Luiren
Luiren (pronounced: /ˈluːɛrɛn/ Loo-er-en - on the Sword Coast21 or: /ˈlʌrɛn/ Lurr-en - on the Inner Sea and the Vilhon Reach21) was known as the small kingdom of the halflings since its population was almost completely made up of the hin.2 It was one of the two large hin kingdoms in Faerûn, the other being the land of Delmyr.1 The capital city of Luiren was the coastal city of Beluir, in the longitudinal center of the realm.14 Luiren was lost during the Spellplague to a great inundation of the sea. In the century since that great disaster, the waters receded, and now stories told by travelers from the south tell of halfling communities that survived as island redoubts.
Structure
"As important as the Prince of Luiren" was a famous sarcastic saying in the hin country. There never was a prince or a single ruler in the land.3 Luiren and its approximate population of 840,000 was guided by The Devout Voice of Yondalla Faran Ferromar, of the Church of Yondalla circa 1372 DR2 in a political system that could only be described as peaceful anarchy.3 Unlike other nations of the Realm, Luiren lacked a central government.39 The number was reduced to just over 600,000 by the late 15th century DR, following the flooding during the Spellplague and the subsequent struggles after the waters receded.20
The nation had little to no governmental or civic agencies simply because they were not needed, not wanted, and no hin would even be interested in working in such an organization. Each hin settlement governed itself independently from the wider nation. Each town had a mayor and a council of Elders, even though even these positions were not universal across Luiren. Elders were willing citizens older than 90 years old in charge of decision-making in the settlement, elected a mayor from their number, and selected the hin wardens to serve the community.
Culture
Most outsiders had a perception that Luiren was a slow-moving countryside of greenery, pipeweed smoking, happy rotund halflings, ripe for conquest. Even though there was much truth in the bardic stories,1 travelers to Luiren were often surprised to find the locals adventurous and bold and not just the fat and quiet halflings one could find elsewhere.2 Hin of Luiren enjoyed "turning tables" on "poor tall people" who visited the realm. They intentionally provided tall guests with small furniture, gave them lodgings in buildings with low ceilings, and liked to talk loudly and slowly as if the tall people were mentally slower than the short folk.25 Many tall folk often took advantage of the hin, and in turn, halflings treated them the same. However, visitors who were polite, friendly, and open to spending their coin were treated well by halflings of Luiren.3
Luireners loved the Games, local, regional, and national competitions of obstacle-running and kite-fighting, sometimes changing to a different sport.2
Luiren and had no upper class. The closest thing to what other regions considered upper class were wealthy merchant clans, or chakas in neighboring southern lands. Almost the entire population of the nation consisted of the lower class and a staggeringly large percentage of the middle-class. All halflings of Luiren lived comfortably. Middle-class hin were artisans, bakers, merchants, and similar professions.39Halflings of Luiren spoke Luiric4 and were talented woodcarvers.24 Hin were culturally polite even to those they disliked, even if an arrow in the back was later due. The most prominent cultural events in Luiren were its many festivals, especially the grand festivities in spring and fall. The annual spring festival celebrated the end of the three-month winter downpour and the reopening of land trade. The fall festival was a three-day-long engagement that took place after the seasonal harvest was done. Outsiders considered the fall festivals the wildest celebration they've ever seen, where "the food and drink fall from the sky."3
Gnomes were thought to be busybodies by the halfling of Luiren. Dambraii human nobles were considered to be dimwitted and arrogant, while "as smart as a human" was used as the direst of all halfling insults. Hin thought the people of Durpar to be sneaky scoundrels and Halruaans to be silly men who were ready to buy dirt as long as the label said: "spell component."3
Halflings in Luiren liked to derive their family names from their occupations proudly. Such family names as Brewer, Vintner, or Carver, were common.
