Llwcharion

When the ancestors of the Llwcharion fled their ruined cities to the south, this was the place where they first hid in the desert. Originally a small oasis, they perfected the skills and magics needed to spread the lush greens of their watering hole across the barren desert. Within two generations they had made this stretch of sand bountiful, and set the foundations of what is now an impregnable stronghold.

Artain is home to the most celebrated craftspeople of the Llwcharion - the Crafters of Pain, whose skills provide key intelligence to the leaders of the Llwcharion. In other societies they might be hidden away within a shadowy secret service. Here, they are celebrated artists, publicly revered.

The second stronghold to be established by the Llwcharion, Gorwyn was deliberately chosen as the most desolate, remote, inhospitable piece of desert: if they could make this stretch of barren waste blossom, the elves reasoned, then they could prosper anywhere across the sands. The first settlers expected to starve, but their magics brought forth life, and today Gorwyn is a vast, verdant oasis.

When the first Llwcharion settlers founded Newyns, their magics failed in the first year, the fruit brought forth from the desert proved rancid, and hundreds starved. The ossuary where their bones were stacked is now the great council chamber at the heart of the thriving stronghold, so that the rulers (and their guests) should never forget the sacrifices of the first settlers, nor the dangers of the desert.