The Queendom of Æthelron

Æthelron, pronounced air-full-ron and also known as Athelron, is the original Alran kingdom.

History
Æthelron is an old nation. This comes as a surprise to many: it is a whisker by which it is the oldest nation and the Alran live for far longer than any of the other races so it is around half the number of generations old; it has had fewer wars rage across it and generally the place is full of pristine rolling hills. However, it is because of the long life spans of the Alran that Æthelron has become stuck in its cycle of decline. Each new generation of humans or duradin represents a opportunity to forge out a new destiny free from the troubles of the old and though their may be some grumbling about it 'not being done like this in my day' society moves on into new lands. With the Alran by the time they are adults they can already see the decline and the futility of struggling against it and so they become more demotivated increasing the rapidity of the very same decline.

It is this vicious cycle that has drained Æthelron of its life blood and dulled its culture into mere traditions. The days were known when the queen's territory was counted in countries but now it is constrained to Æthelron. The days were known when Æthelron was incomparably more advanced in every way than the humans and even the duradin and though they remain above both in most the comparisons are being drawn up. The days were known when the loots of far off continents were taken by the shipload straight to Alfheim now the army can barely defend Æthelron.

Culture
It is often said that Æthelron is a community protending to be a nation. This is defiantly true to an extent as due to the long life span of the Alran (elves) and the scant number of them, it is entirely plausible to say that every Alran will meet every other Alran at some point in their lives which fosters a certain degree of trust within the nation with crime being virtually unheard of. However some of the reason for this is because the Alran virtually never move from the family home and with cities and even towns being rare the average Alran may well know every other person on the island in some way but that is over shadowed by their close ties with their neighbors and family. This does make local disagreements all the more pronounced and so they are very traditionalist to show that they have not slighted their friends and family.

Æthelron is ruled by a hereditary queen who is admired by all the Alran. Anything but full support of the queen is seen as deeply dishonourable but the queen must be very careful in her actions so as to avoid upsetting her subjects. The second largest unit in Alran politics is the parish council which resolves local disputes across an area of land. These are made up of family elders and tend to occupy the same land as one extended family and even if outsiders do come to occupy the land (which is rare given that children will grow up into the family home or make their own) they are treated with suspicion. Inside of those are the family councils made up of everyone in one family. Each family council sends one member to the local parish council.

As such examining Æthelron's culture is important to understanding how it works. The Alran most of all value respect for elders. This leads to society being remarkably coherent and stable but does lead to traditionalism and dogmatism. For example the Æthelron still works upon a barter system and fairly trading and representing goods is considered vital to maintaining how society works. Another way this manifests itself is that most parishes will claim to some long forgotten event that happened there to represent their existence.

The main occupations for people in Æthelron are fishing and farming. There are few other jobs and as the days are always long there is a steady daily cycle of getting up, doing your job and then going back to sleep. Young people are dumped with the least wanted jobs such as sheep herding while the elderly do almost no work at all. Alran have a natural knack for magic and magical book writing is fairly common. On the other hand writing non-magical books is seen as frivulous and time wasting. As a result it has become common for Alran to write a half-magical half-autobiographical book of life when they approach the end of their lives.

Leadership
The leadership of Athelron was originally quite a simple system, eldest daughter of the last queen becomes the next queen. This lasted well until the death of Athelron's first leader, Alyda Zinmenor in the burning of Alfheim before the rule could even come into effect. At this point the popular, but unconnected, Mylis Kailudawn Sarphine took power where upon power lay for two generations, in Thedria Rhalyfdawn and then Ylindia Aymondawn. Yindia had two problems. Firstly her nearest female descended was a jerk and could never be queen and secondly Athelron was beginning to go down hill. To remove her nice from the succession line and inject some new ideas into the mix she decided that now a select group of families (who were or would become village leaders) would have their longest standing member be the first to be selected to become queen.

A number of these habitually turn down the offer as they want to stay in charge of their village so their are two dozen families that regularly hold the queen ship.