Sea Kingdoms of Cassel
"Next question: How many Kingdoms make up Cassel?"
"Cassel is made up of three great kingdoms! Or..wait, I guess it's five now since Grandfather split the human kingdom into three smaller ones. Or actually... Shouldn't it be Seven Kingdoms because of the Sea Elves?"
"Or should it be Eight Kingdoms because the Trolls in the Ledon Wildlands call themselves a 'kingdom'? Or Nine because of the Sun Valley in the Northeast? No child, we draw the line at the Human and the Elven lands, the surface lands. We don't count the Merfolk Kingdoms. Next Question..."
The Area of Vreathe known as Cassel is a vast area of land with five kingdoms and millions of humans and elves. But There are also two kingdoms in the large shallow bays around these lands, made up of the Sea Elves. In the Tornor Bay to the North there is the Kingdom of Alatta. In the Bay of Lions to the South, there is the Kingdom of Nereite. By area they are larger than the Kingdoms of Ledo and Lyonne, and their populations are similar as well, with each having a population of around a million people.
These two countries don't play a large role in Casselian politics and trade between the surface and ocean worlds is rare outside of several large port cities. It has been this way for thousands of years. These two kingdoms do play an unexpectedly large role in keeping the surface protected from unseen threats from the depths, something that most don't even realize is happening except for those that regularly interact with them.
History
The history of the Sea Elves goes back nearly fifty thousand years to the end of the Silver Age. The humans of that age, the Olimians were concerned only with gaining immortality and gaining more power than that of the gods. A giant tower of Aether was built that once activated, would grant them this power. When it was turned on, a great wave of magic spread across the lands and beyond, altering every Silver Age human forever. This is how the Elves were created.
This wave of magic had strange effects on many elves though. One group had their lungs replaced with gills. They were forced into the water and became the Sea Elves. They had much longer lifespans and were much more powerful magically than they were as humans, but they were also contained to the oceans of Vreathe.
Over the next age, the Bronze Age, the Sea Elves adapted to life in the sea. They were guided by creatures known as the Sengar. These were spawn of the Dragon Lord Senget the Wellspring, a dragon that had absolute control over water. Eventually, the Sengar became kings of various Sea Elven kingdoms. Very little is known about these times except that there was a great glacial period on Vreathe that nearly froze the oceans and wiped out the Sea Elves. Taking pity on them, Saint Nora gave the Sea elves the ability to transmute their gills into lungs, but only for short periods of time.
At the start of the Iron Age, the Sea Elves already had the kingdoms of Alatta and Nereite in the waters around Cassel and made contact with the kingdoms of the land. The First king of Cassel even made several treaties with them. Trade started to increase between the kingdoms of Cassel and all was well.
In the year 887 I.A., it was discovered that the rulers of the Sea Elven kingdoms were of dragonkind when Fulger the Lesser, King of Alatta, invaded and took over most of the northern coast, including parts of Cassel, Lyonne, and Ledo, demanding the people worship him as a god. Alatta held these lands until the Fifth Vernador drove the Sea Elves away several decades later. From this time on, the kingdoms of the sea didn't interact with the kingdoms of the land except in select port cities, and even this was very rare.
"But, wait a second. This was a really, really long time ago! Surely we can forgive them?"
"Isabel, you are half human and only ten years old, but you are also an immortal elf. We don't forgive or forget such things so easily and we never will. Not in this age or any other, and neither should you."
"But I--" "No more questions about the Merfolk!" "..... yes mother."
Comments