Ysval and their neighbors

Ysval has a complex history of alliances and conflicts with its neighbors, which have only worsened in recent times, and show no sign of slowing down soon.

Allaria
While not necessarily an ally, Allaria has always been a friend to Ysval. The Dragon Kingdom is the main buyer of most Ysvalian goods and supplies, and its recent intervention to protect Ysval during the North War won’t soon be forgotten.

In return for Allaria’s proven and enduring good will, the Alliance has allowed a few Grand Guild stores in its larger cities, strengthening trade between both realms even further, and, after Elyse’s Reforms, it has welcomed any freed Ellari that wishes to join Ysvalian society.

The Fogwood Tribes
The Fogwood, with its small, dense forests and its unreachable peaks, remains a mystery to Ysvalians despite bordering the Alliance. It is the domain of giants, such as Hmyr and Ygarrua, and wild cultures like Hygar humans and Ikini gnomes. The Alliance’s relation to the Fogwood peoples is mostly cordial, but many of its tribes, particularly Hmyr from the Highland clans, remain hostile - and dangerous - to Ysvalian people.

Travelling to the Fogwood remains inadvisable for Alliance citizens, although a few explorers have not only survived, but made friends, fortunes or discoveries among its secluded peoples and lost ruins.

The Gellanor League
One of Ysval’s worst enemies is the Gellanor League, founded by Raven Knights that wished to break free from the strict control of Galadyan law. They allied with the northern dwarves and snow orcs, which had often clashed with human colonists since Ysval’s founding, forming an alliance with the only goal of marching south and conquering the greener lands.

Gellanor has clashed with Ysval for decades, their border known as the Red Strip for the blood that always stains the snow between both sides. As both realms are led by fierce, uncompromising warriors and knights, it seems that the war will only die down with the utter defeat or decimation of either side.

Sikaria
While Ysval mistrusts its amoral, scholarly blue elf neighbors, and has long suffered from the plague of mutated whales that infest their side of the Dreamsea, Sikaria remains a tensely helpful neighbor, with extensive and profitable trade of tools, food and livestock between both realms.

But if Sikaria should ever try to expand inland, or its long-postponed conflict with Allaria finally breaks out, Ysval will have no choice but to turn on the Arkane Dominion with its full strength. And many Alliance citizens actually look forward to that moment, hoping for an excuse to wipe out those smug, weird, faithless mutant-makers.

Tyveria
Ysval’s worst enemy has always been the Tyverian Empire, ever since Empress Tyveris imposed the Blood Geas, requiring the Alliance to give a tribute in grain and, more heinously, a percentage of their children to the Empire as indentured servants. The Blood Geas only ended recently with a bloody war that took thousands of lives from both sides, and with the defection of a full knight order to the Tyverian maghyr houses.

Other than their past grievances, the Alliance and the Empire are too different; while Ysval believes in community and sharing, Tyveria is individualistic and power-driven. Even if they didn’t hate each other by their shared past, Valerna would still be too small for both realms. And it is.