Five hundred years ago the Annwyn Empire fell to their doom. In their final days of desperation they recalled their fleets and armies to their home island far to the east, where some climatic battle occurred, a battle that legend says destroyed the entire island of Annwyn. No one knows for sure what happened exactly, though legends and rumors exist in multitude, but their ships are gone from the seas and no living An has been seen since those final days.
The recall happened gradually over the course of several years, as the far flung outposts gradually received the news, put their affairs in order, and withdrew their military assets. It generally did not cover civilian members of the Empire, however many civilians also headed home, out of concern for relatives and loved ones.
The vacuum left by this withdrawal often led to severe social disruption, wars and economic collapse in the regions formerly dominated by the Empire. Warlords and local governments attempted to fill the gap, but the role the Annwyn Navy played in securing the sea routes for trade was impossible to fill, and as trade declined, poverty and starvation quickly followed.
In the The Thousand Isles this period of unrest was called the Interregnum and lasted nearly two hundred years.
Annish naval and army installations were left vacant, and were eventually either incorporated into the militaries of the successor states that eventually filled the political void, or were left empty to gradually decay into ruins.