Shadoran
The Kingdom of Shadoran (Sâdôra) was the most important of the Seven Kingdoms of the Grand Empire of the Shield. In the new United Kingdom of Iansisle, Shadoran is still used unofficially as a territorial and cultural division, although it has lost all of its former status.
Erarde
Expeditions by the Sentrian Empire to the eastern Shield in the mid 400s found a largely unorganized semi-tribal society with no system of writing and an economy based on hunting and gathering. The largest of these tribes, who referred to themselves as the ‘Sâdôrar’ in the Ancient Shieldian tongue, controlled a territory stretching roughly from the right bank of the River Daldon to the left bank of the River Jaizar by extorting tribute from weaker tribes.
The leader of this tribe, called the ‘Erar,’ which translates roughly as ‘leader’ or ‘chief,’ soon became dependent on Sentrian support to maintain control. In 559, Dalân Erar Sâdôraon surrendered complete control of his Erarde, which began a five hundred year period of foreign rule over Shadoran. The area was one of the most peaceful, as the population soon adjusted to Sentrian control and furnished thousands of soldiers to fight and die in places from Weshield to Dianatran.
In 1049, the Sentrian Emperor rewarded the Shadoranite House of Cagâna by creating them ‘Governors of Shadoran,’ although the Cagânas always styled themselves Erar Sâdôraon. In 1091, Odama Erar Sâdôraon personally led a force which helped the Prince of Mansbâr to crush the Sentrian Army, after which he regained full control of his Erarde. Shadoran competed with its newly independent neighbor states for trade and territory until 1176, when the first wave of Dianatranian invasions hit from across the River Jaizar. The young Toto Erar Sâdôraon was quickly overwhelmed and deposed, leading to the creation of a ‘Barony of Shadoran’ lorded over by Dianatranian exiles.
However, if Shadoraon was the first to fall, it was also the first to regain complete independence. Metîoya Erar Sâdôraon drove out Fredrick II Rashmatt von Shadoran and reclaimed the throne of his ancestors. The invaders settled down to become model citizens in a Shieldian state too exhausted to oppress them, and inside of five generations no difference could be told between Shieldian and Dianatranian exile.
Odam Erar Sâdôraon died without an heir in 1311 and control of the Erarde passed to the House of Ranosa and Nàmera, a distant relative of the Cagânas. In 1315, Dàmana Erar Mansbâr-Oeseld (Weshield) declared himself ‘Dàmana I Res Seldaon,’ the King of the Shield. While Oclyfe (Wyclyfe), Mansbâr Nor (Mansford), and Tórtrâia (Thortraia) declared themselves against Dàmana and his pan-Shieldian monarchy, Nàmera supported him and made war on the other kingdoms. Dàmana rewarded him by declaring him the ‘Duke of Shadoran’ in 1320, when the war was won. However, the universal monarchy would prove to be unstable and could not survive Dàmana’s death in 1348. In 1359, Edûla II Ranosa Duke of Shadoran saw which way the wind was blowing and joined five other major nobles of the Dàmanáoy monarchy in declaring themselves royalty equal to the Res Mansbâr-Oeseld.
Kingdom
Although Edûla II envisioned a long lasting and mighty dynasty for the House of Ranosa, he was soon undone. His brother, Nàmera III, married Mary of Callahan, the daughter of a powerful Dianatranian-Shieldian family from the banks of the Jaizar. After Edûla and his heirs died in 1360-61. Nàmera himself died childless in late 1361 and by Shadoranite common law, Mary inherited the throne. Mary was forced by family pressures to abdicate after only four days in favor of her brother John, creating the dynasty of the House of Callahan.
Under the Callahans, Shadoran would rise to rival the might of the Weshieldian Kingdom. The main power of Shadoran resided in her powerful navy, which protected Shadoranite interests from Dianatran to Gallaga and twice defeated the larger Weshieldian navy in pitched battle. A series of royal marriages between Shadoran and her weaker neighbor Vesshampton sealed an alliance that would never be broken. By 1650, Shadoran was acknowledged around the Shield as the premier power.
However, power bred jealousy, and soon an alliance of Wyclyfe, Thortraia, Mansford, and the Javian Kingdom of the Foothills sought to challenge Shadoranite preeminence. Weshield almost joined the allies, but the defeat of her fleet in port by Shadoran’s navy convinced the Weshielders to fall in on the Shadoran-Vesshampton side or risk the destruction of their overseas commerce. In 1660, the war was going so well that Michael V of Shadoran reconsidered the concept of a Dàmanáoy universal monarchy. Unfortunately for the ambitious Michael, a series of defeats in the northern Daldon basin and the invasion of Shadoran by a powerful Javian force turned the fight from one for power to one for survival. Michael was killed in the siege of Dûn Sâdôra in 1667, leaving his infant son Ian IV as King of Shadoran.
Ian, after reaching the age of majority, devised a new strategy in the war for Shadoran. Dûn Sâdôra was abandoned and a new fortress on Adie’s Island, Dûn Ádien, was constructed. Shadoran used her naval power to counter the land power of the Javian Kingdom and turned the tide. Meanwhile, her allies were slowly absorbed into an amorphous feudal state which Ian termed the ‘Grand Empire.’ In 1697 the Javian Kingdom surrendered and agreed to become Ian’s vassals, and the universal monarchy had been established without anyone noticing.
Grand Empire
See complete article: Grand Empire of the Shield
The Grand Empire was not a nation-state in the traditional sense of the word, but rather a gathering of independent kingdoms, each of which exchanged parts of their sovereignty to Shadoran in return for protection. The King of Shadoran was also the High King of the Empire, though (in theory) any of the other Great Houses of the Shield could claim the title. The military was organized into a single ‘Shieldian’ force and wielded to great effect against the Empire’s neighbors.
In 1952, the old, corrupt Grand Empire was overthrown seemingly overnight in the Gull Flag Revolution, which reformed the Shield as a ‘United Kingdom’ in which Shadoran and the other six kingdoms receive no official recognition.
