Iressar Conclave (Ih-res-SAR Con-clave)
Tor Mystral rose in the distance, a shimmering white city piercing the heavens with a single, impossibly tall spire. Shining light seemed to radiate from the city, which stood high on the towering cliffs of the Jewelled Strand. Light, indeed—beyond the thirty-foot tall flame at the tower's highest point, which cast a radiant firelight over the surrounding area and the buffeting waters of the strand and the river beside it. Tor Mystral gleamed like it was of some other world, and magic was in the air. Magic, pure and mighty, that made their skin stand on end and the tang of metal to befoul their mouths. A welcome, they supposed, to the Iressar Conclave.
The Iressar Conclave is a magocracy built around the elven cities founded in the Age of Arcanum in the split between the Alder and the Feiniel, the two rivers coalescing into one north of Tor Yseri, the City of the Lost. There, following the river's course and in the great forests of the north of the world, the Sky Elves built their nation, determined to reclaim, at one point, what they had lost.
To this purpose, they elected from their number five mages to form the Curosin, the governing body of the Conclave. Their respective titles of Ithron in Elvish, are often translated as 'Archmage' in Common, though the mages of the Curosin frown on such use of Common: they believe that Elvish is the one true language of magic and thus of the world—forgetting, perhaps intentionally, that Sylvan came before.
Structure
The Iressar Conclave is structured around a council of five mages: the Curosin. While they are not equal (far from it), four members of the Curosin are expected to work in cooperation for the fifth: the Ard Ithron, who is the head of state of the Conclave, the leader of the Curosin, and the most powerful mage in the Iressar Conclave at any given time. Each mage on the Curosin has its own domain and area of authority, though they continually seek to rise to greater heights, and as such are in a continual game of politics that can last centuries.
The Curosin consists of five members:
- High Archmage — Known as the Ardh Ithron in Elvish, and also bearing the title of Archmage of Civil Influence, the High Archmage is the leader and head of the Curosin; responsible for guiding Curosin and thus the state, in conjunction with its members. While many see the High Archmage as the head of state of the Iressar Conclave, the High Archmage will vehemently deny this is the case: the Curosin as a whole is responsible for guiding the state in the absence of the High Lords of the Fey.
- Archmage of Arbitration — Responsible for the gathering of arcane and magical knowledge for the Conclave, they are also responsible for upholding the Conclave's laws. Unofficially, they serve as the Curosin's spymaster. The Tirgloriel, the Golden Guard, answers to the Archmage of Arbitration.
- Archmage of Cultivation — Responsible for the furthering of the Conclave's diplomatic ties, the Archmage of Cultivation also bears the responsibility of shaping the image of the Curosin in the public eye: they often speak as the 'face' of the Curosin.
- Archmage of Investiture — The Archmage of Investiture bears the responsibility of upholding the culture of the Iressar Conclave, educating the next generation of mages, wizards, and sorcerers in the magical academies of the world.
- Archmage of Deterrence — The military arm of the Curosin, the Archmage of Deterrence is nicknamed the 'soldier-mage', due to their usual focus on Evocation magic and responsibility in leading the Conclave's armies into battle, formulating military strategy, etc.
History
Founded during the first century following the Convection, the Iressar Conclave emerged as a splinter faction from the Sundering of the Elves. Primarily led by mages and magical adepts (and those that managed to hold on to their gifts following the Convection), they founded a magocracy whose primary purpose is to recover what they had lost during the Convection.
To this end, they established great schools of magic and troves of collected lore; continually, experiments are done and magic is woven into the fabric of the land in an attempt to undo the will of the Gods and the Cauldron: to reclaim their 'rightful' status as Fey.
Territories
The Iressar Conclave stretches across most of what is known as the Moors, an area of patchy grassland and forest between the Eastguard and the Spine of the World. There, it is centred around the various Elven cities founded by the Sky Elves, with Tor Mystral serving as the capital. Its borders reach south past Tor Yseri, finding their borders ending near Tor Tirista, bordering the Darethian Empire in its outpost in Ostford, and the Dwarven kingdoms of the Spine of the World near the northern city of Ganrim.
Yet, everyone knows that the main attention of the Conclave is on its larger cities: it allows their territories to roam their own path and chart their own course, as long as they pay their tithes when the Golden Guard demands them. The main focus of the Conclave lies in the cities of Tor Mystral and Tor Yseri, known as the 'two jewels' of the Conclave. To a lesser extent, the Conclave's influence is most heavily felt in the city of Tor Tirista due to its proximity to the Dreaming Weald—though they in the City of the Forest Guard believe themselves to be moderately independent.
Truly, the Conclave's focus is on the northern cities in the Moors, where their influence is directly felt in most things. Elves are there more plentiful than anywhere else on the continent, and the tang of magic is in the very earth as a consequence of the great presence of wizards, mages, and other magic-folk in the Conclave.
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Founding Date
153 AC
Type
Geopolitical, Magocracy
Capital
Alternative Names
The Conclave
Training Level
Semi-professional
Demonym
Iressan
Leader
Head of State
Head of Government
Government System
Magocracy
Power Structure
Unitary state
Economic System
Market economy
Currency
The Iressar Conclave uses a system of five coins, referred to in common parlance as 'electrum', 'platinum', 'gold', 'silver', and 'copper', for the metals from which they are made. Officially, however, they hold the following names and insignia, shown in the table below.
| Metal | Worth (GP) | Colloquial Name | Official Name |
| Platinum | 10 | Platinum Piece (PP) | Isilmë |
| Gold | 1 | Gold Piece (GP) | Noldo |
| Electrum | 0.5 | Electrum Piece (EP) | Fanë |
| Silver | 0.1 | Silver Piece (SP) | Telpë |
| Copper | 0.01 | Copper Piece (CP) | Urus |
For use in trade and large exchanges, coins are often bartered on long strings, which lead to the square holes common in Iressan coinage. More recently, bars of pure gold, platinum, electrum, etc are common for similar large-scale transactions.
Location
Controlled Territories
Neighboring Nations
Notable Members
Related Species
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