Fashion
A stereotypical halfling schoolteacher in Luiren would wear a simple and proper combination of a long and black divided skirt, a bright and stiffly starched button-down long-sleeved blouse with a tall white collar. Long-haired teachers kept their hair in severely tight buns.40
Halflings of Luiren had a peculiar popular hair fashion; they tightly tied a single lock of hair with a ribbon.41
Cuisine
"Only the baker makes the bread right" was a respected phrase in Luiren. Cooking was a highly regarded skill in Luiren, with wealthier individuals keeping a professional cook on the payroll and some becoming gourmet chefs themselves. Social custom dictated that a hin had to feed their guests well, invited or uninvited, and taste sensations or new culinary inventions could make their creator rich as they swept the country and became much in demand at festivals and other social gatherings.3
Some hin, particularly in the priesthood, learned to elevate their cooking skills to create curative stews and nutritious soups that could aid in the natural healing process, or even cure diseases such as measles, malaria, or even more deadly strains such as smallpox or the plague. Some magical diseases could be cured, although such soups were not effective against either mummy rot or lycanthropy, nor the common cold. The secrets of such cooking were closely guarded, and it was rare for any outsiders to be taught the skills necessary, which could take years to master. Luiren spring cheese was said to be a key ingredient in some of the recipes. It was also used to make molten cheese fondue.4218
Among some of the dishes native to Luiren was Harelveauplum sauce sweet, spicy, and acidic condiment cooked with plums and thello-fruit, sometimes served with lamb meatballs.43 Hin also made stuffed fried hardcrust roundbread filled with minced-meat, spices, and vegetables.44 Other specialty foods included dried apricots,45 salbread – a type of crusty travel-bread made with lemon and orange peel18 and bouqthi – a popular rhubarb sugared pastry beloved by locals and visitors alike.3 There existed hundreds of bouqthi recipes, and each was thought to be the best. Arguments over bouqthi often led to fisticuffs among halflings.18 Halflings also consumed insects. They added crickets to the tea to add a nutty flavor to the drink.46 Thalimvur was a gnomish and hin delicacy of maggots fried in maple syrup or maple sap, and bhaerulb was a stew of mealworms and onions.47
Apart from hearty foods and sweet confections, hin of Luiren knew how to brew and distill and liked strong drinks. Luiren Rivengut was a notoriously strong distilled and aged clear whiskey favored by many hin of Luiren and beyond.4849 Luiren also produced fine ale which was exported as far as the city of Westgate50 and quality stout, found as far as Cormyr.51 Luiren's Best was a rare export but it's quality and scarcity made it well sought after as far north as the City of Splendors, Waterdeep.52 Oldest Ancient Stout was an accidentally uncovered libation, sealed in an ancient flask, found in Luiren by an industrious hin some years before the late 14th century DR. The stout was unspoiled and the recipe for the drink was found along the flask. With time, the drink became a valuable commodity produced only in the hin nation.53
History
Many hin in Faerûn believed that Luiren was the Small Folk's ancestral home, and their rich oral tradition supported that claim. However, their true origins were not known. Scholars who researched Luiren's archeology were able to determine that Luiren nor other old hin communities were older than 12 centuries as of the 14th century DR. Halfling populations in Calimshan greatly predated the first evidence of Luiren's existence.6
Luiren's oral history, passed from generation to generation, talked about the founding of the hin nation long before the City of Song, Myth Drannor far to the north fell. Halflings were said to had arrived by the Hambone Bay to a wild forested land that bordered mountains populated by ogres. This first hin community was forced to regularly defend itself from ogres' attacks. During that time, Kaldair Swiftfoot, later thought to be an avatar of Brandobaris, The Irrepressible Scamp, encountered an avatar of Vaprak, the Destroyer, an ogre deity. Kaldair led Vaprak on a ten-day-long chase across trap-filled woodlands. Subsequently, Vaprak collapsed exhausted, and Kaldair Swiftfoot proceeded to mock the lumbering avatar. Infuriated, Vaprak started throwing uprooted trees at Kaldair. This gave the nimble halfling an idea; he challenged Vaprak to uproot a tree, not breaking a single root in the process. They bid on the forest that surrounded the land of the future Luiren. Vaprak went first and ripped a large tree out of the ground with its roots broken. Kaldair Swiftfoot, on his turn, pulled a young sapling out of the ground, gently revealing intact roots to the giant. Vaprak conceded and led his ogres away from the woods, leaving the country to the halflings. And so Luiren was founded. Or so a story went.65
