Gemstone Islands

The **Gemstone Islands** (Qiuan: **Zuonu Liani**) are a series of fourteen islands located in the Western Ocean. The Gemstone Islands are located directly west of Amagoi and Lao Muji. The islands were one of the first areas where independent Human states arose during the Age of Fire in the form of the Qiu Empire. While the ancient Qiu are long gone, the natives of the Gemstone Islands continue to refer to themselves as Qiuans.

## Naming

During the height of the Age of Fire, the youngest and last of the Divines of Enselonde came into existence: Piqumi, the Goddess of Luck. Disoriented, she came crashing down onto the Gemstone Islands. This crash quite literally made the land luckier, as its inhabitants would inexplicably find more rare ores such as gold as well as gemstones on the islands.

When the Kingdom of Sallant conquered the islands, the islands were grouped together into the Province of the Gemstone Islands. While the term "Gemstone Islands" saw sporadic use before this, the conquest made the term widely popular as it spread across the South due to the succeeding Sapphire Empire's position as a political superpower at the time. Despite the collapse of the Sapphire Empire in the late  10th-century AW, the term remains the most common way to refer to the archipelago.

However, the Qiuans do not refer to the Gemstone Islands in this manner, instead using the term "Zuono Liani", which roughly translates into Common as "Homeland Islands" or simply "Home Islands". However, to avoid confusion, ethnic Qiuans will often refer to the archipelago as the Gemstone Islands when interacting with mainlanders.

## Islands

* Changol Island
* Dan Mao Island
* Duan Island
* **Gingliao Island**
* Guan'an Island
* **Hou Island**
* Kanai Island
* **Karashan Island**
* **Liyaozhi Island**
* Mijiang Island
* Qinwei Island
* **Qiu Island**
* Xiatang Island
* **Yingzheng Island**

## History

### Evin Empires and the Wars of Gold and Green

The Gemstone Islands were handcrafted by the God of Land, Ivos, during the Age of Creation. While the area was regularly inhabited with plant life by Nyara, Ivos would eventually lose interest in the islands, leaving them uninhabited. Ultimately, the Goddess of the Sky, Adyana, would take interest in the islands and modified them to her own liking. She created the Evin and the Harpies to inhabit the islands. However, the two races would grow into bitter rivals. Before long, the Gemstone Islands were covered in small tribes and clans, constantly skirmishing with nearby groups of the other race.

The Evin ultimately gained the upper hand, founding the First Evin Empire in 1255 BW. The Harpies were largely forced into hiding or became subjects under the Evin Empire. The First Evin Empire fell and was replaced by the Second Evin Empire in 1103 BW. Largely corrupt and ineffective, the Second Empire fell to a more stable and more popular Third Evin Empire in 1059 BW. Finally, an established order appeared over the Gemstone Islands.

In 977 BW, however, everything would change, A golden fireball rained down from the night sky, lighting up the islands for everyone to see. The fireball crashed into Xiatang Island. When the locals checked out the crash site, they discovered an unstable creature of pure magic: A new Divine. The creature was taken in by a local farming family, where it took the name of the farmer's deceased daughter: Piqumi.

It didn't take long for Piqumi's powers to become clear. The Goddess of Luck, able to change people's fates for the better, rapidly became popular amongst the Gemstone Islands. Evin were falling over each other to worship the new Goddess, leading to a religious division in the Third Empire. Some converted to Piqumi Worship, and others remained loyal to the Sky Goddess. A third smaller group tried and failed to find a middle way to worship both. Before long, the Evin lords tore each other apart, and the Third Empire collapsed. The religious war between the two Goddesses had started: The Wars of Gold and Green.

From the ashes of the Third Evin Empire rose the Fourth Evin Empire. Heavily aligned towards Adyana, they blamed Piqumi for ruining the Gemstone Islands. They declared her a false idol and forbade the worship of Piqumi. In response to the chaos, both Goddesses became personally involved in the conflict. Adyana demanded that Piqumi abandon her isles, yet the Fatemaker refused. As a result, both sides began fighting a series of proxy wars, sponsoring and sabotaging various warlords across the islands.

