Sharis

Sharis (High Secote: ⰞⰀⰓⰉⰔⰟ, Šarisŭ) is a Terophatic island in the eastern Gulf of Khabbat, lying off the west coast of metropolitan Terophan. Of Sharis' population of 2 million, around half live in the city of Kilinah on the northeastern coast of the island, and 300,000 in the historic town of Osan further south. The majority of the island's population are Rasheem, and there are significant Agar and Lacrean minorities. Sharis is administered formally by the Champions of the Cayvore, an autonomous military order that originated as a column of Agar pièches in the Neritsovid era.

From the early Neritsovid period, Sharis was dominated by the city of Osan, and closely connected to the emergent trade leagues in the south of the empire. Osan was chosen by the trade leagues for the conclusion of the agreement that led to the War of the Pact of Osan in 1611, and subsequently served as an important maritime stronghold of the Pact in the course of the war. The siege of Osan, in which the Champions of the Cayvore played a leading role, decided the war for Emperor Lyudodar, who awarded the entire island to the Champions in gratitude at the Cession of Ekhpur in 1617. The Champions established a coastal citadel named Mụrskụlinnake that soon grew into a fledgling city, and remained loyal to the Neritsovid crown until the Great Imperial Restoration. Though inheriting a loose friendship with the Legitimists to the north, the Champions remained largely neutral in the Crown Wars that followed, and with the support of an ascendant Lacre in the late 18th century Sharis became an effectively independent island-state until the Great Peninsular War, when a naval show of force by the Terophites in 1839 provoked the Champions to pledge loyalty to Spytihnev the Arbitrator.

The 1845 Treaty of Tharamann restored the island's status for a short time, but by breaking their neutrality in the war the Champions' hopes of continued independence were now forfeit. They agreed to transfer their allegiance to Azophin eight years later in 1853, and the island remained nominally in Azophine hands until 1942. Then, at the height of the Long War, Vsevolod the Great ceded considerable concessions to the Champions to secure their loyalty in the conflicts against Azophin and Agamar, ejecting the Azophine garrison and supervising their subsequent integration into the resurgent Terophatic Empire. Though the military responsibilities of the Champions have declined in the years since the Long War, Sharis remains an autonomous province of Terophan and an important naval base of the empire.