Military & Security of Aerenal

"A Karrnathi general once asked what would happen if a nation attempted to invade Aerenal. A Melideth envoy considered the question politely and said: 'The Undying Court repelled a flight of dragons. What do you have that the dragons did not?'"

The God on the Hill

The military security of Aerenal rests, ultimately, on a single fact: the Undying Court is the most powerful benevolent force on Eberron, and it has demonstrated its power by repelling multiple invasions by legions of dragons from Argonnessen. No human nation, no coalition of human nations, no dragonmarked house, and no conceivable alliance of mortal powers could accomplish what the dragons have repeatedly failed to do.

The ascendant councilors of Shae Mordai, when they join their spirits in a gestalt of divine power, wield magic on a scale that has no equivalent anywhere in the world. The Undying Court can shield the island from attack, devastate an invading force, and sustain defenses for as long as the devotion of the living population endures. No one has ever tested the upper limit of this power and survived to publish their findings.

The Court's power has one critical limitation: range. The transcendent might of the ascendant councilors operates within a geographically bounded area centered on Shae Mordai and the Irian manifest zones that sustain them. Clerics of the Undying Court can draw on the Court's power to cast spells anywhere in the world — that is the nature of divine magic. But the concentrated, strategic-level force that repels dragon flights and sahuagin armadas functions only within the sphere of the Court's influence. This is why Aerenal has never expanded: the Court cannot project its power beyond the island and its immediate waters. The elves chose their sanctuary, and the sanctuary's walls are the limits of their god's reach.

The Forces of the Lines

Beneath the divine umbrella of the Court, Aerenal maintains conventional military forces — though "conventional" is relative when your soldiers have been training in techniques perfected over twenty thousand years and your commanders include deathless warriors who have been fighting since before the founding of Galifar.

Each noble line maintains its own soldiers. The line of Tolaen produces the finest warriors among the Aereni — practical, disciplined fighters who favor bronzewood weapons and half-masks in battle. Tolaen soldiers form the backbone of the island's ground forces and maintain the closest ties to the Tairnadal, sometimes training alongside them. The line of Mendyrian contributes war-wizards whose arcane capabilities exceed anything Aundair's forces can field. The line of Jhaelian provides clerics, paladins, and monks whose divine connection to the Undying Court gives them access to power that most mortal priests cannot approach.

Deathless soldiers guard the catacombs, temples, and strategic sites across the island. These are not the ascendant councilors — they are rank-and-file warriors who have been raised to the deathless state and who have been defending Aerenal for thousands of years. A deathless soldier does not tire, does not fear, does not forget, and has had millennia to perfect the art of killing. They are sustained by positive energy and the devotion of the living, and they serve as both garrison and deterrent. An invader who breaches the outer defenses of Aerenal will discover that the interior is guarded by warriors who died before the invader's civilization existed and who are still in excellent fighting form.

"I watched a deathless guardian at the gates of Shae Cairdal perform a kata. Its movements were flawless — a sequence of strikes and parries executed with a precision that no living body could match. The guardian had been performing this kata every morning for six thousand years. It had not deviated once. It did not need to. It was already perfect." — from the journal of a Khorvairian martial scholar, granted a rare audience

The Deathguard

The Deathguard is the Aereni military institution that outsiders are most likely to encounter, because it is the one that operates — however reluctantly — beyond the island's borders.

The Deathguard's mandate is the elimination of Mabaran undead: vampires, liches, ghouls, and anything animated by negative energy. Within Aerenal, this means patrolling the Mabaran manifest zones in the northern reaches and deep jungles, where dark forces creep in from the Endless Night and where the prohibition on Mabaran necromancy must be enforced. The Deathguard takes this work seriously. Mabaran undead are not merely enemies to the Aereni — they are perversions of the sacred relationship between the living and the dead, and their existence is an affront to the Undying Court. The Jhaelian line provides a disproportionate number of Deathguard members, and its agents are monks, clerics, and paladins of formidable power.

Beyond Aerenal, the Deathguard operates on a more limited basis. The institution was created to battle the corrupted spirits of the island, and its primary focus remains internal. But Deathguard agents can be found in the major cities of Khorvaire — notably in Sharn, where Mayne Jhaelian maintains the Gates of Passage in Shae Lias as both temple and embassy. These agents track Mabaran undead activity, destroy vampires and liches when they find them, and maintain a quiet vigilance against the spread of necromantic practices the Court considers abominable. They do not, however, launch crusades. The Aereni are not in the business of policing the world. They police their island, and they respond to specific threats when those threats come to their attention.

The Tairnadal

The island's most formidable conventional fighting force is not Aereni at all. The Tairnadal of the northern steppes are the warrior culture of Aerenal — separate from the Aereni in tradition, religion, and governance, but bound by an ancient alliance that has held for the full span of the island's history. When Aerenal is threatened, the Tairnadal fight alongside their cousins, and the combination of the Undying Court's divine power and the Tairnadal's martial prowess has proven unbreakable.

