Elesa

Elesa is an elven kingdom that borders the Kingdom of Brumia to the west, the Witchcraft to the east and Kinbarag to the south. It is one of the oldest kingdoms of Vespria, and one of the few with a military fleet even in times of peace. It is ruled by King Euridyon III Telessar. The Telessar are a cadet branch of the Elessar dynasty, founders of Elesa, whose extinction three cycles ago caused the fragmentation of Elesa into warring principalities. That of the Telessar is commonly known by its inhabitants as the New Kingdom, smaller and less powerful than the Old Kingdom, which reached its peak in the field of the arcane arts of Vespria, but still maintains a strong tradition in arcane study and practice. Many powerful wizards and sorcerers come from Elesa. The kingdom reunited by the Telessar is a tolerant kingdom, unlike the Old Kingdom where wood elves, half-elves and humans were placed hierarchically below the high elves. The symbol of the continuity between the Old and New Kingdom is the Fey Crown, a masterpiece of elven craftsman with real deer horns which, placed on the head of an individual of Elessar blood, sprouts leaves and flowers according to the season.
Elesa won a war 35 years ago with the neighboring Kingdom of Brumia for the reconquest of the Emerald Strip, a territory made exceptionally fertile by the ancient rituals of the Elessar. Outside of the bloody civil wars that marked its refoundation, this was the only large-scale conflict that marked the history of the New Kingdom.
Qur Al is the capital of Elesa and is a magnificent city that still shows the ancient glories of the Old Kingdom. Its splendid buildings are made of white birch wood and harmoniously inserted between lush trees. Its population is mainly composed of high elves and wood elves, but there is a strong minority of half-elves. In the Old Kingdom the nobility of the high elves also dominated the rural areas populated by the wood elves, but today their power is reduced to their wealth and the arcane talents they promote in their families, while the wood elves are emancipated from feudal control and they administer themselves according to their local customs. The Telessars have established the custom for the ruling rulers to marry the member of the opposite subrace, to foster unity between the two cultures. The major difference between high elves and wood elves, beyond the urbanization of the former, lies in the custom of the wood elves to rely on initiation rites to ascertain adulthood, while the high elves merely recognize it starting from the age of 50. Half-elves are considered to belong to the same race as their mother, and enjoy the same rights and duties as any other elven subject. There was even the brief reign of a half-elf ruler, Eriti I, aunt of the current King Euridyon III. Humans are present in large numbers only in the Emerald Strip, and their community autonomy is recognized.
The elves prefer naval trade to land trade, which they consider dominated by the dwarves of Kinbarag, and are one of the few nations to be able to deal with the Kingdom of Marinhia as equals, thanks to their fleet and their coastal defenses that combine the use of the magic to more conventional systems.