Thoughts on Part 5: Chapter 65 - Dynamic Worldbuilding & Tense Alliances

(WARNING: this article may contain spoilers for Paizo’s Pathfinder Gatewalker’s Adventure Path.)
Today’s chapter brought us to the end of Lady Vaeol’s short story arc to Loskialua and an interview with a Formian prisoner. There Mistress Alleli of the Oatia Elves tells her a recent visit of the species they call ~Firen~, and whom the Lashunta call Aslanta - Humans. With Alleli’s assistance, Vaeol gets a longshot chance to send a message back to Golarion for Brand, the human party-leader whom she rescued in the jungles outside of Son thirteen Costrovellian years ago (6 1/2 Golarion years). The arc ends with the Qabarat party of Elves and Lashunta returning to that city via the elfgate located across the Ikal Greenreach (Expanse), parting ways with a similar party of Elves from Sovyrian for the same purpose. Lady Vaeol and the Qabarata then discover that the elfgate in Qabarat has been turned off, at least in terms going back to Loskialua. While the Sovyrian Elves take the chief blame, the Qabarat Elves who accompanied the party are not immune from suspicion, foreboding a diplomatic and political crisis.
This theme brings to mind the issue of social tension on an international scale in fantasy worldbuilding. Too often a sandbox world when released (like Castrovel when Paizo first published it), tends to exist as static: a snapshot without past or present. This was further illustrated for me a few years ago when on a FB group I asked the question of how the respective Elves of Kyonin and Sovyrian might have diverged socially and politically over the intervening two thousand Golarion years since the Return (or 4,000 Castrovellian years since the Withdrawal, as that world's inhabitants name it). I was rather surprised when the most pervasive response I got boiled down to: “Meh, Elves are Elves. They don’t change.” No one seemed interested in the possibility that Kyonin and Sovyrian might have diverging social and political outlooks, despite inhabiting different worlds, and despite that Sovyrian, in providing the population to recolonize Kyonin, suffered a corresponding population loss. In the ensuing five generations of Elven lifetimes since the Return, how has that impacted Sovyrian society, and how have they evolved from it?
Based on some other details gleaned from Pathfinder Canon, in which aiudara-elfgates exist within such Lashunta cities as Qabarat, Candares, Jabask, and Ofu-Laubu (Mesa), the most obvious answer is that Elves used to inhabit these locations, but no longer. Here is a likely impact from the Return/Withdrawal: Sovryian’s outlying Asana colonies collapsed due to emigration. Maybe Elves in the further colonies had traditional ties back to Kyonin? Maybe they simply believed in better prospects on Golarion, or were offered better prospects in Sovyrian to make up for that continent’s population loss? Yet the outcome stays that the Elves were forced to cede control of those outlying elfgates to the Lashunta…
...Or did they? After all, the Sovyrian Stone, the nexus controlling the whole aiudara network resided in El, Sovyrian's Capital. Maybe the Lashunta merely control the outlying elfgates to the extent the Sovyrian gatewardens allow them? Thus the premise of the conflict in today's chapter.
Based on Pathfinder Canon, I have foundationally assumed that Lashunta and Elves are allies. However, nothing says that alliance need be lovey-dovey. I have a vision of the Elves on Castrovel following a slow decline as their numbers and influence have eroded in Asana while they reconcentrate on Sovyrian, with places like Loskialua and Qabarat as exceptions. Yet, although the Lashunta have remained at stalemate in their eternal war against the Formians, the Elves have been squeezed out. Given their long history of arcane and technological accomplishment, to see themselves losing precedence to a short-lived, more impulsive species may build resentment.
How does that resentment express itself? They control the Sovyrian Stone, linking the aiudara network across not only Castrovel but also Golarion. Although the Lashunta may know how to operate and maintain the elfgates on their end, the Sovyrianrim dictate where the Lashunta are allowed to go, if at all.
Thus Chapter 65 ends with a rather abrupt, possibly petty gesture: the Sovyrianrim, after getting Qabarat’s help to investigate the appearance of a Formian in Loskialua, decide the Qabarata don’t need to go back to Loskialua at this time. The Qabarat Gate gets respelled to its original setting (possibly the one connecting directly to El). While Qabarat’s diplomats will doubtlessly lodge a formal protest, it will be met with the byzantine subtlety of Sovyrian’s political scene, which has had twelve thousand years to evolve since Earthfall, and the last two thousand years to ossify after the Return. The Lashunta-Elven Alliance is showing some strain.
Which begs a tangential question: since the Sovryian Stone in El controls the aiudara nework across Golarion as well, how does that affect relations between Sovyrian and Kyonin? Do the Sovyrianrim similarly hold that power over their cousins’ heads? How does Sovyrian wield their influence upon another world’s nation? What do they get from Golarion, and do the Kyonin Elves accept it, or do they resent?
Whatever the answer, I believe this one Lashunta Phrase from today’s chapter says it best: ~Stya hishya di vi sheazta?~ - “What else have they not told us?”

For more background on this article's topic, feel free to read Chapter 65 of _A Castrovel Adventure: Part 5_ linked at the bottom. ~Samaea!~

People & Places in This Article:

• Lady Vaeol: the narrator of _A Castrovel Adventure_, Lashunta Damaya Outrider & Psychic
• Loskialua: Elven settlement on the continent of Ukulam, on Castrovel
• Ukulum: large, mostly unexplored continent on Castrovel
• Oatia: Elven people settled in Loskialua
• Alleli: Elven astronomer and sage
• Golarion: primary world of the Pathfinder adventure setting
• Castrovel: neighboring planet to Golarion, hot & tropical
• Qabarat: largest Lashunta city on the continent of Asana, shared with Elves
• Asana: largest continent on Castrovel, mostly controlled by Lashunta
• Son: smaller, older Lashunta city north of Qabarat
• Ikal: jungle expanse on Ukulam
• Sovyrian: Castrovel continent ruled by the Elves
• Kyonin: principal Elven nation on Golarion
• Candares: Lashunta city in Southeast Asana
• Jabask: Lashunta city in Northeast Asana
• Ofu-Laubu: Lashunta city in Northwest Asana