The Fourth Evin Empire would ultimately fall to a Piqumi-aligned Fifth Evin Empire. After a century of rule, they outlawed the worship of Adyana entirely, which became too much for fence-sitters on the issue. The Fifth Empire fell to a final Sixth Evin Empire. Piqumi finally gave in and agreed to abandon the islands for what they were. While she honoured her word and left to explore the Mainland, the fighting was far from over. The Sixth Evin Empire, while at peace, was consumed by extreme paranoia. Anyone deemed a Piqumi worshipper would be violently persecuted and killed, even if the claims were untrue. Eventually, the Sixth Empire began a widespread genocide of the Harpy population of the islands, leading to the Harpy Migration to the mainland in the second century BW. While these policies were effective in the short term, they caused long-term resentment against the Sixth Empire, and would ultimately lead to its demise.

### Qiu and Wujie

The first Humans to settle on the Gemstone Islands were Freemen who crossed the sea from present-day Amagoi to found the first Human villages on the islands. While initially distressed, Adyana would eventually guide the Human settlers to Qiu Island. From Qiu, these Humans spread to the rest of the Gemstone Islands. The Sixth Evin Empire was initially concerned that the Humans would become Piqumi Worshippers, though Adyana assured their protection. The two societies lived apart, with the Evin living in their mountainous and treetop cities while the Human "landwalkers" lived on the ground.

In 141 BW, a moderate rebellion broke out in the Sixth Evin Empire, as Evin lords rose up against the tyranny of their Emperors. They enlisted the Humans for aid. With the Sixth Empire already going through a demographical crisis due to centuries of constant violence, it imploded. There would be no Seventh Empire. Instead, the Humans on the islands became more powerful than the Evin, who slowly lost more and more power to Humans lords.

At the time, Humans were barred from creating countries by the Divines who favoured the Freeholds. However, Adyana decided to turn a blind eye and did nothing as the Qiu Empire was formed. The Qiu Empire was a loophole, as its territory consisted of only its capital city: Taotai. However, surrounding cities all became "allies" of the Qiu Empire, which just so happened to follow every command coming out of Taotai.

While it was an impressive loophole, it didn't allow for the Qiu Empire to become centralized or actually serve as a functional government, as any city could flat-out disobey them without any consequences. Unsurprisingly, then, the Qiu Empire collapsed only a few decades after it was founded. The Gemstone Islands was henceforth ruled by hundreds of independent settlements all over.

However, during the Second Human Rebellion, the Freehold-aligned Divines no longer had the time to enforce the Marenbach Declaration that prevented Humans from forming their own countries. Subsequently, the lord of Wujie, Shuhe He, was able to conquer all of Liyaozhi Island without consequences. Shuhe He had himself crowned Emperor of Wujie and began his conquest of the majority of the Gemstone Islands. By 103 BW, the Wujie Empire had conquered twelve of the fourteen islands, with only Dan Mao and Kanai remaining out of its grasp.

The Wujie Empire would never get to conquer the final two islands, however, as their focus shifted to the ongoing Third Human Rebellion. As Yanhi of Sallant marched north and founded the Kingdom of Humanity, the Wujie Empire refused to incorporate itself into the state. However, they did join the Kingdom as an ally, mostly focusing on naval warfare. While the Third Human Rebellion initially went successful for the Humans, the Nytalyrian counteroffensive led by Lyxis the Blind would be their doom.

The Nytalyrians invaded the Gemstone Islands in 22 BW, destroying both the city of Wujie and the larger Empire by 19 BW. Unlike in the North, the Nytalyrians didn't bother occupying the islands, simply leaving them after the campaign. Without a central government, the inhabitants of the islands turned on each other as the islands descended into chaos.

It was during this chaos that Adyana formed the Hexad Lotus in 15 BW, a group of six chosen warriors that would be stationed on the largest islands as peacekeepers. These islands were: Gingliao, Hou, Karashan, Liyaozhi, Qiu, and Yingzheng. While the Hexad Lotus reached fame and adoration rapidly, six people couldn't prevent the fate of an entire archipelago as the chaos continued.

### Yinglao and Nanfu

Heading into the Age of Abandonment in the aftermath of the Divine War and the Withdrawal, Adyana became less involved in the fate of the Gemstone Islands. While she still replaced members of the Hexad Lotus upon their deaths, she left them to act in her stead. By 12 AW, the city of Yinglao on Yingzheng island was rapidly expanding its influence. By 15 AW it had conquered the entire island and began a similar war against other states as the Wujie had done before.

