Yense

The peninsula of Yense lies in southwestern Rythalion, past the Dodna Crags. While Yense is not very big, its landscape ranges from green plains to wastelands, hills to swamps and forests. In Yense, the term  respect your elders  is a way of life and it is taken very seriously as Yense is built around that principle. Consequently, its government is comprised by the oldest people in the realm, the Council of the Eldest. Each decision made by the Council is a law that the populace must abide by. The selection of new members for the Council is of course made by judging the candidate’s age, and the council itself chooses a new addition or a replacement member from among the oldest and supposedly the wisest. This has made society in Yense very traditional and some outside or even inside it would argue old-fashioned and adhesive to stale ideas.

The races that call Yense home are mostly comprised by races that are not long lived in comparison with lenavi and elves; races like humans, halflings, orcs and half-orcs, dragonborn and goliaths; of which halflings are the most long lived who generally live up to the age of 120 and rarely 150 but no more. For this reason, halflings are the most respected in Yense. Society views long lived races that live more than 120 years like gnomes, lenavi, dwarves and elves as unnatural and something that is not right. The contempt of such races mostly stems from a past event from the times of Yense’s founding.

The story goes that rulers of elven or lenavi heritage (the story varies) viewed their short-lived subjects, such as humans, as insignificant whose lives would end in the blink of an eye and thus of no real consequence. They supposedly wasted no resources to better the lives of such races and doing the barely minimum for them while showing favoritism for races that were almost as long lived as them. As such, the short-lived ones lived in poor and wretched conditions; squalid peasants to be trampled by the long-lived authority. This resulted in an uprising where the rulers were defeated in the end, and a schism happened where the short lived races stayed and took control of Yense while the others chose exile. However, details of these events are long lost and none can be certain that the story is real in all its accounts. No one knows what of it is true or just lies that the First Council of the Eldest fabricated out of fear in order for them to secure their authority lest it be taken by people of races that are long lived with more potential wisdom and experiences. These elders were so afraid to give up power and be forgotten by the young that they enforce traditions and laws to respect elders above all else. Yense’s populace believes the story to be true and so continues to scorn long lived races, following the traditions and laws set by the Council. As such, people of races like these tend to avoid Yense.

Yense does not have a main language. Its citizens speak Common and people of each different race also learn their native language in a young age.