Par Ladi

"It is without doubt that many of the most interesting, perhaps most outlandish, stories I've heard have come from the decks of ships docked in ports along the Amaranthine Ocean or from those sea-side cabanas lining the lawless isles that exist within such a vast body of sea. Many of these can be traced to clear sources, often extending from hearsay or from local tall-tales. Amongst this veritable sea of legends exists one that has always sat in the back of my mind: the near-mythical isle of Par Ladi and its mysterious residents.
Many seemed to know little fragments about this place. One man in particular however, a well-decorated Lord of Fortune named Seiron, knew the legend like the back of his hand. Far to the north, he'd say, there exists the Boeric Ocean just above the Rivaini peninsula. Since the fall of the Imperium and the arrival of the Qun, few dare to chart these waters.
What exists even farther north than that is an island-fortress-nation ruled by witches, not that unlike Rivaini seers, who ward the place off from the outside world. These "Parladians" are an isolated, insular society has no interest in outsiders. Seiran claimed that these people speak in ways unknown to Theodisians but yet exuded culture as much as any Antivan noble. They bedecked themselves in jewels and precious metals, and built their structures out of metal impervious to the heat of a dragon's breath.
He spoke of this place with a great fondness but also distance, a place he hoped to one day see but feared he may only know of the place through tales passed to him from decades of generations before him. The current struggle in getting there, he admitted to be perplexed about, was that there was supposedly a thick mist which surrounded the isle -- one conjured by the witches that lived there. To sit at the outskirts of this mist, one could supposedly see ruined ships that laid in the harbor for hundreds of year: the attempts of those foolish enough to try and pass through it themselves.
Considering their theoretical proximity to Thedas, and in particular the Qunari, many questions arise. Are "Parladians" even human? Why are they entirely removed from other civilizations? Have they made ally or enemy of the Qunari? Did they ever have any relation to the Imperium?
But perhaps all this really is, is just another sailor's tale... but my scholastic hunch tells me otherwise."

— From Thedas: Myths and Legends, by Ferdinand Genitivi

Type

Island