Skyshroud

The Kingdom of Skyshroud (Lunaran: Teyrnas Vilyafaana, Soltran: Regnum Silvapinam, Alovari common: Reyno de Himinsnaga) is a kingdom and imperial estate in northern Ovaicaea, which has at various times purported to be a multiethnic kingdom or a successor state of the Old Empire. The current Kingdom came into existence by the year 800, when the human warlord Cortez established himself as King after a war of conquest at the invitation of the Moon Elf tribes in a bid to stabilize a region fraught with civil war. Cortez' successors led the kingdom to war against the Orcs, and joined the New Empire as one of its largest, most powerful, and most fiercely independent member states.

Skyshroud is unique in its multicultural society predominated by humans and half-elves, and its rule by a human monarch, a military aristocracy, and an elven high council to advise and guide the Crown. Its warriors are renowned as some of the most ferocious, skilled, and hardened in the Empire, with such a high proportion of its adult population trained for war that it has sometimes been termed a military state rather than a tribal or feudal state.

Name
The land now called Skyshroud has been, since time immemorial, called Vilyafaana in the Lunaran tongue. The name has roots in archaic proto-Elven Vilyavanna, meaning "path of the pointed forest" referring to the widespread pine barrens that cover its mountainous terrain. The sun elves that colonized Vilyafaana in the 2nd century translated this into their own language as Silvapina.

When the Alovari humans migrated into the region, they named it for the mountain range they marched along to reach the interior. The mountains are so called for the high peaks, as one who climbs them are shrouded only by the sky. However, an alternative theory is that it refers to the mist that shrouds the mountaintops from the sky, which hangs like a low fog over the valley. In their native tongue, this is rendered as Himinsnaga, translated into Western Common under the popular name Skyshroud.

History
Vilyafaana is viewed by many elves as their mythological heartland. Elven mythology speaks of the gods creating five tribes of elves as protectors of the Feywild. But they became corrupted and so the gods cursed them with mortality, consigning them to wander and spread across the land. Only the Wood Elves repented and were allowed to live and die in proximity to the sacred wilderness.

Modern scholarship corroborates some of this, perhaps as a mythologization of history. Excavations by the Elven Origin Society have discovered evidence of ancient Elven habitation, mostly ancient burial mounds and abandoned villages, in parts of Vilyafaana. This may indicate that the elven race originated in the northern forests, but diversified soon after migrating south. Some returned to the north, becoming the tribe of Wood Elves. Some elves settled in the plains to the east and west, becoming the Moon Elves. Some Moon Elves settled in the fertile coastal region and river valleys of the west, becoming the Sun Elves.

Vilyafaana was gradually make subject to colonization by the Old Empire, dominated by Sun Elves. These colonies established fortresses in the mountains, and trading towns along the rivers, competing against the traditional rights and land use of the nomadic and pastoral Moon Elves, and contending against the highly defensive Wood Elves over timber and water resources. The Moon Elves attempted to adapt to new realities by forming their own settlements for trade, or frequently passing through Sun Elven market towns to sell livestock, wool, milk, cheese, game, and other items. Some, however, saw their pastures destroyed by Sun Elven expansion. The Wood Elves reacted violently, however, to what they saw as incursion by the Sun Elves and to complacence or collaboration by their Moon Elf cousins, with whom they share a spoken language.

The tensions simmered for centuries as elven elders stoked feuds. Finally, they erupted into all-out war between Wood Elf and Sun Elf clans in imperial year 402. The Moon Elves attempted to keep out of it, but many were caught in the middle. In the year 790, the Moon Elves brokered a pact with the tattooed human tribes that had been settling in the southern river valleys, the Alovari. The Moon Elves invited the army of their tribal king, Cortez, to march into Vilyafaana and stabilize the region, knowing that they were powerful, skilled in battle, and well-led. Cortez led something more akin to a migration than an invasion, and settled his people in the upper Athua River valley. His army battled Wood Elven raiding parties and the Sun Elven armies, gradually securing a stronghold. After ten years, a peace treaty was signed by the Sun Elf cities, the Moon Elf lords, and King Cortez; they agreed to recognize Cortez' claim to all of Vilyafaana, with a council of elves to advise and guide him. The humans would be given lands in the south and made responsible for securing secure their borders against the Orcs. The wood elves refused to be part of the negotiations, and refused to recognize Cortez' sovereignty, but had agreed to a ceasefire. There has been a cold war for the past two centuries. Cortez chose the Moon Elven town of Esgalduin as his royal capital, and began building it up into a splendored city, the jewel of the north.

