Kyonin
The homeland of the elven race on Golarion, Kyonin (pronounced ky-OH-nihn) was almost completely evacuated by the elves just before the fall of the Starstone in -5293 AR. They only recently (by elven standards) returned to Golarion to reclaim their ancient homeland and have become an isolationist realm, allowing few non-elven visitors into their mist-shrouded capital, Iadara.
Kyonin may not always have been known as Kyonin and has not always had the same borders as it has today, but it has always been the spiritual homeland of the elves. It is unknown exactly how long elves have resided there. Before Earthfall, the elves did not measure time in any meaningful way, only by the great astrological cycles and the ebb and flow of the seasons. Certainly Kyonin was inhabited for a very long time before Earthfall, as numerous ruins of monuments, buildings, fountains, orreries, and sculptures still dot the forests north of the Five Kings Mountains. The elves lived in harmony with the land during this period, as the structures they built seem to grow from the landscape itself.
History
Filled with pastoral beauty and picturesque landscapes, Kyonin is the largest nation of elves on Golarion. Although even their own scholars are hard-pressed to say when and where the elves first arose, all agree that the rolling fields and deep, vibrant forests of Kyonin are where their hearts lie. For countless thousands of years, the elves lived in harmony with the land, building elegant settlements that seemingly grew from the landscape itself, or else festooning the land with monuments and fountains, orreries and sculptures of unknown meaning and function. The ancient, abandoned ruins of these structures still dot the Fierani Forest north of the Five Kings Mountains. These idyllic times came to an abrupt end just before Earthfall, when elves from across the world gathered in Kyonin to step through the gate created by the sacred Sovyrian Stone and abandoned Golarion to the coming cataclysm, traveling across unknown distances to their mysterious community of Sovyrian—the unknown country or world from which they are whispered to have originated. What transpired in this far-off land is unknown to outsiders, but for thousands of years the elves remained missing, leaving behind only a few stragglers and stewards to watch over their former homes during their long absence.
These days Kyonin is a standoffish realm, a serene place where the elves can seek refuge from a human-focused world paced far too quickly for their tastes. While gnomes, being closely tied to nature and the fey of the First World, are largely tolerated by the elves, the few visitors from other races allowed within Kyonin’s borders are pointed toward the human-run community of Greengold.
Where the vast majority of Golarion’s elves fled to just before Earthfall remains one of the great mysteries of the Inner Sea region. This mysterious elven retreat, known as Sovyrian, may merely be a hidden bolthole, or it may be the true elven home world. Although long-lived, no elf living today was alive when the elves returned to Golarion during the Age of Enthronement, and the truth of what Sovyrian may be is one of the race’s most closely-guarded secrets.
During the long centuries of elven abandonment, those who had been left behind gradually grew away from their traditions, becoming erratic hermits or assimilating into the barbaric human societies as the long- lived Forlorn. Those loyalists who remained in Kyonin kept primarily to Iadara, their illusion-shrouded capital, and carefully protected their racial lore. Locked up behind their graceful walls, the residents of Iadara could only watch in frustration as their abandoned communities were looted by vandals and bandits, their former homes annexed by tribes of squatters. Artifacts and treasures stolen from fallow communities flooded the markets of Avistan, and to this day many elves of Kyonin consider their sale a slight against elvenkind.
Yet sprawling human nations were hardly the greatest threat to beset Kyonin during the dark years of the elves’ absence. In 2497 ar, the great demon Cyth-V’sug, Lord of Filth and Pollution, exiled his minion Treerazer, the self- styled Lord of the Blasted Tarn, to the Material Plane in a fit of rage. Suddenly finding himself among the lush, carefully tended trees of the southern Fierani Forest, Treerazer quickly realized that his prison could also be his playground, and immediately set about sucking the life from the forest, poisoning the very earth with his fecund filth. At his touch, the wilderness grew twisted and dark in southern Kyonin, and men and elves alike feared to tread within its borders. As the demon pressed north and encountered Iadara, however, he discovered the true scope of his opportunity. With whispered feelers probing the minds of the remaining elves, he learned of the Sovyrian Stone, and set about trying to corrupt it, attempting to break its connection to the elves’ strange refuge and use its power to bring Golarion in line with the Abyss, opening its gates to the demonic hordes.
In faraway Sovyrian, the elves felt the shift and took action. In a great procession that took weeks to complete, the elves marched back through the portal and into Golarion, the sun shining on their armor and flowing pennants. With sword and spell they descended on the corrupted woods, cleansing the land and driving Treerazer back into the southern reaches of the forest. There, however, the demon entrenched himself, and despite their best efforts, the elves were unable to truly slay the Lord of the Blasted Tarn. Instead, they wrote off the tainted groves as lost, naming the dark section of woods the Tanglebriar and setting guards to watch it, lest the demon attempt to stray beyond the polluted vale’s borders once more.
The demon dealt with, if only temporarily, the elves looked around for the next threat, expecting at any moment to be descended upon by teeming hordes of humans. Instead, they found the land had recovered from the Age of Darkness following Earthfall far more quickly than they had projected, with their former human adversaries now deep in the Age of Enthronement—an era of relative civilization and ref inement. Believing these new human nations capable of reason, the elves elected not to use the Sovyrian Stone to leave once more, and instead proceeded to go forth into the world, intent on retaking former holdings and resuming their residence among Golarion’s green places, starting with the abandoned communities in Kyonin.