Pilaan

Home of the seafaring Pilaani elves, and the source of Khazigiri naval power.

Geography

Pilaan is a gorgeous land of broad, sandy beaches with deep lagoons and harbors, soft jungle rainforests and steep jutting mountains. Hardwood forests perfect for shipbuilding are found a few miles inland, and the eroded cliffs readily offer up their gold, gems and ore resources. An earth-equivalent is found in certain places in Japan (The image header is Omijima Island in Kita-Nagato Kaigan Quasi-National Park, Japan, and perfectly captures the borderline-fey magic of the place).

Ecosystem

Primarily a rainforest system of slow-moving moisture dropping down from western mountains into tropical heat. Wildlife is plentiful and varied, with a great number of species found only here and further south in the Caetica itself. The lands are so resource-rich that internal or tribal conflicts have been almost unknown, and the elves' peerless skill in shipbuilding and naval warfare has ensured outside invaders have never made an impact in the region. It is one of the few surface lands to have remained in the hands of its people for tens of thousands of years, though to be fair the Pilaani are not indigenous to it, at least according to their cultural mythos.

History

The impact of the Lin comet created an oceanic pressure wave and tsunami that destroyed the Pilaani homeland, which was an island chain further east of Pilaan, west of the Welkin sea.   It is by this story that they are able to remain apart from the other elven races that participated in either the first Elven war between the Drow and the other elves - but evidently not including the Pilaani Sea elves - or the second war which took place between the Orbis Lin Elves and the Moon elves, ended with the comet. Though not offended by the term 'elf', they do use the cultural term Aan to refer to themselves, but in the distant past the Lin elven remnant further confused things by adopting that term to refer to themselves as well, changing the term 'Dovalin' or Lin Remnant into Dovalaan, a different conjugation suggesting 'first Aan' or 'original elves.' The Pilaan don't care enough to debate about it, and scholars have recently suggested that the true originals weren't any of these, but were in fact the savage Inimsuji elves; but the Pilaani maintain their cultural mythos regardless, simply claiming to have lost all knowledge of their original homeland with the death of that generation, and now despite at least thirty thousand years in their new land if that story is more or less true, they still identify as wanderers and visitors to the rest of the world in their cultural self-understanding.

Included Locations

• Naugor

Owner/Ruler

The Autarch Ulyrius IV

Additional Rulers/Owners

• Archduke Merophon, the Pirate King of Pilaan

Ruling/Owning Rank

Pirate King