Geography
Skyshroud is dominated by three main land formations: the northern Skyshroud Mountain Range, the forested Glimmerwood in the center and west, and the hills and river valleys in the East.

The easternmost parts of the Old Glimmerwood were vastly deforested by dwarves and men, and the western reaches are known as the Burntwood, which was destroyed by the Orcs during the war. The region is viewed as the ancient homeland of all elven races. Folklore describes the heart of the coniferous woodlands that cover much of Vilyafaana as the Feywild, a magical wilderness filled with fey spirits and other creatures that are dangerous to those who are not of fey ancestry. To those who are fey, or are deemed worthy, the Feywild is a land of safety and plenty. Many do not venture deep into the woods, though more skeptical historians see it as just a particularly dense and hostile wilderness, full of dangerous animals and violent forest tribes.

Society and government
Skyshroudian society is dominated by a tension between a deliberate multiculturalism and stark ethnic tensions that linger from the pre-conquest era, as well as tensions of land ownership and use between the military aristocracy and traditional pastoralists that constitute much of the elven populace. The citizens of Skyshroud overall enjoy the benefits of a cultural melting pot, as the races of moon elf and human have blended their ancestral heritage and customs. To a lesser extent, the sun elves have also contributed to the social landscape, though the vast majority of sun elves maintain a xenophobic isolationism. Only a few of their citadels engage in trade with moon elf and human towns, and send their representatives to meet in the king's council.

Government
Skyshroud is a hereditary monarchy built partly in the tribal traditions of the Alovari and Lunarans, and the legalistic traditions of the Soltra.

Demographics
Despite its sparse climate and low population, Skyshroud is a diverse country with a complex social fabric. Mainstream Skyshroudian society is multiethnic and culturally blended, with humans, elves, and half-elves intermingling in its settlements. The total population is just over 3.4 million people, with the largest single ethnic or tribal group being Alovari humans. The Alovari comprise around 1.2 million people, over a third of the kingdom's population.

For the most part, the populations of humans and moon elves interact in harmony, and intermarriage has been commonplace. It is for this reason that Skyshroud can boast the highest proportion of half-elves in its population, out of all of the constituent countries of the Empire. Around a million are half-elves of partial human parentage, yet another third of the total populace. In the past, it was customary that a half-elf may be considered culturally Alovari or Lunaran based on their maternal ancestry, but a shift has seen most half-elves identify with the unified culture of Skyshroud itself.

The Moon Elves or Lunara are the most populous of the pure elven ethnicities, constituting half a million people.Humans, half-elves, and moon elves all maintain many tribal customs, and tend to govern themselves on the basis of clan. But a great deal of cultural exhange has happened. The the humans have adopted the long-term, nonlinear thinking of elves, and have adopted the use of the Lunaran language. The moon-elves have adopted the tattooing custom of the humans as a symbol of social status and personal achievement.

The Sun Elves or Soltra have a population of 300,000, and are concentrated in the western half of the kingdom, mostly in impregnable citadels built into the mountains or in fortress towns on the western border. The smallest group of elves are the reclusive Tretier or Wood Elves, with a population of approximately 200,000, though it is impossible to know for certain as they are largely secluded in the Glimmerwood and no accurate count has been done of them.

Skyshroud also contains a sizeable Orcish and half-Orc minority, situated mainly in the western Orc Reservation province, an autonomous region annexed from the Orc Khanate in the 840s, and where pro-alliance Orcs settled in peace as a reward for their aid in the liberation war. They have been counted to be around 100,000 Orcs and 120,000 half-Orcs.

A small number, likely less than 80,000 people, are from varying human and dwarven tribes that dwell in the border regions.