Langtspids / Orosilme (Island)
The Elven Kingdom
In the two years after the initial colonization, a basic survey of the island was conducted. A good map was developed and roads were planned. Two other towns were surveyed and planned, though not begun for several decades. One of these, planned for the small sheltered inlet on the northwest corner of the island, has yet to be started. A road linking Eregosto to Greenhill, the Halfling town on the western peninsula, was laid out and completed. The bottom of the old caldera has filled in with a lake, while much of the rest has been covered with a deep enchanted old-growth forest.
Eregosto, the capital, is now a bustling city of about 115,000, is largely built out of white stone and glowing crystal. After the initial phase of construction, the city itself was laid out atop a large low hill, flattened on top for the purpose. It sits nearly a mile across, with the Palace of the King dominating the center of the city. The city’s walls, twenty feet tall and nearly ten feet thick, rise from the surrounding ground without any apparent seams, as if they had grown there (which as a matter of fact, they did). The city has extensive gardens and fountains throughout. It is laid out into five sections. The northeast section, dubbed the Water Quarter, includes the slope down to the extensive harbor and is dominated by the military caste. The northwest section, the Air Quarter, is the home of the institutes of learning and many of the city’s temples and clerical orders. On the southwest is the Earth Quarter. This area is home to the largest markets and merchant areas in the city. The southeast section, the Fire Quarter, is home to much of the city’s mages and related trades. The fifth section, the Royal Holding (often called ‘the Palace’ or just ‘the Holding’) is a circular section at the center of the city. This area holds the palace, the fountains and gardens of the king. While the sections are not walled off from each other, the divisions are clear as one walks from one area to the next.
The next elven settlement to be built after the capital was Lylferion, a town on the south-central coast. Unlike the bustling urban Eregosto, Lylferion is a much smaller town (about 15000 residents) with a decidedly rural feel. It processes a lot of agricultural goods as well has being the base for much of the island’s small fishing fleet. It does also have some craftsmen who escaped the city for a more quiet feeling around which to pursue their art. Since it is the first elven settlement on the road from Greenhill, halflings can be seen occasionally in this town.
One inland village has been built, Nilahil, perched in the trees on the western shore of Millsomin Lake, with about 3000 residents. The lake sits in the old caldera of the volcano that created the island. Sea elves that came with the colonists have a small village at the bottom of the lake, consisting of about 100 residents. Some merfolk have also joined this village, though few on the surface know this. The name of the village is unpronounceable out of the water, so the surface elves call it Millsomin, after the lake. The lake itself is a freshwater lake, though it has access to the ocean via underground lava tubes that exit about half a mile northeast of the island.
A fourth settlement, this one in the northwest of the island, has been laid out and is scheduled to begin construction soon. It is currently slated to be dubbed Fernserine. When finished, this city will be the home for the kingdom’s naval forces and serve as the training center for much of the military.
Early in the first century of the new settlement, the mages of the colony raised protective wards around the island, shielding it from accidental discovery. Ships that come too close, within about 30 nautical miles, run into deep fogs and are misdirected in such a way that they end up sailing around the island completely without seeing it. Ships that launch from the ports of the island are immune to this effect.
Exploration
It is only now, though, that some of the old Callenthi ruins are being truly explored in depth. There are small bits of ruins, deep delving dungeons and mines, little shrines and the gods know what else scattered all over the island.
After nearly two hundred years on the island, the first native-born elves are well into adulthood. The vast majority of the colonists had no great desire to explore the island or marvel at its past, though occasionally a ruin would emerge as new construction expanded the colony. However, some of the younger elves have begun to push for exploration and interaction with the races outside of the island.
History
This island, named Langtspids, the Far Peak, in the few sources that name it at all, was once a center of Callenthi magic and culture. An elder Fire Elemental was trapped here eons before and the Callenthi used the creature to power their magic and their forges, bringing items into being at which the rest of the world could only marvel.
This all ended, however, on a single night two thousand years before. Somehow, the elemental, kept in torpor by sea water and chained minor water elementals, got free. The mountain in the southwest of the island, hitherto thought a dead volcano, exploded into life and the vast majority of the population, numbering nearly a hundred thousand, were killed by the pyroclastic flows and the poisonous gases belched out by the mountain’s reawakened fury. The few survivors, with no means of food or escape, all died out over the next few days.
For the next millennium and a half, the island was uninhabited, the ruins slowly reclaimed by colonizing plants and animals that had been washed or blown onto the island by the waves and wind. The first new visitors to the island was a tribe of Hurgin, numbering about 300, that landed on the western peninsula and set up a small village that they called Greenhill, fishing and farming for survival.
The next group was an elven colony fleet. Their intention had been to participate in the Return, travelling from Evermeet to Faerun, but , when the Weave collapsed with Mystra’s death, a massive storm of wind rain and magic swept across the whole fleet. They suddenly found themselves in calm seas with clear skies. The elves in these ships, numbering nearly twenty thousand, landed on the eastern shore of the island in a well-sheltered harbor. Divinations told them what had happened, but found no way to return to Toril. The 20-ship fleet was quickly reduced to three warships, the parts salvaged to construct the first buildings of the new settlement, while the colonists built a medium sized city on the shores of their new and unknown home. The city became Eregosto (the “First City”), the island named Orosilme (the “Mountain, gleaming in the starlight”).
The two centuries since the colonization has seen the kingdom expand rapidly to an elven population of nearly 135,000. Nearly all of these are children of the original settlers, though with Evermeet’s relocation to the Feywild, some other immigrants have arrived through both intentional and accidental means. The only other race that the Elves interact with on any regular basis is the Hurgin (Halflings) of their island. The elven colony has been an economic boon for the small village and they sell farm goods directly to the elves.
Geography
The towering remains of the ancient stratovolcano dominate the geography of the island. After its cataclysmic eruption, it has been left as a horseshoe shape, with the open end facing towards the northeast.
The Tucumnear Forest dominates the central highlands of the island, the floor of the old volcano’s caldera. It is an old-growth hardwood forest, deep and thick, that grows back quickly even when cut down. Even if it is clear-cut in an area, the enchantments lingering in the area from the times of the Callenthi mean that it grows back to its original old-growth state within a century. A second thick forest, the halfling-named Bercilac Woods, reaching out along the western peninsula, provides pine and softer woods, though the forest does not grow back magically in the same way and requires management of its resources, something the halflings have done well.
The flatter areas on the northeast and southern coasts provide rich farmland and amply feed the population. A wide variety of crops are planted and harvested, as well as various indigenous fruits and vegetables that are gathered from the forests.
Old Callenthi mines just south of Eregosto, shattered by the cataclysm that destroyed the original inhabitants but reopened by elven engineers, supply the kingdom with iron and other ores used through the island. Traces of mithral have excited miners in recent years and sent them exploring deeper in the mines and further to the west as well.
Alternative Name(s)
The island is known as Langtspids to the people of Farveld, and Orosilme to the elves.
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