Other historic accords claimed that halflings roamed the lands that would later become Luiren for thousands of years before falling into worshipping a dark deity Malar. In the Year of the Spiked Gauntlet, −102 DR, hin were said to had followed a ghostwise cleric Desva, adopting the deity's bloodthirsty ways. The worship allowed feral hunters to become werewolves that plague the Long Forest. In the −68 DR, Chand, a strongheart halfling hunter chieftain made an alliance with the leaders of the lightfoots. Together, the tribes went to Hin Ghostwar against Malarites, and in the −65 DR Chand slew Desva. The bloody war resulted in the deaths and destruction of most of the ghostwise halflings. The survivors were exiled from Luiren.1419
The capital city of Beluir was founded in the Year of the Unknown Beloved, 14 DR,19 and Chethel was born in the Year of the Crystal Orb, 47 DR. Shoun followed suit in the Year of the Mortal Promise, 116 DR. In the Year of the Blue Ice, 148 DR, the city of Chethel was attacked by the merrow of the Mortik Swamp, and half of the city was left in ruins before the attack was repealed. Krenadir was founded in the Year of the Dancing Lights, 218 DR and by the Year of the Ermine Cloak, 328 DR hin logging split the Lluirwood into two separate forests, the Long Forest to the north and Southern Lluirwood to the southwest. The new clearing opened a trade route opportunity for Luiren. In the Year of the Quelzarn, 383 DR, hin established Ammathluir along the trade road into Luiren. A war with ogres raged in the Year of the Awakening Treant, 447 DR after the giants descended from the Toadsquats onto the hin country. The rampage lasted for several years that followed; eventually, ogres were defeated in the Battle of Three Stumps of the Year of the Corrie Fist, 450 DR. Ammathtar was built on Ammathluir in the Year of the Lissome Apprentice, 461 DR to act as a trade hub.66
Luiren's subsequent history was ripe with conquests. Over the many centuries of its existence, Luiren was also conquered by Estagund and once by monstrous inhabitants of Veldorn. All the conquests had one thing in common: conquerors always underestimated hin perseverance and natural knack for mischief.3 In the Year of the Pernicon, 545 DR, halflings of Luiren were quickly enslaved by a fellow Shining South nation of Dambrath under the leadership of the warchief Reinhar I.67 Many hin were carried away while the rest of the nation retreated deep into their burrows and remained largely out of sight, waiting the conquerors out. In several years, in the Year of the Pernicon, 545 DR66 Dambrath abandoned Luiren, retreating back to defend their homes from cultists of Loviatar. Eventually, most slaves escaped captivity and returned home, while the rest remained within Dambrath, subsequently forging new lives there.3
Some of the older historic events in Luiren included a period of time, long before the 14th century DR, when the country was almost wiped out by a secret invasion of doppelganger, by some accords because halflings were too slow to work through their pastoral lives and secluded, quiet hamlets. It was said that Luiren ended up hiring mercenaries and wizards to eradicate the quiet invasion and save the nation.1
In response to the tumult of numerous conquests, Luiren established the wardens by the Year of Writhing Darkness, 572 DR. However, that could not stop the disaster of the Year of the Luminous Tabard, 636 DR, when Ammathtar was raised by a mysterious evil from the Southern Lluirwood – a beholder. In the Year of the Earnest Oaths, 709 DR, first hin started disappearing in the Southern Lluirwood, in reality – abducted and spirited away by the yuan-ti from the Black Jungles.66
In the Year of the Spouting Fish, 922 DR, another conquest was attempted, this time by the Crinti of Dambrath. But this time, the attack was thwarted by the hin marchwardens within three days of the conflict.66
The Year of the Guardian, 1105 DR brought a fierce storm that battered the coastal cities of Beluir, Chethel, and Krenadir, leaving them heavily damaged. Yet another threat came in Year of the Shattered Altar, 1264 DR when a monster attack led by druid Voolad Espiral ravaged Thruldar on the Luiren's border with Estagund. The hin marchwardens and their ghostwise allies slew the evil druid and trapped his spirit within the ruined Thruldar.66
By the late 14th century DR, Luiren was a flourishing prosperous nation that enriched itself thanks to trade with Durpar, the biggest importer of halflings' goods. Through that relationship, Luiren sheltered itself from any potential conquest attempts by Dambrath.3
