The Sea Rangers
It is known how our folk came to inhabit these isolated island fastnesses of Umircea. We are those who chose to live a civilized life and yet always we chose to live apart. So it was that we, when we recognised ourselves for what we were, peopled a village among wild hunters, a town among small farms, and when the gobli and human kind went to war we built out city amidst the sea and left them to their warring.
And so it was that we chose to expand to other isles, to seek safe havens in the seas and waterways near the coast and to treat with others from fortified hold fasts, or on the coast from ships in strength.
When we found a lonely shore we would note it and the resources there found. We were always short of good lumber so often lumberman followed close on the heals of explorers. With good timber we built great ships to range up and down the coast. Other coastal people would try to compete, but we were the first and easily the best tradesmen. We ranged north of our northerly home to trade for iron and gold with the Rus and far to the south for spices, cotton, and sugar from far to the south of the great Khan. We are the Kings of the great Western Ocean.
We have become a great people, but we have not forgotten how we came out of the Gaels who had enslaved our fathers over the Eastern mountains. Nor have we forgotten that our fathers came from a land beyond even the stars. All this we, the Navigators, remember.
Are we not the true sons of Captain Bailey and his sky sailors? We have lost the stars for now, but wide we range upon the Seas even, it is said, beyond the spine of the world. Though none have returned from the far side of the world, one day they will.
