miles in length, backed by the precipitously rising slopes of the Snowcairn ranges. The central portion of the Medrenesse, called Medren Gar, does widen to form a substantial coastal plain about two hundred miles north to south and, at its broadest, stretching roughly a hundred miles from the Snowcairns' foothills to the shore. Conversely, in many areas the coastal strip narrows to nonexistence, and the steep flanks of the mountains run straight down to the Sea of Wyrms crashing against rocky bluffs.

The Medrenesse is inhabited mostly by humans of mixed Kelim and Rhyndaeyu ancestry, though with scattered halfling populations (especially in the south); there are a handful of sea-elf havens on isolated inlets or rocky promontories along the more remote stretches of coastline. Many of the major cities also have substantial communities of dwarven merchants and artisans living in them. Some of these originated in Dhuromanda or Azhar-Khudul, but there are also many recent arrivals who emigrated to the region after being displaced by Gol Garga’s destruction of Thuldaran, Thubala and Umuzmatin far to the south. In a small number of towns and cities, dwarves are numerous enough to make up the majority.

Politically, the Medrenesse is divided into a patchwork of small independent emirates and city-states, each governing its surrounding hinterland but few controlling larger territories. Some of the most important are Rhajat, Sharabaz, Corvenea, Cretaris, Tyraskus, and Nafaz. In the past, strong Kelimarian and/or Azhiri sultans have succeeded in bringing various city-states of the Medrenesse under their control as either tributary states or outright vassals; at one time, almost all of the Medrenesse was a part of the Kelimarian Sultanate, subject to the direct rule of Yhimir, but it has been several generations since the Topaz Throne exercised that much power in the region.

Predictably, most of these city-states are heavily involved in the lucrative maritime trade which flows across the Sea of Wyrms and among the Western Isles beyond. Some of them are outright governed by powerful mercantile houses, and in the others, the ruling emir or archon is either a powerful merchant-prince himself, or else closely tied to the city’s preeminent commercial magnates.

The network of trade deals and political alliances between the city-states is very fluid, with rival blocs shifting or realigning over time in response to changing conditions. This makes the politics of the Medrenesse quite bewildering to outsiders, and in nearby lands (like Kelimaria or Enyrion), the region’s name is a byword for double-dealing, intricate diplomacy, and factional maneuvering. The biggest concerns animating the politics of the Medrenesse at present are the upsurge in orcish piracy following Vastemar’s fall and the collapse of the Kelimarian sultanate, and the concurrent rising ambitions of the sultan of Azhir. The former threatens the trade routes and prosperity of the Medrenesse city-states, while the latter might eventually threaten their independence.