Black Isles

The Black Isles was a mostly oceanic pirate nation located in the south-east of Eldham in the Kraken Fall's Sea. Its capital was "Porthnegys" - a port city that was abandoned by the first explorers from Rathnir and taken over by the The Black Skulls, who rule the surrounding seas and archipelago. It was later dissolved when unified with the nations of Netvia and Eldercrest to form the Morladron Mysterlu.

The Barbossan Collapse
The Black Isles were founded by player EarlGreyT3a following the collapse of The Pirate State of Barbossa. Following the perilous Uraka & Barbossa Conflicts, the sailors and pirates of Barbossa were in chaos. Many Barbossans had disagreed with their leadership and had their problems with the late pirate state and saw the unfortunate collapse as a new chapter for piracy and merchant culture. While the remains of Barbossa (and most of it's people) were absorped into the neighbouring Uraka, a small group of sailors - namely EarlGreyT3a, the founder of The Black Isles, and Tyr Leuxos, who is widely disputed to have been a traitor of Barbossa - set sail for new lands.

Discovery of the Scurvy Shores
A short while later, after navigating through the delicate and winding river channels of Leifmyrr, the group found themselves in the Kraken's Fall Sea; within this sea lay an archipelago known as "Ngu Meutoro Punge". When the crew landed on the largest of the islands, they were peacefully greeted by the island's indigenous inhabitants who believed them to be friendly merchants looking for simple trade. Not being acquainted with local customs, EarlGreyT3a proclaimed the island as "Scurvy Shores" and named the archipelago "The Black Isles"; he welcomed all sailors, merchants, mercenaries and pirates salvation in a truly free land with no laws, no regulations and no foreign alliances forcing their hands.

Establishment of the Pirates
The group had found the land and independence they had yearned for however now came the hardest part of their journey: administration. Debates were plentiful between the group causing many rifts to form among the swashbuckling crew; Leux - as she had done many times before on her odysseys - argued that the island natives should be treated with a respectful and peaceful demeanour much like they had done to the sailors when they first arrived but Tea and the rest of their hardy band of pirates was having none of it. Before long, a brutal and suppressive subjugation and begun on the island natives, powerless to defend against the well-trained, battle-hardened crew. Tea was proclaimed the Pirate Lord by his fellow sailors while Leux, in defiance of the regime, began documenting and studying the culture and religion of the islands. As time progressed, more and more fleets of ships arrived to the islands and claustrophobic yet colourful slums grew to accommodate the indigenous people, while the pirates enjoyed lavish vessels and sturdy fortresses.

Construction of Porthnegys
As the population of the islands grew rapidly, Tea sent out calls to sailors to find more unclaimed land to encorporate into The Black Isles. Player Trelanganack, a new but prospective sailor to the isles, answered these calls following his discovery of a small sliver of mainland peninsula bordering the world's edge. On the peninsula lay an abandoned merchant town known colloquially as "The World's Edge", it had clearly been a costly yet unsuccessful investment of a long-gone band of swashbucklers based on the lavish architecture presented on the harbour wall; the land on which the town lay was under the jurisdiction of the Rhokian Shogunate so negotiations began (with the help of Leux's plentiful diplomatic connections) to purchase the land from them. With the approval of the Pirate Lord, Trelanganack (and his trusty partner Alfred I or "Buck") began repairing the former trade port and expanding the city to facilitate further settling from merchants and island natives. With this reinvention of the city, it was renamed "Porthnegys" - roughly translating to 'port of business'. The sudden migration and urbanisation of many of the sailors and island natives quickly grew the city's economy and, after much protest, the Pirate Lord Tea proclaimed it as the new capital city of The Black Isles. Following the success of the endeavour, Trelanganack was promoted within the Black Skulls to the positions of Corsair, Head Diplomat, Governor of Porthnegys while Buck was made Co-Governor and became well-known as the go-to builder within The Black Isles; alongside this, Leux's reputation was restored due to her help in the negotiations with Rhokia and her documentation of the native religion and culture slowly became adopted by many sailors and merchants within the Black Isles, finally ending the subjugation of the natives.

First Foreign-Affairs
Immensely proud of the nation he and his corsairs had built, Pirate Lord Tea began vocally opening diplomatic ties with foreign powers (a practice not undertaken before to preserve the young Black Isle's independence). Head Diplomat Trelanganack was sent on Tea's behalf to open negotiations and alliances with many of the nations sharing the Kraken's Fall Sea, including: Sylvania, Alzaria, Rohkian Shogunate and the Socialist Union of Paloma. The Black Isles were well regarded as a fierce yet peaceful and well-spoken nation with a firm grip on maritime trade and a near monopoly on naval combat thanks to it's members Barbossan origins. Though few of the original indigenous islanders remained, many sailors in The Black Isles - namely the Pirate Lord himself - had adopted the customs and religion of the locals, resulting in an unheard of cultural mix in every aspect of life.

