Danara¶
"Their legacy of abundant magic lives on in the countless Hollows that dot the ruined landscape." — of the Isle of Danar (S324)
Danara is "a large island/subcontinent in the south west" of Numenia that "forms the south western coast of the Thalatian Sea". It is the homeland of the Danari, who "are originally from the island of Danara" and whom the oldest gazetteer calls "a 'backwards' society before the Shattering, but due to their location, they have since been very successful". The ancient red-granite kingdom of Pesh stood here, and the pirate haven of Azmeran and the wizards' island of Lhan lay on the sea around it. In the Fifth Age the island is the Isle of Danar, "utterly destroyed during the age of the Dark Sun", a Hollow-strewn waste that the Sancturi Empire tried for sixty years to colonise and abandoned.
Also called: the Isle of Danar, Danar (in the Sancturi sources).
| Page | What it is |
|---|---|
| Pesh | The ancient Danari kingdom of red granite, the "Red Kingdom", destroyed before the Sancturi age |
| Azmeran | The island pirate haven of about 8,000 souls |
The Age of Magic¶
The old gazetteers make Danara a subcontinent in its own right and the Thalatian Sea's south-western shore, with Pesh the great power upon it. Its people traced "recorded histories and bloodlines ... back almost twenty thousand years, before the Ruined Sea cut off the island from the rest of Numenia", and from it the Danari spread to "dominate and rule most of the south-western part of the continent".
The Ruined Sea¶
The oldest Numenian gazetteer names the waters about Danara the Ruined Sea, with Pesh on an island "in the South Ruined Sea", Azmeran raiding "the cities of the Ruined coast" and a power "on the Inner Sea", and Lhan on an island "on the western edge of the Ruined Sea". The Compendium that absorbed it instead has Pesh on "the large island of Danara in the South Broken Sea" while keeping the Ruined Sea for the pirates. The Broken Sea sources of the Fifth Age call the whole inland sea the Broken Sea.
Gap
No source states whether the Ruined Sea, the Inner Sea and the Broken Sea are one body of water under changing names.
Lhan¶
A small island kingdom "on the western edge of the Ruined Sea" ruled by the order of the Wizards of Lhan, where "only members of the order are welcome". About two centuries before the Compendium's present the wizards attempted a coup to rule "most of the nations of Numenia"; "the plot was discovered early, and while many wizards sided with the kingdoms, the city of Lhan was razed to the ground and its great libraries burned. Almost 90% of the known wizards were hunted down afterward. This event is referred to as 'The great fire of ignorance' by arcane academics and is generally held to be responsible for setting the development of arcane magic back nearly a thousand years."
The Isle of Ammaine¶
A heading only in the unfinished gazetteers of Numenia; nothing was written beneath it.
The Isle of Danar¶
"Pesh and the other kingdoms on the Isle of Danar were utterly destroyed during the age of the Dark Sun. However, their legacy of abundant magic lives on in the countless Hollows that dot the ruined landscape. Scavengers, Oesterkull and Lizardfolk are the only people that seem desperate, brave or foolhardy enough to inhabit these lands."
In the late 590s SM the Sancturi identified Danar as a "good prospect" for expansion. The Danar Campaign (Obsidian Legions 614 to 674 SM, Nightshade Legions 617 to 652 SM) planted settlements "on the island of Danar" in Southern Danar in 614 SM and "again at a second location in 617 SM (Pesh)". "Raids by Oesterkull and Orcs were consistent problems. However, it was the enmity of the Wights and their armies of corporeal and incorporeal undead, as well as undead plagues, blights and roaming monsters that lead to the eventual abandonment of both provinces on the island in 652 SM (Pesh) and 674 SM (Southern Danar). One result of this campaign was the development of Namakan Runebinding" (see the Sancturi Campaigns).
Gap
No source describes the island's interior, its other kingdoms before the Dark Sun, or what remains of the Sancturi settlements after 674 SM.