Circa the Year of the Tankard, 1370 DR, Sir Ardent Raphiel of Ravens Bluff was put in touch with elders of Luiren with the help of the city's Wizard Guild's Dean of Conjuration, Jerrod Korbandor. Hous Raphiel extended a job offer to hin immigrants working in Raphiel farmlands, and by 1370 DR, several halfling families had already relocated to the Vast.68
In events recent to the late 14th century DR, Luiren faced at least two major invasion attempts: one by a pirate fleet that tried to plunder the nation's coastal settlements, and the other came in the form of a normal army of Shaar. Both invasions were stopped through similar means, as a force of Halruaan mages appeared out of nowhere to destroy the invaders, only to disappear into thin air just as swiftly and unexpectedly.1 Around the same time, the yuan-ti House Jennestas resumed abduction of halflings from Luiren to perform unspeakable experiments on them, through a portal in the Southern Lluirwood that connected Luiren with the southern Black Jungles.69 Another short-lived strife came when a priest of Umberlee sent a fiendish dire shark to attack coastal towns in Luiren that refused to pay tithe to the evil goddess of the seas.70
During the Spellplague in the Year of the Halflings' Lament, 1386 DR, the entirety of Luiren was believed to be submerged in the Great Sea and was called the Gulf of Luiren.7172note 1 However, as it became known at a later date, halfling communities had survived as island redoubts. After the calamitous event ended, the waters began to recede, and the stories of the land of hin survival traveled north.73 The years during and after the flooding were tough for the nation. Many died during the century that followed the Spellplague. Even though Luiren largely recovered after the waters returned the nation to its former state, it still suffered from poor harvests from the salted soil across its once abundant farmlands. Firstly, hin were masters agrarians, and they healed the damage relatively fast; secondly, the generous halfling culture knew how to work together in the face of adversity. By the late 15th century DR, Luiren's halfling gradually decreased salt in the soil by planting crops that bound and absorbed excessive salt, regaining the country's arable lands.
Demography and Population
The hin were masters of agriculture, and they adopted the culture of working together to overcome even the direst adversity early on.20 As such, food-growing was quite fruitful even in the rockiest and least verdant areas, where in use, growing Luiren's grape crops.1 Halflings lived in small communities. Their cities were called "burrows" as their structures were not just above ground but also extended into tunnels across the hills, all dug out by families who lived within. Many of the taller structures in halfling cities were for the use of visiting "poor tall people" and those non-hin who elected to live in halfling communities.25 Many halflings migrated across the country every six months or so from one settlement to the next. They left their homes behind in good condition for the next occupant to take over.2
After the Spellplague and the relatively short land recovery period, Luiren returned to its rural agricultural state. Hin were not in a rush to rebuild big cities, enjoying living in pastoral communities and market towns while the population slowly recovered its lost numbers. The calamitous strife did leave a long-lasting mark on Luiren. It taught halflings to "improve" their infrastructure, building wider and better bridges and roads that did not turn into mud sinkholes every winter.
Settlements
Luiren cities and towns had one-third of all its buildings being collections of small caves with halfling-sized entryways. The subterranean homes with no windows helped hin control the sweltering temperatures. These structures were called "halfole." Communal buildings and places that served travelers typically stood above ground and had more tall-folk-friendly designs.18
The hin country had several major settlements. When travelers entered Luiren from the Great Trade Way, the first settlement they passed was Ammathluir, a trading city hub in the Ammathvale. The Great Trade Way's Luiren offshoot continued towards the capital of Beluir on the coast, and a minor road ran from Ammathluir north towards the town of Crimel on the edge of Lluirwood. South of Beluir, one could find the town of Chethel and the city of Krenadir on the tip of a peninsula of the same name. Traveling along the coast northeast of the capital, travelers could reach Ojannath, Lluirvale further north, the city of Shoun further east, and lastly, the town of Fasruil northeast from Shoon.
