Sea Princes, Hold of the

The Hold of the Sea Princes is a land bordered on all sides by the protection of natural terrain. To the north, its reaches extend to the Hool River at the heart of the marshland of the same name. To the west and south, the lands of the Sea Princes are walled in by the Hellfurnaces. The Hold’s eastern border, along the Jeklea Bay, accounts for the nation’s former prosperity.
That prosperity, however, is now gone, perhaps forever. Now, the Hold is wracked by violent political upheavals, invasion, and bitter ethnic conflict—a beautiful, tropical land marred by the sins of the past and the conflicts of the present.

History

In the mid–fourth century CY, as Keoland made war in the north, the buccaneers of the Azure Sea and Jeklea Bay grew courageous, correctly assuming that the king’s wartime ambition would leave much of his southern holdings for the taking. Operating from hidden island and mainland bases, these pirates harried the coastline as far as the Sea of Gearnat, from Monmurg to Gradsul, from Blue to Scant. By 444 CY, the pirates had formed a loose confederation, naming themselves for the Sea Prince, the ship of a successful pirate captain of noble Keoish blood.
The Sea Princes raided the mainland coast, conquering even Port Toli and finally Monmurg in 446, breaking Keoish control of the southlands in a flurry of naval actions. As Tavish III’s northern holdings crumbled, however, he ordered the eradication of the Sea Princes, charging his military commanders to regain all of the land lost to the seafaring opportunists. The Sea Princes’ operations had expanded even to the mainland, a fact that infuriated the king. The pirates openly scoffed at his decrees and challenged the monarch to a battle by sea. Tavish III would not oblige.
Instead, in the spring chill of 453 CY, the king himself led a large army of men through the tangles of the Hool Marsh, intending to lay siege to the fort city of Westkeep. The trek through the swamp proved disastrous, however, and many of the soldiers were forced to cast away their armor in the quagmire. The army’s wagon train suffered tremendous difficulty, and many soldiers took sick within the first two days of the march. Tavish seemed indignant. Westkeep would fall, and he himself would hoist the Lion Rampant upon its highest tower.
When finally the army arrived at the outskirts of the fort city, the Sea Princes forces had been well prepared. Those Keolandish soldiers who did not mutiny were cut down by an unrelenting barrage of arrow fire and magic. The Siege of Westkeep, as it would soon be known, lasted a pathetic 70 minutes. Tavish himself was slain in battle, and the forces of the Sea Princes celebrated that night under the standard of the crowned caravel.
The Battle of Jetsom Island, in 464 CY, saw the Keoish navy sink the Sea Prince, with all hands lost. Though not a decisive military victory for Keoland, the action marked a turning point for the holders. Thereafter, many of the old captains retired from piracy, settling the mainland and forming a more stabilized government. The younger captains turned from piracy to relatively legitimate pursuits, including exploration of the Amedio coast and, eventually, the sale of slaves captured within the fecund southern jungles. Thus, a chaotic nation of pirates and scalawags turned their attention to mercantilism, and the coffers of the Sea Princes swelled to bursting.
With this newfound industrial power, the Sea Princes expanded their borders to the Hellfurnaces. Vast plantations, worked by imported Amedio slaves, provided shiploads of tropical fruits and sugar, goods that could be exported to foreign ports for unheard-of low prices. Though the sale of human beings drew the ire of upstart radical nations such as the Yeomanry, the Sea Princes’ slave trade was seen by most of the Flanaess as a necessary evil on the road to fantastic wealth.
As the years progressed, however, the practice of slavery was less supported by the gentry of client nations. When the moderate Prince Jeon II of Monmurg assumed the throne in 573 CY, most expected the issue to come to a head. In 577, Jeon assembled a grand council of his peers and demanded an end to slave-taking. The prince of Toli, the plar of Hool, the grandee of Westkeep, and the commodores of the Isles shouted down his plan. Only the ineffectual governor of Sybarate Isle and the duke of Berghof supported him. In disgust, he withdrew his proposal.
He need not have bothered in the first place. Within the next few years, the Hold of the Sea Princes became a nation of slaves. Like many nations during the Greyhawk Wars, the Sea Princes fell victim to forces beyond their control. The Obsidian Confederacy approached Prince Joen with an ultimatum – join the Obsidian Confederacy, or suffer the consequences. Prince Jeon refused, and within a single night in 584 CY, twenty-seven of the thirty nobles making up the nation’s nobility and government were. The remaining three nobles signed a notice of surrender, ceding all land to the Obsidian Confederacy. Thereafter, ships bearing black sails unloaded armies of Amedio and Hepmonaland natives in Monmurg and Port Toli.
The lands of the Sea Princes were forever changed. Many non-Suel slave owners were imprisoned in chains by the Confederacy, often in the same pens as their former thralls, a situation that usually ended in bloodshed. Among the most sadistic members of the Confederacy “Herdsmen,” creating power struggles between slaves and their former owners became something of a contest, with the creator of the most violent clashes winning accolades among the invaders. Such games fermented dissent, however. Slave revolts became common occurrences. Unless one wore robes of black, the Hold became dangerous ground to tread.
The intense heat of summer, 589 CY, instilled a great fervor in the land among the slaves, the few remaining nobles, and even the ranks of the Herdsmen. Details remain clouded, but in that year, a great and ancient temple was discovered in the Hellfurnaces, near the Sea of Dust.
The Confederacy still controls key settlements in Monmurg, as well as Jetsom, Flotsom and Fairwind Isles. Olman ex-slaves control the western half of the hold. Among these folk, newly appeared Olman clerics stir up long-lost tales of ancient gods of the jungle, allegedly inciting their converts to acts of grim butchery and human sacrifice. The city of Hokar is the center of a new government formed by an alliance of commoners, middle-class folk, and emancipated slaves. This alliance is governed (badly) by a coalition of minor nobles who, through their intrigues and assassinations, seem set to complete the job of complete civil destruction started by the Confederacy.

Hold of the Sea Princes Coat of Arms

by Anna B. Meyer

Maps

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  Port Torvin

Ruler:
The Most Exalted Luminous Prince, The Admiral of Admirals, High Prince Volim Quoran
Government:
Dictatorship, with individual cities ruled by princes
Established
585 CY (current form)
Capital:
Monmurg
Major Towns:
Hokar (pop. 21,000), Monmurg (pop. 15,000), Port Toli (pop. 11,000), Port Torvin (pop. 4,000)
Resources:
Silver, electrum, gold, slaves
Currency:
Highlord (pp), Gold Admiral (gp), Bright Ship (sp), Common (cp)
Population:
420,000 - Human 79%, Halfling 8%, Elf 4%, Dwarf 3%, Gnome 2%, Half-elf 1%, Half-orc 1%, Other 2%
Languages:
Common, Olman, Amedi, Keolandish, Halfing
Alignments:
CN, CE, N, NE, LE
Religions:
Osprem, Xerbo, Procan, Norebo, Green Man, Kelanen, Kurell (native Holders), Syrul, Bralm, Tharizdun, Olman pantheon, especially Chitza-Atlan
Allies:
Obsidian Confederacy
Enemies:
Amedio Jungle natives, Keoland, Yeomanry (minor)