Maelstrom: Elvish Fleet part 1

Hey everyone!  Been working for a while on the Maelstrom division of
the Elvish Fleet, cloak & dagger style.  I wanted to add more rank &
file members, but it's taking far longer than I anticpated, so I'm
putting out what I've got so far and ammend it later with more npcs.  I
used 2e because I started this before 3e came out and kits are a quick &
easy method of describing an npc:)  Here's the results, hope you
enjoy!:)

Elvish Fleet of the Maelstrom
A.K.A.                  The Elven Navy, the Faerie Crusaders, the Guardians of
                                Wildspace, the Fleet.
Group Mark:             A golden Man-O-War on a blue field surrounded by seven
                                stars or gemstones.  Officers of the Fleet wear this badge
                                over their hearts.
Group Colors/Livery:    Officers wear uniforms of blue color with a simple
badge
                                over the heart.  Dress uniforms are much more elaborate, as
                                many officers are decorated with many medals.  Admirals
                                carry scepters signifying won campaigns.  Crewmen
                                usually wear a comfortable but plain tan uniform, and all
                                are provided 'battle uniforms' of burgundy color.

        Probably the largest and certainly the most famous military brotherhood
in wildspace, the division of the Elvish Fleet found in the Maelstrom is
rarely seen.  They largely stay out of the way of merchants and traders,
but are fierce foes of pirates and slavers.  Pirates and slavers that
prey on elven ships often disappear with all hands lost.  Whenever a
pirate vessel ceases to prey on merchant ships, the elves are credited
with dealing with them.  Speculations as to the fate of the pirates
abound, from being sold into slavery themselves to vast prison asteroids
to mass executions.  The threat of elvish retaliation keeps the space
lanes relatively free of pirate activity.
        The elves do act in a much more military fashion when a crisis arises,
as was done during the Unhuman Wars.  During such crisis, the Fleet is
capable of bringing terrifying power against their foes, both magical
and martial.  Through their powerful fleets, many mages of power, and
numerous allies, the elves are able to deal with almost any threat.
        The Fleet makes use of a method of timekeeping that originated on
Avalon.  Time is measured in cycles of twenty Avalon years.  An Avalon
year is 670 standard days long, so an elvish cycle is roughly thirty-six
and a half standard years long.  The current year, as elves reckon it,
is the year of the Dove of the 659th cycle.

Goals
        The Elven Fleet is dedicated to protecting the elven homeworld of
Avalon and the many colonies scattered throughout the Maelstrom.  The
elves maintain a fairly significant navy to deal with threats from
wildspace, but are not heavy handed in this regard.  With the
city-states of Avalon maintaining their own defensive fleets, combined
with Avalon's magical defenses, allows the Elven Fleet to divert most of
their resources to other tasks and goals.
        Of secondary importance, but taking up the majority of the time and
resources of the Fleet, is to defend the trade lanes connecting elven
colonies together and maintain lines of communication between them.  The
Fleet does little actual patrolling, considering it a huge waste of
time, given the great distances involved and a lack of a reliable means
of detecting spelljammers more distant than a few hundred miles.
Rather, they use punitive raids, false merchant ships, and numerous
spies to discourage pirate and slaving activities.  Elf vessels enjoy
one of the lowest rate of being pirated as a result.
Rolinda's Goals: Though not a native to the Maelstrom, Rolinda wishes to
understand the nature of the native elves.  She has won many friends, as
well as enemies, in her efforts.  She hopes to create a unified Fleet
under her command to better deal with threats such as the neogi and
scro.  Rolinda hopes to make Avalon her home, a place where she could
possibly settle and raise a family.  She is very reliant on Cyallian as
an advisor and confidante.  Rolinda is still very adventurous and loves
a good scrap, sometimes putting herself in danger for the thrill of it.
Cyallian's Goals: Cyallian, a very prominent noble of Aldavilya and has
unprecedented power in the Fleet with his influence over High Admiral
Leafbower.  Cyallian seeks to once again bind the Fleet to Aldavilya,
thus restoring ancient traditions and increasing the overall power and
prestige of Aldavilya.  Though not a hard-liner, Cyallian sincerely
believes that Aldavilya is best suited to lead the elven people through
example.