The furthest of Luiren's settlements is Deepburrow. It reached Upper Great Bhaerynden through a deep ravine that ran across the city in the Toadsquat Mountains' shadow on their northwestern side. Underneath, Deepburrow had access to extensive natural cavers that allowed halflings to mine and trade with the communities of the Underdark.
Religion
To no surprise, halflings of Luiren worshiped Yondalla's Children, the hin pantheon, including Arvoreen,56 Brandobaris,7 Cyrrollalee,8 Sheela Peryroyl,10 Urogalan,11 and Yondalla1213 Despite not being very religious folk, hin also venerated Silvanus,3 the Oakfather, and Shalamora, who was Tymora in her halfling aspect – the most prominent deity in Luiren in the early-to-mid 14th century DR.9 Following the Time of Troubles, specialty priests of Arvoreen and Yondalla started appearing in Luiren, but remained quite rare for several years that followed.
Laws
Luiren had a code of laws, but it was open to interpretation.3 Most minor crimes and misdeeds were handled with a stern talk and a finger wag.3 The only universally prosecutable deeds in the land of the hin were capital crimes. There was no established punishment for certain crimes. Thieves could be sent out into the wilderness with their possessions confiscated, or con artists could have their scams turned against them in a very ironic matter. One of the aforementioned capital offenses was the murder of a halfling. Murderers were dealt with harsh swiftness – with a noose and a tree.3
Hin taxation was light and was intended only to cover the expenses of running the settlement.
Trade & Transport
Lurien had wide-reaching trade relationships. Among the hin nation's Shining South neighbors, merchants from Luiren often were found along the Halruaan sea shores. Food items were the main export from Luiren in Halruaa.5657 Imported goods were arriving to Luiren via the Trader's Way route and by sea, including goods and traders of Dambrath.58 Him merchants were fiercely competitive and ruthless in their dealings with Dambrath, from where goods from Luiren traveled across Faerûn.3
Luiren was a major exporter of fruits, vegetables, and other produce, sending out thousands of boat-fulls of goods to the rest of Faerûn. Much of produce consumed across the Sword Coast came from Luiren.1 Luiren was also known as a major exporter of foodstuffs like Luiren spring cheese, salcake,18 alcohol, such as beers,219 fine ales,50 stouts,51 and overly potent Luiren Rivengut.48 During the century of the Spellplague, survivors of the flooding were known to create and export spiced cheeses.15 Fruits like bananas were often sold to neighboring nations of Durpar and Halruaa.18
Luiren was known for its pottery as early as the 900 DR. Halfling pottery was known for its utility; decorative pots and dishes adorned with lapis and malachite were rare. Such decorative items were traced to a certain period in Luiren's history circa 750-830 DR. Brown-red clay pottery created outside that century was bottom-heavy and generally simple in design. They were glazed in an ochre or bright green finish.17 The hin of Luiren also produced ebony wood, exported as far as the Hordelands.16
Halfling artificers from Luiren received gainful employ in the nearby wizardly nation of Halruaa, where their sharp minds and small hands were invaluable when handling tiny gears of clockwork devices. In the late 14th century DR, they were employed by the nation's Queen Beatrix.59
Luiren was among several other welcoming southern countries where types of traveling entertainers often wintered, many taking on several month-long performing contracts, some art and craft jobs, or other "winter jobs."60 The "wretched" Red Wizards of Thay were not allowed entry to Luiren despite Thay issuing several requests to establish an enclave in Beluir as of the late 14th century DR.
Commerce
Luiren did not have its own currency. The country had several currencies of the Shining Lands in rotation: Durparian vellim, Dambraii shebs and crints, and Halruan electrum skie. However, bartering was the most common form of commerce with no need of currency. Many hin could spend years without seeing a single coin.
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