Formation of the Council
As the Black Isles grew, the government was formalised and consolidated: the official Council of the Corsairs and governors were appointed to cities and towns across the nation. The council started meeting regularly to debate and discuss lore, policies, culture, expansion, allies and even war together.

Re-Unification of Barbossa
Suddenly, Barbossa returned and, graciously, Black Isles were formally incorporated into the new republic. The Silver Captain's son (Sariel Silver Dawn) moved into the northern half of the capital city of Porthnegys and, from there, organised the return of many infamous ex-Barbossan pirates. The Pirate Lord was more than happy to aid in this -as a Barbossan himself- though many of the Corsairs (namely Alfred I, Trelanganack and Tyr Leuxos) were wary of the possible oversight of the Black Isles in exchange for Barbossa. Slowly, Barbossa grew and Sariel moved away to a new location - the city of Al-Basaad. Just us the Corsairs had predicted, the Black Isles had been majorly overlooked, not even recognised for it's preservation of piracy in it's darkest age. Many Black Islanders joined Barbossa's military in an attempt to win over some recognition from the larger government.

The Red/Mald War
The inhabitants of the isles were drafted into the Red War (between Barbossa and the USSE) and were sent of to the war camp at Al-Basaad to prepare. Immediately as the war began, a Barbossan forward-scout team spotted the USSE's potion depot and, thinking quickly, detonated it with TNT. After 5 short minutes of confusion, the USSE surrendered and the Barbossan forces jumped down from their armaments and sacked their war camp. Barbossa walked away with a K:D of 47:1 and a few Black Islanders (specifically GuardReady and Trelanganack) won medals for their services.

Splintering Away
The relationship began to strain, however, as the victorious Barbossa started to stray away from their pirate culture - a culture still widely upheld and practiced in the Black Isles. Finally, the straw that broke the camel's back came when Barbossa was dissolved and replaced with the De Vrijmasten Raden (DVR) and piracy was officially thrown to the wayside.

The Pirate Lord then met with Sariel Silver Dawn to discuss independence. He expected an uphill battle but, much to his surprise, the captain happily allowed the Black Isles to go their own separate way as he, too, recognised their differing culture and identity to that of the DVR. There was little celebration when independence was declared; the Council of the Corsairs knuckled-down and got to work on reforming, rebuilding and reinforcing their tiny nation from foreign annexation - as is so often the case with countries of their newfound calibre. The government and ranking system was reformed: Alfred I and Trelanganack were promoted to Commodore, GuardReady become Commander of the military, and Boatswain's were invented to encourage loyalty and commitment to the flag.

Conflicts with Sylvania
As a result of their independence, the Black Isles were now easy-pickings for larger nations to push around at their bidding; one of these nations was the Grand Archonate of Sylvania. Sylvania almost entirely surrounded the isles and, with this geographical superiority, enforced harsh sanctions on the islanders. They constructed a new capital called "Luxwind" in the ocean directly adjacent to the Scurvy Shores (it was even visible from the beaches themselves!) and, when asked, refused to remove it. The largest of these conflicts occured when the Black Isles occupied the small town of "Griefswald" (later renamed "Fosdinas") and legally took control of the land. They proclaimed it as theirs fairly and justly and there were no contradictions until 2 hours later when the Sylvanian Foreign Minister proclaimed (without consulting the islanders) that the land was Sylvania's! This territorial dispute grew and grew and tensions rose over the course of many hours. It looked as though war was on the horizon and both sides began contacting allies and verifying their support for their respective sides. However, at the last minute, a diplomatic decision was reached in which Leux would pay 420k over the course of a month and war was called off with Sylvania dropping their claim and giving the land (quite rightly) to the Black Isles.

Proclamation of the Spice Commission
In order to expand the trade relations of the Black Isles, Commodore Trelanganack began reaching out to the smaller oceanic nations around Eastern Eldham in order to build a spice-focused trader company - this company would combine many nation's spice resources into one, meaning they could effectively sell every spice. The nations of Netvia (led by Mqthijs) and Eldercrest (led by 9Unlimited) agreed to this proposal and formed the Spice Commission. Business was slow but it did serve to bring the 3 nations far closer together, leading directly to the Unification of Morladron Mysterlu on 03/03/22.

Location
The Black Isles are located in the continent of Leifmyrr around the Kraken's Fall Sea on the far eastern border of Eldham, surrounded by the nations of Sylvania, Rodinnbrok (specifically Rohkia) and the vassal of Nexus on behalf of Uraka.

Religion
[to be expanded]