Contestee
The Contestee, or the "disputed lands", is a stretch of the Kingdom of Aria's western border with the Elven Realm of Naru that has been settled by Elves without the consent of the ruling Count of Dunmor or the King of Aria, Tessian Carrel. The Contestee consists of a narrow strip of the eastern river banks of the Arul and Arial Rivers that constitute the traditional national and ethnic boundary between the Kingdom and the Realm. This strip is ill-defined at best, but includes three large walled settlements that have populations of as many as 8,000 Elves each, as well as significant farming and ranching estates surrounding them. In all, the Contestee could constitute as much as 500 square miles of Arian territory.
There are three significant settlements located within the Contestee, all recently established and all entirely populated with Vytuian Elves. The largest of these settlements is Selion, built on the eastern bank of the Arial River near the mouth of the Arul. Selion is thought to have a population of as many as 8,000 Elves living within its newly completed and very well-built walls.
The next largest settlement surrounds a very large stone castle called by the Elves Belarion. The castle is a single massive keep-like structure with no outer walls or baileys but with a natural rocky dry moat crossed by a single wooden bridge. The surrounding village is timber framed homes and buildings with thatch roofs and little in the way of defense.
The northern-most settlement is a small group of wooden structures and several well-built wooden towers surrounded by wooden palisades or gabion walls called Casarion. Casarion is on the eastern end of a newly built wooden and stone bridge that crosses Arul River just 9 miles south of the Arian town of Cootray.
Over the course of the last ten years, several official missives were dispatched to the City of Vytu in protest of this situation, but the only official response has been a denial of any knowledge that the settlement of Arian territory was being conducted by Vytuian Elves. Over the course of the last decade, the Count of Dunmor, Ranald Dechateone, has dispatched three separate military units to confront the Elves at their very walls, only to be turned away by very large payments of gold bullion (the most recent of which was in excess of 75,000 urcs, or roughly $18 million) and threats of conflict.
The leaders of the Vytuian settlements have clearly taken the position that their "payments" of gold bullion constituted an official and binding purchase of the territory from the Kingdom of Aria, but this is not the position or understanding of the King or the Counts involved. They see the payments as fines and fees associated with the use and exploitation of Arian territory by unauthorized peoples, not a sale of land and rights.
Due to the turbulent and troubled history that Halflings, as a people, have had with the Elves in the distant past, every single Halfling has moved out of the Contestee and relocated further east or south. Dunmor estimates that less than 200 Arians remain on their ancestral lands within the Contestee.
Geography
A narrow strip of the east bank of the Arul and part of the Arial rivers that constitute the traditional and historic border between the Kingdom of Aria and the Elven Realm of Naru. Roughly three to eleven miles inland from the edge of the rivers themselves, this contested strip of territory runs from the northern extent of the County of Dunmor near Cootray south into the County of Delmor near the fringes of the Foray Noire.
History
As early as fifteen years ago, Elves from the Archonates of the eastern regions of Naru had begun building storehouses and stockpiles of material on the western banks of the frontier rivers, presumably in anticipation of the crossing of the rivers by settlers and construction crews. Two fords were developed at the future sites of Belarion and Selion, and the first confirmed homesteads were established more than a decade ago.
One of several fortified towers built to protect the bridge across the Arul River near Casarion
The newly completed castle at Belarion, with the mountains of Naru in the background
The main gate of the settlement at Selion, completed in less than 8 years