By 28 AW, the Yinglao had conquered all of the Gemstone Islands, truly unifying the archipelago for the first time. However, plagued by instability and corruption, the Yinglao Empire was overthrown by the city of Nanfu, whose natives established their own Nanfu Empire on Dan Mao Island. The Nanfuans finally brought stability with them to the Gemstone Islands, implementing a well-organized and non-corrupt administration.

The Nanfuans reformed all aspects of life on the Gemstone Islands. Economic reforms were implemented, naval trade routes were established with the South, standardized military procedures were enforced, and the keeping of detailed written records was introduced. Most of the history concerning the earlier Empires all the way to the Qiu can be traced back to the Nanfuans, who produced the first written histories of the Gemstone Islands.

In 195 AW, the Nanfuans conquered the Kingdom of Lao Muji, incorporating the island into the Empire. This has caused many to group the island of Lao Muji into the Gemstone Islands as a whole, despite its relative geographical isolation. The natives of Lao Muji have rarely agreed with this sentiment, and many do not feel a connection to the larger Gemstone Islands.

By the latter half of the  4th-century AW, the Nanfu Empire began to fall victim to the same corruption that had brought about the end of the Yinglao. Desperate to prevent the total collapse of the Empire, the Nanfuan Emperor at the time, Rongxian II, gave large regional autonomy to local marquises and dukes, causing some islands to begin operating entirely independently with no regard for the imperial government in Nanfu. While this prevented the collapse of the Empire, it weakened it significantly.

### The Sapphire Empire and Haishu

The Gemstone Islands came under attack in 444 AW by Ilu the Great, who was in the process of conquering the majority of the South. The resulting Sallanthian-Nanfuan War lasted two years and ended in the disbandment of the Nanfu Empire and the occupation of the islands by the Kingdom of Sallant. Initially, the islands were grouped together with Lao Muji to become the Province of the Gemstone Islands. However, this arrangement proved inefficient and unpopular.

Ultimately, Ilu compromised with the natives. By 450 AW, the Province was disbanded, and a new Empire was established in the city of Nianjie, becoming the Nianjie Empire. The Nianjie became a client state inside of the Kingdom of Sallant, although it retained a relatively high degree of autonomy. The Nianjie was both extremely unstable and unpopular with the natives, however, causing the Hundred Lords' Uprising in 456 AW, a civil war that lasted all the way until 478 AW with the overthrowing of the Nianjie in its entirety. The Hundred Lords would eventually elect the city of Haishu as the new seat of their Haishuan Empire.

Upon hearing the news, Sallant – having reformed itself into the Sapphire Empire – reinvaded the Gemstone Islands a second time, sparking the Sapphire-Haishuan War which was ultimately unsuccessful. The Sapphire Empire only managed to capture about half the islands, while stiff resistance prevented the western and northern islands from falling. Ultimately, the larger Empire simply gave up and consolidated the captured islands into the Province of Qiu and Gingliao, whereas the rest remained under the control of the Haishuans.

What followed was an uneasy peace, where both the Haishuans and the so-called Provincials would constantly skirmish with each other, as well as raid each other's shipping lines. Local resistance was still commonplace, however, and the Province saw two major revolts that threatened to overthrow it entirely: The First and Second Gemstone Uprisings in 581 AW and 699 AW. Both times the provincial government barely held on with the help of reinforcements from the South. However, as the Sapphire Empire began to truly weaken as it neared its collapse, the Province was abandoned altogether in 920 AW.

### Zengyu and Present Day

Lacking any sort of organized government, a former Provincial officer, Yuxin Nadai, consolidated power. He recruited a sizeable militia and captured his hometown of Zengyu for himself. From Zengyu's central position, he rapidly conquered Qiu Island, which he used as a staging point to capture the rest of the former Province of Qiu and Gingliao. With his conquests completed in 922 AW, he proclaimed himself as the Emperor of the Zengyuan Empire.

Yuxin's reign was viewed as illegitimate by the ruling Haishuan Empire, who labelled him a traitor and immediately declared war. The resulting Haishuan-Zengyuan War lasted for twelve years, ending in 934 AW with a Zengyuan victory. Yuxin had managed to reunite the Gemstone Islands for the first time in nearly 500 years.

