The High King of the Moonshaes

The High King of the Moonshaes is the sovereign ruler of the Moonshae Isles, representing the central authority of the Crown. This monarch maintains a delicate web of political alliances, laws, and ancient oaths to preserve order and unity across the fractured islands against the wild forces of the sea and primeval forests.

The Banishment of House Stork

Generations ago, the High King’s authority was directly challenged when the great-grandfather of Gilmore Stork defied the royal court. He married a woman closely tied to coastal raiders and pirate clans—an act of defiance that directly threatened the delicate balance of marriage alliances the Crown utilized to maintain unity. Under normal circumstances, such treasonous betrayal of the High King’s peace would carry a sentence of immediate execution.

However, the Stork family possessed a legendary lineage, descended from the dragonslayer hero Lady Tanager Alagondar. Honoring this legendary bloodline, the High King chose to spare their lives. In lieu of execution, the monarch banished the entire noble house to the far western edges of the Moonshaes, specifically to the wind-torn, storm-swept island of Stork’s Rest. The High King intended for the relentless storms, coastal raiders, and the magical, memory-stealing forest known as the Glimmering Deep to keep the family permanently occupied and isolated from royal politics.

Despite their exile, the Storks forged alliances with the very pirates and clans they married into, securing a strange foothold on the outer islands. Nonetheless, the family has harbored deep bitterness for generations, firmly believing that “their rightful place is at the High King’s side, not on a salt-scoured rock with thin soil and thinner prospects.”

The Oath of the Crown

In the exiled house of Stork’s Rest, children are raised on strict traditions, forced to swear a sacred loyalty oath dedicated to the sovereign ruler. This oath serves as a constant reminder of their lost status and their duty to the ideals of the realm:

While Gilmore Stork’s father, Thalorian, and his sister, Elire, remained deeply committed to the oath and dreamt of restoring their titles within the High King’s court, Gilmore himself felt a persistent, wilder pull toward the very sea and forest the oath swore to oppose.