Guera

Official Name	Guera
Capital	Ezmou Tin
Government	Tribal
Population	154,000
Dominant Race	elf
Dominant Culture	Wild Elves
Dominant religion	Elven Gods
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Guera is a small elven realm in the south that has been in decline for centuries and is continuing to shrink, though very slowly. It used to be ten times as large, spanning much of the southern forests and coast, but its elven population is falling and growing human populations from its neighbours are pressing in. All of this is happening mostly peacefully, with a few regrettable exceptions, so the disappareance of Guera in maybe two or three hundred years will be not by war and conquest, but by population replacement.

Like all elven realms, Guera does not have a flag or banner nor does it divide its land up into provinces.

The most western parts of Guera still touch on the high magic region that is mostly covered by the realm of Palan these days, but the elves of Guera have lost most the high magic area to their human neighbours.

The forests in and around Guera are among the most dense and dark in the world, especially towards the south where they begin to turn into rainforests. Both canopy and ground cover are dense here to the point where it is in many places impossible to pass through without cutting a path. The western half of Guera and some of the lands surrounding it are home to the fabled Faordna tree, a type of giant tree that can grow to over a hundred metres tall with more than 10 metres diameter at the base. They typically grow in clusters of 20 to 100 trees of all sizes, and are popular among the elves as foundations for elven houses grown from their branches and leaves.

Population

The Wild Elves of Guera are simple and friendly people, but their population is dwindling. In ancient times, they numbered almost a million, today less than a fifth of that number is left. While they are fierce warriors, they take no pride in warfare and see no honour in battle, and unfortunately their tendency towards peaceful solutions and withdrawl rather than costly wars has reduced the territory they control to a quarter of what it once was.

They are also among the most xenophobic of the elven people, especially when it comes to dwarves and gnomes, which are not tolerated in any of the elven settlements as residents and only barely as visitors. They used to be friendly to humans, but over the last century or so have seen the younger race intrude more and more aggressively into their lands, and are now as mistrusting of them as humans are of elves.

There are human minorities in the four cities of Guera, but they make up a few percent of the population at best.

Economy

Guera is a hunter-gatherer economy in most of its parts, with Elven Agriculture providing plenty of food, easily able to feed the population and then some.

There is very little in the way of trade with the neighbouring realms. The elves have little desire for human and even less for dwarven goods, with the exception of musical instruments manufactured in western Sila, which have gained some popularity over the last two or three centuries. On the other hand, elven bows and arrows, elven carpentry and any and all kinds of elven magic are in high demand in all neighbouring realms, but the elves rarely sell or trade them.

History

This page is still incomplete and missing content or details that are planned, but have not been added yet.