History and Motivation
        The true origins of the Elvish Fleet is lost in antiquity, but the
Fleet found in the Maelstrom maintains excellent records of their past.
The first expeditions by the elves in the wildspace around Avalon date
back to the year of the Fox of the 120th cycle.  The elves traveled to
the moon of Avalon in that year upon a flying ship specially rigged to
travel in space, using a considerable amount of magic.  For the next
twenty cycles, they explored Twilitespace, eventually establishing
colonies on Ethwold, the moons of Artimis, several moons of Chaos, and
even the distant world of Outreach.  Expeditions were sent out into the
Flow starting during the 142nd cycle, but the Certarama Expedition was
the first to return in the 144th cycle, having successfully charted a
course to Songspace and Icespace.  The surviving two ships (out of an
initial flotilla of five) returned with nearly complete charts for those
spheres, opening them to colonists and traders.  By the 148th cycle, the
whole Maelstrom was charted and explored.
        During this time, many small wars over minor issues were fought between
the elven colonies and the homeworld, but none were overly violent or
destructive.  The first major war came in the 266th cycle, when it was
discovered that many elven clans had been corrupted by demons and other
foul creatures from the other planes.  For the next 19 cycles, the elves
fought a bloody civil war, tearing their nation asunder.  Whole colonies
were wiped out during the worst years of the war as both sides were
forced to drastic measures.
        Sometime during these turbulent years, the navy of the Kingdom of
Aldavilya rose to dominate the space lanes, and would be the core of
what is today the Elven Fleet.  The Fleet of Aldavilya gathered the
scattered forces of the goodly elves into alliance, driving the
corrupted forces back and eventually defeated them.  Some were driven to
Outreach, where they hid while the Aldavilya forces destroyed their
spelljammers, while others found safe haven in underground caves and
caverns.  Aldavilya would emerge victorious and the most powerful nation
following the Elven Civil War.
        Aldavilya, in the years following the war, was left with a monumental
task of rebuilding the spelljammers that linked elven colonies
together.  Eager to take advantage of a near monopoly on spelljamming
traffic, the merchants of Aldavilya sought new ways to build ships
quickly and in great quantities.  They experimented with the Starfly
plants, even growing the first flitters before the end of the Civil
War.  The first Man-O-War, the 15 ton Estel, was launched in the year of
the Dragon of the 268th cycle.
        Contact between Aldavilya and other elven nations beyond the Maelstrom
came during the year of the Hare of the 301st cycle.  The event was not
a welcomed one, causing some confusion and outrage among many elven
nobles.  Despite their similarities, the elves of the Maelstrom had
their own history and culture, and the visitors were not well received.
Eventually, war broke out in the year of the Stallion of the 311th
cycle, a short but bloody affair that affirmed Aldavilya's superiority
over the Maelstrom.  Eventually, a truce was drawn up that brought
Aldavilya into the Elven Fleet but conceded her right to approve or
dismiss the local Admiral.  The truce also secured Twilitespace as the
local headquarters, putting the Admirals of the other spheres of the
Maelstrom subordinate to the Twilitespace Admiral.  The truce also gave
Aldavilya the right to appoint the first ten admirals to Twilitespace,
drawn from their own nobility.
        Despite the expansion of the Crux civilization to other worlds,
starting in the 375th cycle, the Elven Fleet had no wars with the Crux
humans.  The elves kept to their forests and meadows, while the Crux
sought warmer deserts and jungles as their domains.  There was brisk
trade between them, but generally they avoided one another.  Of greater
importance was the rise of dwarves, a curious race that originated in
Diamondspace but expanded rapidly to the rest of the Maelstrom,
following a terrible war in the 503rd cycle.  The dwarven refugees were
initially well-received by the elves, but as they flooded elven
communities, seeds of resentment began to grow.  Despite many lesser
clashes, no major war broke out between the two, for the dwarves moved
on to the uplands they felt more comfortable dwelling in.  Aldavilya
provided much aide for the dwarves, smoothing over hard feelings between
the two races.
        The greatest challenge to elven power came in the 522nd cycle, when the
Raer began expanding rapidly into wildspace.  The powerful humans all
but conquered Icespace and held designs on other spheres, almost
guaranteeing a war between them and the elves.  A war indeed was fought
in the 523rd cycle, with the elves being forced to surrender after
several mysterious attacks by radiant dragons that left a sizable
portion of their fleet as flotsam drifting in the void.  The resources
of the Fleet were stretched too thinly to aid Crux when the Sun and
Dragon War broke out in the 528th cycle.  A second war between the elves
and the Raer broke out in 539th cycle, but the elves were forced to
unconditional surrender when the Raer burned the tree of Aldavilya.
        Under Raer rule, the Fleet became little more than an puppet fleet to
