Saelin

Saelin is a geopolitical region in northern Levantia centered on the Fanerian exclave of Sorhaithe. Historically, Saelin has included several subordinate regions, including the Saelish Archipelago, Brevehaithe, Imhrin, and Ogwen, which broadly encompasses the major islands along northeastern Levantia and the adjacent coast as well as inland stretches covering most of the eastern Giath Mountains. While historical polities based in Saelin have often controlled territories in modern Fiannria, Faneria, and Caergwynn as far as the banks of the Torr River to the east and south and the X River to the northwest, Saelin as a recognized region is related directly to the Saelish people living in the Archipelago and along the coast.

History

Saelish Kingdom

The decline of the Knights of St. Selyn and their defeat in the Seven Companies Crusade created a power vacuum which was filled by the Bishop of Saelia. The expenses involved with direct church rule and the Protestant Reformation ultimately lead the Papacy to instruct (???) Bishop of Saelia to crown Prince Morgan Caradrad as King of Saelin in 1544, immediately following the conclusion of the Nordmontaine War. Caradrad ultimately shuffled off papal responsibilities and siezed Church properties during the Great Confessional War, despite his aggressive actions against Church officials leading to his excommunication. His successor Mag Caradrad made official amends with Urceopolis but reinforced rule by the nobility, embracing the Fanerian tradition of nobility fees and further centralizing power. Saelin during this time experienced a period of religious retrocession, with Mag declaring the Northern Rite as the state religion before his death. This would lead to the War of Saelish Succession between Catholic and Northern Rite members of the Saelish nobility, which established an uneasy medium between religious practice within the country; in addition, Saelin was redistricted into several smaller regions, consisting of Brevehaithe along the coast, Imhrin in the Isles, and Giathlan and Asbrea in the southern and eastern territories.

Northern Saelin was devastated by the Wasting Plague beginning with shortages of rye imports from the south in 1641 and began to experience plague itself in 1646. Saelin was reliant primarily on fishing and sheep ranching to supplement these imports, resulting in milder conditions overall but a heightened outbreak of disease in major cities. This hollowing of the economic hubs of the region precipitated a loss of border territories of Fiannria and Caergwynn in 1680 and 1681, which was followed by the cession of the majority of Giathlan to Faneria in 1745 during the Saelish Partition.

Modern Day

Saelin's regional culture and language are distinct from all its' neighbors, with the area dominating north-south trade routes and being the historic home of the people for which it was named for over three millenia. Saelin formed the northernmost border region of Great Levantia and Ultmar, with the region first being centralized under one polity in XX AD under the Vithinjan invader Name Here the Strong. Vithinjan culture comingling with the local gaelic population further divided the Saelish from other Gaels, and the colonies which became unified as the Kingdom of Svaerige was by far the longest-lasting and most successful Vithinjan expedition on the mainland. Svaerige survived several centuries as an independent state, including competing with Gothic and Gaelic states for control of Turlann throughout the Medieval era.

Saelin was one of the last significant pagan bastions of the continent, with Christianization arriving by the sword in the form of the Saelish Crusade in the 1390s AD and allowing for successive crusades in Caergwynn and along the Kilikas coast in the following decades. The Christian invaders initially founded the new Kingdom of Saelin as a crusader state, with theocratic institutions giving way to a Vandarch-styled merchantile nobility by the eighteenth century.

The Kingdom of Saelin was at its height during the 1600s, and appeared to be the third great power of the region alongside the Kingdom of the Fhainn and the Culfran League(check?), controlling several marcher regions along the extent of its modern cultural reach. However, the country was weakened by repeated separatist conflicts in its Caeric and Fiannrian-majority regions, which it was forced to fully cede control over by the 1680s. In addition, the middle and late seventeenth century's Wasting Plague hollowed out the population of the administrative capital at Galnea, with secondary outbreaks of Audonian Rat Fever killing members of the Saelish royal family. Compounding these was the increasing decline of overland trade, with Turlann and the Torr River being firmly under the control of Bridhavn and Oirthidún removing one of the region's largest economic drivers other than shipbuilding, which suffered due to the success of better-located and better-managed Burgundine yards.

Saelin's rapid collapse began in earnest with an intermarriage between King _____ of Saelin and Princess _____ of Faneria in the 1710s, which resulted in a succession challenge after _______'s passing leading to the First Saelish Partition. Reduced to its core regions at the end of a bayonet, Saelin was formally made a march of Faneria in 1745 and portions of its remaining territory doled out between the Caeric and Fiannrian states first as 'regions of protection' and later annexed de jure; these concessions and a subsequent border conflict with Fiannria were in turn used to justify a full annexation of the remainder of Saelin by Faneria and Fiannria in the Second Partition in 1794. By 1800, Fhasenization and the meteoric decline of traditional trade routes in Saelin had led to the majority of Saelin's economic and human capital potential fleeing to the Vandarch or Bridhavn. Expat Saelish culture in both Faneria and Fiannria formed large parts of the Romantic and Impressionist art movements, while Saelin itself was heavily repopulated with Fhainnin immigrants seeking work in lumber and mining prospects. Aenglefhainn politician John Morea was quoted in 1828 as saying Saelin had "died nobly and quietly from a hundred wounds before its neigbors ever bit at it", emphasizing the deavastating effects depopulation and deprivement of trade had wrought on the region. While the discovery of large patches of natural gas in the Archipelago in 1893 reinvigorated the local economies, the Saelish in each country had diverged enough to consider themselves communities within their respective regions, rather than as a unified people.

Saelin was a major launching point for the Third and Fourth Kin Wars between Faneria and Fiannria, as well as being one of the only border regions in Faneria to never launch a significant separatist uprising on its own. Fanerian Saelin surrendered without major fighting to the Republicans during the Fhainnin Civil War, but Saelin as a whole suffered instability during the tumult following the Fourth Kin War and well as some of the heaviest fighting of the Second Great War, first with Fiannrian Saelin being subjected to invasion and then grinding fighting across the Archipelago and later into Fanerian territory as the region became the only appreciable source of fuel for Faneria's war machine.

Post-war, Saelin was rewritten, with the original peace drafts entirely ceding the region to Caergwynn and Fiannria. Fanerian officials offered enormous concessions including the entirety of Sioc Siar and Gathlann to retain the most key economic areas of the Archipelago and coastal Brevehaithe, creating the modern exclave province in Sorhaithe borders of the region. Saelish culture, particularly in Fiannria, has since seen a revival, with increasing toleration of regional autonomy in Fanerian Saelin appearing in recent decades after the success of the Transisthmus Peace Proccess.

Human Geography

Modern Saelin consists of several regions spread across all three regional powers. Ascbriden and Cyrnan, in Fiannria, consist of Fiannria's continental and Archipelagic holdings in Saelin; Ogwen and Gathlann are posessed by Caergwynn, and Imhrin and Brevehaithe are the modern island and mainland portions of Saelin represented in the province of Sorhaithe. Cyrnan and Ogwen are both respective exonyms for the Saelish Archipelago, while Gathlann is a Fanerian construct; historically, Saelin consisted of Brevehaithe and Imhrin, which formed Saelia proper, and Giathlan and Asbrea, which represented the southern and southeastern regions of the country.

Natural Geography

Ascbriden, Cyrnan, Saelish Archipelago, Brevehaithe, Imhrin, and Ogwen