Tisran

From Sedes Draconis

The Tisran are a cultural group of elves, who live in the heart of the Elfholt. A major aspect of the culture is their extreme isolationism, such that there has been no regular or official contact between them and any other culture for just over a thousand years (not since -458 GR). While the Tisran have not maintained a perfect isolation for that entire span, they have come very close.

The defining period for the Tisran culture was the period of the Kynesshi Empire, beginning around -950 GR. The Kynesshi and their people first became established as a major power in the central Elfholt laregly due to their control of the extraordinarily fine green obsidian deposits that could be mined in the area, and the commercial and military power this brought. Throughout the early part of Kynesshi rule, the obsidian trade was reserved as an imperial right and obsidian deposits in conquered areas were immediately brought under imperial control.

Led by the Kynesshi emperors, the Tisran came to dominate nearly the entire Elfholt by about -700 GR. The Kynesshi directly ruled the inner region of the Elfholt, but left the outer regions as independent tributaries.

During this period the Tisran lands became magnificent as the Kynesshi drew on the wealth and labor of the entire Elfholt. The seat from which the Kynesshi ruled, and the prime focus of this labor were the Falls at Luellos, and to this day, the Sêreleth elves remember the Luellos in mythic awe.

But by -540 GR, a handful of generations later, the Kynesshi had lost much of their dynamism, and focused more and more inward, particularly on their building and landscaping at the heart of the Elfholt. The empire continued to demand tribute from the outlying provinces, but to return less and less benefit, as the Tisran came to regard their region, the Heartlands of the Elfholt, as the center of the world, and stopped looking beyond their borders.

By -490 GR the provinces were in full rebellion against the decadent Kynesshi. The Kynesshi still maintained a powerful fighting force, but after a few years of half-hearted attempts to bring the provinces back under control, they withdrew their entire armies back to the borders of the Heartlands. They left the world outside to its own devices, but they provided that it should not intrude into their world.

The political structures outside the Tisran borders soon dissolved into a chaos of warring tribes, squabbling among themselves in the power vacuum. But none ever successfully pushed into the Heartlands, and after a while a superstitious dread became attached to the the borders of the Heartlands, and the outside tribes stopped even approaching them. The last recorded attempt, also the last historic contact with Tisran, occurred in -458 GR.

From that moment on, for over a thousand years, the Tisran have maintained a near perfect isolation in the heart of the Elfholt, untouched by the Sêrela Renaissance, or any other happening in the world beyond their borders.

After the Sêrela Renaissance, the Sêreleth came to regard the Heartlands as a sacred, inviolable land, and the Tisran as a kind of holy innocents who guard and tend it. This belief has strongly supported the Tisran's own efforts to maintain the isolation.

Little or nothing is known of the Tisran except their history leading up to their isolation. The Sêreleth retain only vague, generally legendary, memories of the pre-isolation Tisran culture, and nothing is known of their more recent history or culture.