help appease the elves and keep them from rebelling.  The elves were
treated well by the Raer, but many vanished mysteriously, taken by Raer
Sorcerers to Tyrspace for their breeding programs.  The Fleet secretly
rebuilt their fleets, and Aldavilya was resettled, the great tree
surviving the deadly fire.  Despite vigorous resettlement, Aldavilya
would not regain its lost glory until modern times.
        The Raer Empire began to disintegrate in the 563rd cycle, when the
illithids invaded Banesun, finally conquering it early in the 565th
cycle.  Despite Banesun's loss, the Raer would not peak in power until
the 574th cycle and would not fall until the 602nd cycle in the Rage of
the Emperor.  During these years, the Fleet steadily grew in power,
steadily winning greater and greater freedom and independence from the
Raer.  The Raer emperors considered the liberties they were granting the
elves a small price to win them as allies.  Indeed, trade increased
between the two people and the Fleet made sure elven piracy was kept to
a minimum.  During the Rage of the Emperor, the Fleet sided with the
Emperor against the Sorcerers, finally winning total independence with
the Decree of Avalon, where the Emperor relinquished all claims to
Avalon in exchange for elvish support.
        Following the Rage of the Emperor and the collapse of the Raer Empire,
the Fleet once again emerged as the dominant force in the Maelstrom, but
only marginally so.  The illithids of Banesun attempted to expand and
conquer the rest of the Maelstrom, and the Fleet fought no less than
seven minor wars to keep them in check.  Dwarven, human, and centaur
allies were key in keeping the illithids from expanding too quickly, but
all they could do was delay the inevitable.  Fortunately, many illithids
were more interested in dominating trade rather than conquest, and both
sides settled into an uneasy peace.
        War and destruction visited the Maelstrom again in the 620th cycle,
when the god Nemesis attempted nothing less than to conquer the whole
Maelstrom.  The war was largely fought on the ground of many worlds, but
did not involve Avalon much.  Many elven tribes on other worlds were
fighting for their lives against goblin and human cultists, and many
resented the safety of their cousins at Avalon.  The Fleet provided as
much aid as they could, destroying several tribes from above but were
forced to withdraw after several ships were brought down by the powerful
priests of Nemesis.  The Fleet continued to help where they could, even
convincing several kingdoms of giants to overrun their goblin neighbors
on Chaos, depriving Nemesis of the primary source of foot soldiers and
hurrying the end of that war.
        Goblins would actually become powerful in wildspace in the decades
following the war as caches of stolen spelljamming equipment were
recovered by the surviving cultists of Cancer, a deity who followed
Nemesis.  Rallying behind a great bugbear warrior by the name of
Baleblade, the goblins of Brakenmoor became a great horde.  So powerful
was Baleblade that he even brought dreaded liches and great dragons
under his iron rule.  To further strengthen his forces, Baleblade hired
dwarves and human mercenaries in number, giving him a fleet so vast it
dwarfed even the Elven Fleet or the illithids.  In the year of the Hawk
in the 648th cycle, Baleblade began his war of conquest, taking several
moons of Chaos and began raiding all of the worlds of Twilitespace.
Though Baleblade could not take whole worlds, he did establish bases in
all of the Maelstrom to facilitate raids on trade routes.  Baleblade
almost single-handedly caused trade to collapse across all of the
Maelstrom if not for the efforts of the Elven Fleet, who fought hard to
defeat the bugbear war chief.  In a long and bloody war, the Fleet, with
dwarven and centaur allies defeated Baleblade and his minions.
        In recent years, the Elven Fleet has taken a much less active role in
wildspace.  The nation of Aldavilya has seen an increase in political
power due to the maneuverings of Cyallian of the house of Aellondul, a
powerful knight in his own right and one of the most powerful nobles of
Aldavilya.  Cyallian was key in appointing Rolinda Leafbower, a good
friend and strong supporter, to the position of Admiral of
Twilitespace.  He encouraged the new Admiral to assert her ancient right
as High Admiral of the Maelstrom.  This gave Aldavilya power it had not
seen in many cycles, a move they were only able to pull off because two
of the other four admirals were of Aldavilya birth (the Fleet's tiny
flotillas in Banesun and Tyrspace are commanded by captains). Cyallian
has no desires to rule Aldavilya, but wishes to see his homeland
restored to its former greatness.
        The appearance of the scro at the edge of the Maelstrom has caused the
elves some concern.  So far, their attacks have been confined to
Icespace and Banesun.  An effort by the scro to ally with a potent enemy
of the Fleet, the Bane Elves of Banesun, fell through hours before an
advance fleet, mainly of goblin porcupines, was to arrive at Bestial.
Fortunately, a battle between the two smashed the scro fleet, sending
them reeling.  Combined with losses in Icespace and Twilitespace, it
seems that the scro threat is, at least for the moment, over.

--
Adam Miller