Online:History of Clan Corelanya, Pt. 4

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Book Information History of Clan Corelanya, Pt. 4
ID	8229
Up	History of Clan Corelanya
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Collection	Solstice Summations

History of Clan Corelanya, Pt. 4

by Lady Karinwe Corelanya

An account of the relationship between Clan Corelanya and the Argonians of Solstice

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Dear reader, you hold the fourth volume in my history of Clan Corelanya. This is the story of my people, as I know it.

Part 4: The Peace of Xor-Hist

No longer welcome in domains under the control of the high king of Summerset, Lady Earlenque Corelanya and her clan retreated to the distant island of Solstice to establish a new Corelanya realm. In the fall of 1E 909, her fleet dropped anchor in the bay of Sunport.

Solstice was a perfect refuge for the clan. It offered a defensible location against their enemies in the west, provided an excellent harbor, and featured a small Corelanya outpost from the days when Kinheir Iniel had attempted to subjugate the island in the early years of the eighth century. Also, the rough waters around the island and the legends of curses (most likely related to the ancient Daedric presence on the island) made Solstice a true safe haven for the exiled High Elves. While Iniel never subdued the native Argonians, she had laid the foundations for a fortified haven on Solstice, and Corelanya merchant ships still visited the island from time to time to engage in trade with a wary Argonian populace.

More by luck than design, Clan Corelanya returned to Solstice at a good time. In the two hundred years since Corelanya's first ill-fated expedition, the region immediately around Sunport Bay had become deserted. The more numerous and advanced tribes, the Stone-Nest People, lived in stone cities on the eastern side of the island, while most of the Argonians residing in western Solstice were Tide-Born, simple villagers who lived along the outer coast. Earlenque Corelanya took for herself the title Kinlady of Sunport and set about establishing a new Corelanya realm.

Wary of rousing the hostility of their more numerous neighbors, Kinlady Earlenque took care to limit settlement to Sunport and its immediate environs. She focused on building up the city's defenses and giving her people a chance to grow strong again. Solstice's Argonians, a pragmatic people, were content to live and let live. There was little friendship between the groups, but neither was their open hostility.

The nature of the relationship shifted when Earlenque Corelanya passed in 1E 1017 and her son Orlemar became kinlord. Clan Corelanya had grown strong over a hundred years, and in Orlemar's estimation Sunport was too narrow a kingdom for his people when so much of western Solstice remained thinly settled. Under Kinlord Orlemar, ambitious nobles were granted the right to build towers and estates all across the island. Most of Sunport's colleges, modeled after the Sapiarchs back in Summerset, were eager to begin shaping the island to their purposes, as well.

At first, Corelanyas merely took land left empty by the Tide-Born Argonians of the west. But as the Tide-Born retreated, Corelanya ambitions grew. Whole Argonian villages found themselves enclosed by Corelanya estates, their lands swallowed up in agreements that were often one-sided or dubious in origin. For the first time since Clan Corelanya's return to Solstice, strife and skirmishing between Elf and Argonian broke out.

The Tide-Born had little success in repelling Corelanya advances. Simple and scattered, they lacked the numbers, weapons, or the magical aptitude to defeat a well-armed Corelanya force, so instead they gave way. However, the Stone-Nest Argonians proved more resilient. Corelanya lords who attempted to establish estates on land a Stone-Nest tribe considered sensitive found themselves facing hundreds of grim-faced warriors, ready for a fight. Other lords were simply struck down in secret, as Solstice's Argonians proved themselves surprisingly skilled at assassination.

The growing tension between Solstice's two peoples finally came to a head in the time of Kinlord Kevarian, Orlemar's grandson. Three short wars in 1E 1172, 1E 1190, and 1E 1194 saw Corelanya expeditions invade Stone-Nest xanmeer-cities and Stone-Nest warbands ravage Corelanya estates up to Sunport's very walls. In the stalemate that followed, several Corelanya kinlords were assassinated, until Kinlady Torinwe finally sought to make peace.

In 1E 1244, Torinwe and the chieftains of the Stone-Nest People met at the village of Xor-Hist. Kinlady Torinwe put an end to further Corelanya expansion into eastern Solstice, while the Argonians recognized the lands currently under Corelanya control. Most importantly, both peoples were free to travel all parts of the island, so long as they did not make any new permanent dwellings in the others' territory. This restored Argonian access to various shrines and sacred places across Solstice, alleviating one of the main grievances behind the strife.

To this day, we still honor the borders and principles established in the Peace of Xor-Hist.

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