Cities of the Seabreeze

The Cities of the Seabreeze was a name given to a series of cities lying along the southern shore of the Shining Sea on the Chultan Peninsula by the 14th century DR. The name was sometimes mistakenly applied to only the cities of the Lapal League, but it actually included a few other realms and independent city-states. The area was also known as Tashtan.

The Cities of the Seabreeze, from west to east, were:
 * Narubel, part of the realm of Thindol;
 * Tashluta, the capital of the Tashalar;
 * Procalith, a city-state destroyed in 1142 DR;
 * Sammaresh, Untisczer (destroyed in 285 DR), Uzurr, Ithmong, Lushpool, Sheirlantar, and Sheirtalar, the cities of Lapaliiya; and
 * Ormpur, an independent city-state.

History
The Cities of the Seabreeze had a shared history and culture, having been settled and conquered together by various forces, from the yuan-ti to the Shoon Imperium.

The land was once a subject of the yuan-ti empire of Serpentes, but the empire fell into decline and infighting when its emperor Sseth vanished in the Year of Dreams, 10 DR. After a successful revolt, the humans of the Tashalar marched east, liberating the Cities of the Seabreeze one by one and driving out the yuan-ti. In the Year of Purloined Power, 34 DR, the new Confederation of Tashtan claimed all the southern Shining Sea coastlands, and all the various humans living there came to be called Tashalans (an admixture of Lapaliiyans, Calishites, Chultans, and Tashtan-dwelling Shaarans). This began a time of prosperity for the Tashtan cities.

The slayings of a dozen Tashalaran merchant lords in the late 270s DR left Tashtan in a leadership crisis and ill-equipped to resist the demands of Qysara Shoon V (281–300 DR) of the Shoon Imperium that the Cities of the Seabreeze host garrisons of imperial soldiers. In the Year of Wasteful Pride, 285 DR, the Shoon Imperium snatched control of Lapaliiya, but its cities remained effectively independent. The Lapaliiyan city of Untisczer rebelled and, though it was quashed, Shoon V had cause to launch the Tashalar Campaigns. Untisczer was obliterated as a show of force and the remaining Tashtan cities were captured and installed with military governors, all possessions of the Shoon Imperium.

In the Year of Secret Slaughters, 326 DR, the Magister Onsilur Maerdrathom forced the satraps who governed the cities of the Tashtan Coast in the name of the Shoon Imperium to give all arcane magic-users legal protection and standing, and also quelled conflicts between battling mages. However, Qysar Shoon VII had his satraps hire other mages to kill the Magister, so that the Cities of the Seabreeze would remain disunited and feuding, and no threat to the empire.

The Shoon Imperium finally fell in the Year of the Corrie Fist, 450 DR. The imperial garrisons were driven out of Lapaliiya and the viceroy killed in the Tashalar by the close of the Year of Unleashed Fears, 451 DR. The Tashtan cities broke up into separate nations and independent city-states.

In the Year of the Sword's Oath, 1142 DR, the Coiled Cabal, a group of yuan-ti pureblood mages, attempted to reconquer the Cities of the Seabreeze. They were opposed by over two dozen archmages of Lapaliiya and Tashluta, who fought first the yuan-ti, then each other as they vied for their own power. For a full season, in a conflict called the Rage of Wizards, they waged wild spell battles up and down the Tashtan Coast. By its end, the cities of Lapaliiya and the Tashalar had suffered gratuitous destruction, but not one wizard or yuan-ti had won a single crown.