Yenaria Day 2201-2500 - Age of Exploration

The Age of Exploration was the time when the initial explorers and settlers colonized the volcanic ocean islands of Didome, such as the Cradcresse Islands and the island of Shadcress. There were two major factors that fueled this initial exploration and colonization, the continued growth and preference for water travel of the Yenarian people and the development of ocean worthy vessels developed by theOld Delarian people. For the past few hundred days the Nil Yeni people had started settling the ocean shore near the mouth of the Strepslim. However, these new villages remained fairly isolated. The Vorden Mountians made the minimal overland travel the Nil Yeni did almost impossible and the lake and river crafts had trouble navigating the ocean coastlines with its stronger winds and bigger waves. This isolation caused these coastal settlement to significantly culturally diverge from the Nil Yeni.
The Old Delarian culture, as scholars call it, Was shaped by this isolation and the dangers of the ocean. The mountainous terrain and dangerous ocean meant that the Old Delarian villages were less likely to participate in the Village Unification Ceremony, where the surrounding villages exchange there adolescent male population as a way to grow the villages and unite them together. The reluctance to participate in the ceremony and the contiuned taboo agiast opposite sex relationships between people born into the same village, meant that the few adolescent males who did join villages became seem as extermly desirable. This factor meant that Old Delarian men were seen as nothing more than expendable sexual objects. It also created a large underclass of village males unable to pursue opposite sex relationships. This underclass developed the concept of commate, where the unattractive males formed a village brothership which often turned sexual. The large underclass of men also were veiwed as unnecessary for biologically expanding the village and thus often took on the most dangerous tasks, such as fishing in the ocean.
The Old Delarian's familiarity with the ocean led them to develop many improvements to shipbuilding construction. Nil Yeni Knucklereeder] lake boats were bundles of knucklereeds lashed together with a flat deck for people and small square sail. While they were stable on the rivers and lakes, the large waves of the oceans caused them to easily capsize. The Old Delarian people improved upon the reed boats by taking two of the Knucklereeder boats and connecting them together with a platform and thus their boats were much more stable in larger seas. Over the next several hundred days the basic double hulled boat was further refined by the Old Delarian people as well as by the Nil Yeni as they quickly adopted the new boat building techniques.
With oceans fairing boats and a familiarity with the ocean the Old Delarian people were quickly able to discover the Cradcresse Islands and the islands of Shadcress. The explorers returned with tales of wild lands filled with strange creatures and fertile coastlines. As word spread of these tales the Nil Yeni people also started exploring these islands. Even though much of the interior of Greater Yenaria remained unsettled, the allure of fertile rich unsettled shore lines appealed to many. By the day 2500 a few hundred thousand people had settled the surrounding islands. The incrfease in explorers and settlers also cause the Old Delarian city of Delnari to quickly rise in population as it became an important stop for ocean bound vessels or lake craft unloading their cargo for larger ocean vessels.