The reign of the Zengyuan Empire was largely the same as the Nanfuans, with reforms being widely implemented to lift the Gemstone islands out of a dark age. In a similar fashion, the Zengyuans declared war on the crumbling Sapphire Empire over the ownership of Lao Muji in 956 AW. The Zengyuan-Sapphire War was short-lived, lasting only a few months and ending with the humiliation of the Sapphire Empire, which was already on the brink of collapse.

When the Sapphire Empire did finally collapse in 998 AW, the resulting Sapphire Inquisition spread across the South to purge the non-Humans who had supposedly caused the Empire's downfall. The Zengyuans, while not opposing the Inquisition, didn't support them either. As such, the Inquisition was allowed to operate within the Gemstone Islands but was bureaucratically hindered at every turn, which saved the majority of the local populations of Xyphians and Evin.

Things began to calm down in the 11th and 12th centuries AW, with the Zengyuan Empire acting as a centralized, powerful, and – most importantly – stable force. Yet, all of this would change in 1208 AW when Fühlgartian fleets appeared on the horizon and attacked without justification. In the resulting Gemstone Wars, the Zengyuan Empire was decimated by Fühlgart's firearms and cannons, whereas the Empire mostly relied on swords. Furthermore, the Fühlgartians fought alongside the God of Storms, Syarus.

While it is now known that the reason for the war was to look for the shattered pieces of the Godslayer's Blade, which had been secretly buried across the Gemstone Islands by Lyxis the Blind when she invaded in 22 BW. Leaving no stone unturned, entire cities were destroyed looking for the pieces. Ultimately, Syarus gathered all fragments, leading to the Fühlgartians withdrawing. Yet, in the aftermath of the Gemstone Wars, the islands themselves had been ruined.

The Zengyuan Empire had collapsed, with Zengyu being razed to the ground. Countless other cities had also been looted and destroyed. During the war the former Lord of Lao Muji, Bai Zehling, had betrayed the Empire, joining the Fühlgartians and turning Lao Muji into a Republican protectorate. Millions of civilians had either been killed directly or indirectly through famine or raging infernos. Without the lack of a central government, warlords rose up across the islands and bandits roamed freely. Finally, the Hexad Lotus, the islands' last line of defence, had largely been decimated with only three out of six surviving the war: Liang Nadai through fleeing to Amagoi, Xueqin He through defecting to Lao Muji's side, and Heng Jui, through going into hiding. In short, the Gemstone Islands had been left utterly decimated in the wake of the Gemstone Wars.

The Protectorate of Lao Muji took over the Gemstone Islands but rapidly began to lose territory to local warlords. Most notable were general Huang Huiya on Gingliao Island, general Han Dehui on Duan Island, and finally the bandit warlord Guo Xun on Yingzheng Island. Huiya would form the Kingdom of Yuitan, Dehui the Kingdom of Qianzi, and Xun the Kingdom of Yingzheng. Finally, all four countries would enter a constant state of war with each other, which would ultimately become the War of the Four Kingdoms which began in 1213 AW.

The Gemstone islands would remain in stalemate until 1217 AW, when former Zengyuan princess and Hexad Lotus master Liang Nadai returned to the Gemstone Islands alongside the Monarchists, one of the major factions of the Great War. She rapidly captured Qiu Island, making Zengyu her base of operations. She ultimately convinced both Huang Huiya and Han Dehui to join her despite their hatred of each other. Finally, with the assistance of Adyana, Liang Nadai was named Grandmaster of the Hexad Lotus and set out to rebuild and drastically expand the organization.

Nowadays, the Hexad Lotus retains its grandmaster and five masters, yet also incorporates a vast army of administrators, advisors, and regular soldiers. Subsequently, Liang Nadai chose to not take the crown of a true emperor but to make the Hexad Lotus the ruling body of her new country, going so far as to name it the Hexad Empire.

The war between the Hexad Empire, Lao Muji, and Yingzheng rages to this day. All three have set out on the task to restore the Gemstone Islands to glory, all with their own methods. However, recovering from the destruction of the Gemstone Wars seems to be a universal priority, with all three choosing to dedicate funds to the rebuilding of destroyed cities. Subsequently, the war between them is one of popularity just as much as one of the soldiers.