The Seven Siblings

It's said the first person to see one of the Seven Siblings promptly died of a heart attack. Who wouldn't, watching a city, complete with walls, palisades, buildings, palaces, and well...inhabitants just appear out of thin air? It didn't take long to realize that city wasn't alone. It took longer for anyone to be brave enough to approach its gates.
The name of whoever finally did is lost to history. It was, after all, so long ago that today it's hard to imagine a time before the famous Elven cities graced the continent. No one knows why they came, or how long they plan to remain here. But the six Elven cities seem to be here to stay.
Comprised of those six cities scattered across the continent, the Seven Siblings are home to the majority of Vaelwyn's elves. While elves are by no means exclusive to the Seven Siblings, their minimal contact with the outside world has left all of the cities majority elven, even to this day. While elves are less prevalent in other parts of the world, their long life spans means it's not uncommon for elves to leave their homes and go travel the world before eventually returning. If someone saw an elf, or even a small community of elves outside one of the Seven Siblings that wouldn't necessarily be odd, but these cities are unequivocally still where the majority of the Elven population lives on Vaelwyn.
Each member city of the Seven Siblings is ruled by its own patron deity. These patrons are very real, and live in the cities they rule over. The relationship between each city's inhabitants and it's patron varies - some are reclusive and leave governance to elected councils, some rule as kings, others receive offerings from their grateful citizens, etc.
The Fey's mercurial nature is reflected quite literally in the Seven Siblings. Each season, that is to say four times a year, the cities all swap places with each other. There are six fixed points where the cities are located, but which city is in which location is never the same from one season to the next. Whatever magic is used to exchange the cities' places is powerful and not fully understood, but never seems to fail.
The oddity that the Seven Siblings are comprised of only six, not seven, cities isn't lost on anyone. Most chalk it up to the trickery of the Fey, just another thing about this federation of city states that doesn't meet expectations. Some say it's a mistranslation from the original Sylvan, a mistake somewhere in the cities' long history that just stuck. Others say the elves chose the number out of superstition, or as part of a religious tradition practiced only by them. Others still say the legend of [INSERT LEGEND NAME] tells the tale of the Seventh Sibling's fate. Nevertheless, the secrecy of the cities' patron deities has left scholars without definitive answers for centuries, though some have spent their career's trying to decipher the Siblings' mysteries.

Structure

Each elven city is largely self governing. However, when group decisions must be made, the Seven Siblings steps in to facilitate that. The Seven Siblings is more the term used to recognize the federation of the elven cities, rather than an actual organization with a hierarchy and a base of operations - it doesn't create overarching regulations or governance. 
Rather, it facilitates two major things - dispute resolution, and war powers. The cities all can and do handle their own trade, and the relationships of each cities' Gods to each other means some cities are closer than others. If disputes arise between cities, the Seven Siblings will call a counsel to arbitrate the dispute. Additionally, when the elves go to war, they go to war as a collective. Decisions about peace treaties, attacks, declarations of war, etc. are taken to a counsel under the Seven Siblings. Given that the cities are geographically disparate, collective military action helps keep them safe from nations deciding to pick off any individual city - if you attack one of the cities, you attack them all.
The patron God of any city can call for a conference. When such conferences are called, the patron Gods send representatives on behalf of their cities. For matters of extremely high importance, the patron deities may go themselves.

Public Agenda

The Seven Siblings largely keep to themselves, outside of trade arrangements. They haven't been involved in a war in nearly a century, and don't particularly care for politics outside their own.

Assets

Collectively, the Seven Siblings are quite wealthy. Their teleporting nature means they don't own vast amounts of territory like the human nations do, nor do they possess the mines or ore of the Dwarvish nations. However, they possess a wealth of magical knowledge and artifacts. Additionally, though not often used, their militaries are known to be extremely effective (hundreds of years of training will do that to you).

Demography and Population

Over the years, more non-elves have moved to any of the Seven Siblings. On any given day it's not uncommon to see non-elves walking any of the cities' streets. However, few of these are permanent residents who travel with the city from location to location - the vast majority are adventurers, traders, visiting scholars, or tourists.

Military

Though the elves are rarely involved in war, the Seven Siblings' militaries are widely known to be very effective, even in small numbers. With literally centuries to train and hone their skills, and easily defensible cities with powerful spellcasters, the elves are almost ironically considered a fairly strong military power. However, their military power is almost entirely defensive. They keep their strength concentrated in their cities, and because they don' tend to get involved in other nations' politics they don't often send troops to any neighboring nations. 
In fact, it's not uncommon that adventurers come to train with the cities' military units. The elves are happy to teach most who come, provided you come as yourself and not on behalf of some institution.

Religion

Though the cities' patrons are referred to as deities, they aren't fully ascended Gods and Goddesses. They're best described as lesser deities, or very old and very powerful Archfey. Elves don't pray to them, so much as they give them offerings or whatever else they'd like in exchange for their protection and patronage. The patrons take pride in their cities - they built these cities hundreds of years ago and view them as reflections of them and their power. Though they aren't fully ascended Gods, to the average citizen they might as well be. These patrons are extremely powerful - their magic moves the cities every season, they help bring food and water to their citizens, they imbue their cities with powerful defenses, there's very little that seems to be entirely outside of their abilities.
Because they aren't fully ascended Gods and Goddesses though, these patrons don't have clerics. They do, however, have paladins and warlocks. In short, you can swear to them or make a pact with them, but they don't have independent divine power to grant to a cleric.
The elves worship two primary deities - the twins Cala and Nyx. These deities are genderless, and represent the Elven belief that everything exists in duality. Light and Dark, Day and Night, neither can exist without the other, and neither is inherently good or bad. Both deities represent different aspects of various domains, and the elves worship them in tandem, believing they keep the world in balance. This is the predominant religion across the Seven Siblings.

Agriculture & Industry

Each of the Seven Siblings encompass much more than just an urban area. Each of the cities is huge, encompassing not only a city, but also surrounding farmland and in some cases, areas of forest. The shape, elevation, etc of each city and its outer plateaus reshape themselves to mold to the geography of each fixed location that they move to. Given that they're transporting far more than just people and buildings though, in some senses each city brings with it a small modicum of a very specific natural biome. 
For example, a city built in the treetops transports the trees when it teleports, which magically fasten and re root themselves in the new location. These cities are suffused with magic, and this concentrated magical force keeps the natural world inside the city's bounds alive and well, no matter what location the city is transported to. Some cities designate their boundary with a wall; a physical marker of what is part of the city and what is not. For others, the boundary is marked by a stream, and for others, the only way to tell where the city and its surrounding area begins is noticing the sudden concentration of magical energy, or the sudden change in natural biome. 
Because the cities transport more than just urban areas with them, they are largely self sufficient. They do trade, but they grow a substantial portion of their own food. The magical energy that permeates the cities grows crops more quickly and more densely than most other areas, leaving the elves with far more food than should be possible in such a small space.

Freedom is chaos, but chaos is not free

Founding Date

Appeared in 382 ACA

Type

Political, Confederation

Alternative Names

Lóran Delyar

Power Structure

Federation

Economic System

Mixed economy

Currency

Otso - These gold pieces are stamped with the emblem of the Seven Siblings, and are accepted at any of the elvish cities. Most businesses will also accept gold pieces from other nations.