Kilai'ini

The Kilai'ini are Sylvari from the species' ancestral homelands in the volcanic archipelago of Kilai'i. They are a hardy seafaring people well-accustomed to the relative geological instability of their homeland. They place great cultural significance on loyalty, self-discipline, and adaptability.
As a people, the Kilai'ini are quite proud of one fact: that they were the first other race to join the Tretalleri Dominion during the empire's first wave of expansion beyond its ancestral lands. This truth is of central significance to the Kilai'ini, as they view the Dominion's heritage and fortune to be their own as much as it is the tretâllë's.
First contact between these cultures occurred during a time when the Kilai'ini were undergoing their agricultural revolution. Seeing a people who could benefit from the wisdom that had been accrued for millennia under its auspices, the Dominion reached out to the ancestors of the Kilai'ini and uplifted them by providing knowledge and technology far beyond the contemporary capabilities of their people.
Although the Kilai'ini have never been oppressed by the Dominion, and despite the fact that their society prospered as a result of the empire's intervention in the early days, it is indisputable that the Kilai'ini nevertheless suffered a grave harm as a result of the Dominion's carelessness.
At the time, Dominion ethicists only raised minor objections to the provision of knowledge, technology, and systems to the early Kilai'ini, ignorant to the potential drawbacks of the project. It wasn't until later on that the repercussions of failing to make adequate considerations for the gulf in capability between the two cultures became apparent. Namely, as a direct result of the rapid advancement of Kilai'ini society following Dominion intervention, much of the pre-existing Kilai'ini culture up until that point was lost, subsumed and overtaken as later generations grew up with greater interest in Dominion culture, society, and technology.
Once the problem was recognized millennia later, a project to restore as much of the lost culture as possible was undertaken. The task was, is, and will likely remain painstaking as very little of pre-Dominion Kilai'ini culture remains in the modern day. Fortunately, with the advent of the Shardscape and the realm's ability to bring to life realms based on collective beliefs of cultures living and dead, valuable insights might be gleaned from the peoples of Shardscape realms that draw partial inspiration from Kilai'ini culture, such as Shatterspear, for instance.