Qosid
Qosid is the largest and most populous province of the Kingdom of Laeryll and is inhabited almost completely by wood elves. It is bordered by Shyfayll in the north and Dathyll in the east and south. Qosid consists of countless small communes, that send representatives to a general assembly in the capital Thellur every fifteen years, or when an assembly is called for by the Gwyfales. While formally a portion of the Kingdom of Laeryll, Qosid has maintained a high degree of autonomy and has a judicial system that exists in parallel to the laws of Laeryll.
History
Qosid is the birthplace of elves. Elves lived there even before The Shimmering created high elves, so wood elves consider themselves to be the purest among elvenkind. Since 1903 BLC, Qosid has been part of the Kingdom of Laeryll, but relations between the province and the kingdom are as tense as those between wood elves and high elves.
Bothandal's Reign
In the fifth century BLC, humans arrived on the Northern Arm. They founded communities along the full coastal strip, including in Silimanis. Wood elves in the region noticed the presence of the humans but thought little of them initially. However, human civilization expanded and especially their logging activity brought ire to the elves and especially to the wood elves. King Bothandal the Crafter was against retribution, however, claiming that humans were not capable of fully understanding the consequences of their actions. Qosid decided to support the elves in the Silimanis region, however, and sent emissaries to one of the human settlements. They proposed an ultimatum: the humans would need to cease logging before the next full moon. Each day of logging afterwards, they would steal a human child in the night. What the wood elves did not realize, was that human society was not as cohesive as elven society. Reaching an agreement with one human was irrelevant to the actions of others. And so, logging continued. The elves followed up on their threat and started stealing babies from the many human settlements. The situation quickly escalated and a number of fights broke out between elves from Qosid and Silimanis on one side, and disparate human settlements on the other. Bothandal was not happy with the autonomous actions and visited the region personally, ordering the elves to stand down and cease violence against the humans. The wood elves obeyed, but remained resentful. Bothandal convened with The Watchers and started making plans for a clear policy with regards to the humans. In the end, this policy would become codified as the Treaty of Guharr in 189 BLC. The run-up to the Treaty of Guharr had divided Qosid: a 190 BLC assembly in Thellur saw heated arguments pass by. In the end, the Representatives of the Communes voted against signing the treaty, although Bothandal had request a separate signing by the wood elves to grant additional legitimacy to the document.War of the Sisters (10 LC - 39 LC)
Main article: War of the Sisters The Treaty of Guharr suffered from the same difficulties as the ultimatum the wood elves had set. Human generations came and went and their civilization quickly forgot the promises that were made. In 8 LC, this state of affairs caused the Toktar Massacre, which proved to be the prologue of the War of the Sisters, a violent conflict between Galythiel and Morsyana, the two daughters of Bothandal. The communes in Qosid largely stood by Morsyana, who had prompted the Toktar Massacre and wished to reclaim Silimanis by removing humans from the area. Indeed, wood elf troops were mobilized on Morsyana's behalf and assisted with the 10 LC takeover of Prydisyrr and the subsequent invasion of Silimanis. With due time, however, moral reservations about Morsyana and her use of dark magic increased. Commune after commune stepped away from Morsyana and in 16 LC, there were hardly Qosidians left under her command. That did not mean the wood elves went to fight for Galythiel, however. The conflict between the two sisters provided Qosid with an opportunity to detach itself from the Kingdom of Laeryll, especially as more and more parties were getting involved in the war. While there were several votes about joining the side of Galythiel, none of them passed until 29 LC. At that time, it had become clear that technological development in the Kingdom of Labar was turning the land of tinkerers into a real threat and that unity in the Kingdom of Laeryll would be the only bulwark against the gnomes. And so the communes voted to join Galythiel and fight the war against Morsyana.Reign of Galythiel (39 LC - 441 LC)
In 39 LC, the war had finally ended, at the costs of many lives in all regions of the kingdom. The communes of Qosid had assumed that despite the defeat of Morsyana, the reclaim of Silimanis would be a fact, as the human population there was decimated. Instead, Queen Galythiel decreed that Silimanis should actively be repopulated with humans and should become a protectorate of the kingdom, as a form or reparations for the atrocities committed by her sister. This decision initially upset many of the communes, but Galythiel made special effort to visit many of them and to be present during a full assembly in Thellur to make her case. During her whole reign, she remained aware of Qosidian sensibilities and sought out improved relations.Reign of Olyxx II (441 LC - 559 LC)
Olyxx II initially attemped to continue in the footsteps of his mother, but had little patience for the elaborate assemblies of the wood elves and their culture. During his mother's reign, he had lived in Lloridan, Zhai and he had become used to the mercantile morals and luxurious aesthetics of the City of Light. Qosidian culture was strongly at odds with this and so he preferred his life in Prydisyrr to diplomatic visits to Thellur. His wife Basonda of Zhai was outright disdainful of the wood elves and considered it her plight to civilize them. Upon her husband's death in 559 LC, she mentored her son Olyxx the Young to set up a schooling a system that would teah magic and fine art to the elves of Qosid.Reign of Olyxx III (559 LC - present)
Basonda's schooling system was heavily resisted by the communes of Qosid and was unanimously considered a threat to the wood elf way of life. Still, Basonda persisted via her son and, after much political haggling, the first Royal School of Arts opened in Thellur in 680 LC. It became a dramatic failure - five years later only eleven pupils had signed up for the school and half of them were not wood elves. In 689, Olyxx III decided to make attendance to the schools mandatory. Qosid revolted against this decision: first democratically and then violently. The Royal School of Arts became a bonfire during the Festival of Light in 690 LC and several communes declared themselves independent from the Kingdom of Laeryll. Olyxx III understood the message and no longer pushed for the schooling system, but his shift came too late. In 699 LC, during the Quindecennial Assembly, the Logassed commune called for a vote to secede from the kingdom, and the vote passed. Qosid had formally severed ties with Olyxx III. The vote had been premeditated: many communes had been preparing to defend themselves in case of retaliation from Dathyll. And that retaliation came. Although the high elf population had still not recovered from the War of the Sisters, the sheer force of magic and heavy equipment that was at the disposal of Olyxx III allowed the Kingdom of Laeryll to suppress the rebellion that same year. The Province Keeper of Qosid then called for a new vote, to rejoin the Kingdom of Laeryll and after intense deliberation this vote came to pass. Yet resentment towards the Crown of Laeryll did not disappear and was, in fact, only worsened as King Olyxx III broke the promise made by his grandmother to protect Silimanis. In 724, the human lands were invaded by the Labarean Empire and Olyxx III did not intervene but instead called back the elves who still lived in the region. In 903 LC, when the king finally declared war on the Empire, the wood elves had grown very distrustful of a king that shifted from manic massacres to impotent appeasement.Maps
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Qosid
The wood elf province of the Kingdom of Laeryll, Qosid is a largely autonomous confederation, ruled through a system of Representatives via its capital Thellur.
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