"Though nowadays known more famously as the Darian Archipelago, the Kahra'Alani's Hoan roots still persist through the decades of colonization and piratization it has gone through. The Admiralty may be the dominant power here, controlling trade through the Thunder Sea and terrorizing those who would refuse to pay it's exhorbitant prices, but even they have adopted many of the natives' practices and made it into their own."
- "How Dorland conquered the Kahra'Alani" by Amira Swiftdew, 1192 C.F.
The Kahra'Alani Archipelago (colloquially referred to as the Darian Archipelago) is a stormy region that lies in the middle of the Thunder Sea, uncharacteristically warm and humid owing to the volcanic activity around it's various islands. While it is home to several local races who have long lived both below and above the waters, it is best known for the free city of Daria and it's pirate lords.
With it's reach across all of the important trading routes of the Thunder Sea, the ruling elite of Daria, it's admiralty exercises control from the comfort of their flourishing city with wealth claimed from passing merchants - extracted either by the hands of a toll collector or the point of a sword. By assuring safe passage to all whom pass through the city and pay it's hefty tariffs, the city maintains a steady flow of wealth; and by letting their pirate fleets loose on those who attempt to skip the toll the bloodthirst of it's most vile scoundrels is sated.
It is by the virtue of a unique weapon manufactured only in Daria that the city maintains it's stranglehold on the archipelago and much of the whole Thunder Sea, a mysterious and destructive alchemical conconction called black powder. Even to the locals it is an enigma how it is made, the rumours ranging from complex arcane procedures to eldricht rites pulled straight from the nine hells.
Whatever the origins of this strange weapon, it has altered the destiny of the Thunder Sea since it's conception and has shaped the city of Daria to the melting pot of hot-blooded rogues and scoundrels it is today.