The Tairnadal are organized into armies, each divided into clans and bands. Three philosophical traditions shape the culture. The Valaes Tairn seek glory in battle and comprise the majority — at least three armies within Aerenal, plus the large army occupying Valenar under High King Shaeras Vadallia. The Silaes Tairn believe true glory can only be found in Xen'drik; their single army maintains twenty-one warclans, with four active in Xen'drik at any given time, pitting themselves against the deadliest threats the shattered continent has to offer. The Draleus Tairn are the smallest army — only five warclans — and widely believed to be the deadliest warriors of all. The Draleus Tairn exist because of the dragon wars. They are always preparing for the next draconic assault, and in the intervals between flights, they hunt rogue and feral dragons across Eberron. Stories persist of Draleus champions venturing into the vast plains of Argonnessen itself. They favor dragonbone weapons and armor made from dragonhide — trophies and tools in equal measure.

Tairnadal warriors may serve as mercenary marines on Aereni naval vessels, and the training fortress of Taer Senadal — designed to be attacked by rotating armies while defended by youths in the final stages of their training — is one of the most remarkable military institutions on the island.

The Navy

The line of Melideth maintains the Aereni navy — the island's primary defense against seaborne threats and the force that patrols the waters around Aerenal. The Melideth are the finest sailors on the island, and their vessels are built from livewood and bronzewood with enchantments woven into the hulls over centuries. The navy's primary concern is controlling access to Pylas Talaear and ensuring that no uninvited vessel approaches the island's coastline.

Beneath the surface, the Valraean Protectorate extends Aerenal's security into the deep waters. The line of Valraea — sea elves physically transformed by the power of the Undying Court millennia ago — governs a maritime buffer zone that encompasses the locathah communities along the western coast and serves as a barrier against the Eternal Dominion, the sahuagin empire that has launched multiple assaults against the Protectorate over the centuries. The Valraean elves brought the full power of the Undying Court to bear against the sahuagin and seized Dominion border fortresses in retaliation for attacks on the locathah. The Eternal Dominion has continued to test the Protectorate's defenses, but thus far, the might of the deathless has been sufficient to repel every assault.

The Protectorate is the one area where Aerenal has actively expanded its territorial control — extending its sphere of influence beyond the island to secure the surrounding waters. The Sibling Kings describe this as a defensive measure. The sahuagin describe it differently.

The Cairdal Blades

Where the Deathguard hunts undead and the Tairnadal fight on the battlefield, the Cairdal Blades operate in the spaces between — the intelligence service of the Undying Court, conducting covert operations across Khorvaire in ways the Sibling Kings can officially deny.

Blade agents monitor threats to Aerenal, track the movement of Mabaran artifacts, gather intelligence on the dragonmarked houses and the nations of Khorvaire, and — when necessary — act to eliminate dangers before they reach the island. A specialized unit of the Blades is believed to operate in Xen'drik, seeking to destroy artifacts of the ancient giant civilizations that the Court considers too dangerous to remain in circulation. When adventurers have just found a particularly interesting relic, the arrival of Aereni agents who want to destroy it is a complication the Court is perfectly comfortable creating.

The Blades are not numerous. They do not need to be. An Aereni spy has had a century of training, carries magical capabilities that most Khorvairian agents cannot match, and possesses the patience to spend decades cultivating a single intelligence asset. The Blades include some elves who still carry the Mark of Shadow — descendants of the shadow-marked families who remained on Aerenal when the Phiarlan departed — and their abilities in infiltration, illusion, and misdirection are formidable.

The Internal Threat

The most persistent security concern on Aerenal is not foreign invasion. It is the island itself.

The Mabaran manifest zones in the northern reaches and deep jungles produce a constant trickle of undead, shadow creatures, and dark influences that must be monitored, contained, and destroyed. The Deathguard patrols these zones continuously, and the shunned territory around Shae Deseir — the ruined city of the broken line — is a permanent wound in the island's geography: intensely haunted, saturated with unchecked Mabaran energy, and home to spirits that cannot leave and will make any living creature that enters suffer. The Aereni do not attempt to reclaim Shae Deseir. They seal it, patrol its borders, and treat it as a cautionary reminder of what happens when Mabaran power is left unchecked.

The Skullborn — elves who pursue forbidden paths to the deathless state — represent an internal security concern that the Deathguard monitors with particular vigilance. Any elf caught practicing Mabaran necromancy within Aerenal faces consequences that are swift, severe, and administered by agents who take the prohibition personally.

"You ask what defends Aerenal. The answer is: everything. The Court above, the deathless at the gates, the Tairnadal on the steppes, the Valraea beneath the waves, the Blades in the shadows, and the Deathguard at the boundary between the light and the dark. Everything on this island that is alive protects it. And so does everything that is not." — soungral of the Undying Court, addressing a delegation of Melideth naval officers