Sea of Dreams
The Sea of Dreams, also known as the Inner Sea, is the largest inland body of water in Acheron. Its major areas included the Leg, also known as the Saltmere, in the west, so named for the great evaporated salt operation run by the Tabaxi spice lords of the Orami Desert; the Dracomere in the North just South of the Dragonreach Mountains; the Amber Sea in the South; and finally the Crushing Reach and Ronaran Sea to the Northeast and Southeast respectively. There are many islands within the Sea of Dreams but the largest and most important is the massive island known as Thesselin which houses the great Eladrin nation of the same name.
The sea serves as a crucial trade way for the powers of central and Southern Acheron and beyond. From Leliurium's Imperial Navy and Neressia's 15,000 sailors and corsairs in the west, to the small but hardy fleet of a dozen or so warships of the Lainedain Republic in the east, and the militia-navy of Thesselin, the Dwarven Steamships from the Dragonreach Mountains, to the merchant vessels of the Ithiraki Trade Federation, the waters of the Inner Sea are well-traveled by ships that fly the flags of many coastal nations.
Piracy
Piracy on the Inner Sea has been a fact of life as long as even the longest lived Eladrin can remember, but in recent decades things have been especially tumultuous. The Pirate Wars started in 1987 AG when the pirate lord Kreegan Bloodysails died unexpectedly from a heart attack. Leaving his rough coalition to fall apart. Half a dozen pirates declared themselves to be the succesor of Kreegan. During this time several of the most vicious pirates arrose to take the Krakentooth, the stronghold of Kreegan. Vessig Rijak “a red-haired hot-blooded bear of a man,” eventually came to dominate the Krakentooth. Once the internal warfare was over the pirates started raiding the coastal villages and ships which could not be ignored by the Inner Sea Kingdoms.
Leliurium, Thesselin, and the Lainedain Republic formed a contract know as The Rufio Accords named for the diplomat Rufio Hardin who brokered the contract on behalf of the human republic of Lainedain. This contract officially criminalized piracy in the Sea of Dreams (much to the pirate's apathy) and created a charter which allowed each of the signatory countries to police the waters in the pursuit of the eradication of piracy either directly through their respective navies or by the use of contracted Privateers. These privateers were a mix of sailors of all types but a large proportion of them were former pirates offered pardons under the amnesty of the Accords.
The Accords were largely successful as the widespread crackdown has made it much more difficult (though not impossible) for pirates to operate. The Pirate Wars came to a nominal end in 2007 AG with the joint seige and eventual sacking of Krakentooth, though pirates certainly still exist and operate throughout the Inner Sea.
As a result of the sacking of Krakentooth, thousands of seamen, including Lelurian privateers who had operated in the Saltmere and Lainedain privateers working out of Lainedain's opposite coast in the The Centralis Ocean, were suddenly relieved of duty, at a time when cross-Centralic shipping trade was beginning to boom. In addition, sailors who had been pushed by unemployment to work onboard merchantmen (including slave ships) were often enthusiastic to abandon that profession and turn to pirating, giving pirate captains a steady pool of recruits on various coasts across the Sea of Dreams and the Centralis.
The Forming of the Confederacy of Freefolk
In 2012 AG, pirates launched a major raid on Lelurian divers trying to recover gold from the sunken treasure galleon Urcaima near Driorzhan. The nucleus of the pirate force was a group of Lainedain ex-privateers, all of whom were soon to be enshrined in infamy: Vessig Rijak II, the bastard son of Vessig Rijak, Laren Flint, Samuel "Two-Eyed" Topsil, Rensom Horngold, and Malice Kalindon. The attack was successful, but contrary to their expectations, the newly appointed governor of Krakentooth refused to allow Rijak and his cohorts to spend their loot on his island. With their primary port closed to them, Rijak, and his comrades based themselves at Redport, on the island of Aelfburne in the Demonbones Archipelago in the Ronaran Sea region. Redport became home for these pirates and their many recruits and serves as the capital of their loosely connected federation, The Confederacy of Freefolk.
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