Capital of Nelsaim is Mandra, established centuries ago as a meet-point between morvende weavers and the locals, who were a mixture of people from the Sartoran continent and Venn. Nelsaim has been stable for a very long time; influenced by the morvende disregard for political boundaries, its rulers have traditionally kept a very loose rein on Guilds and the militia system (modeled on Colend's) that from time to time has been raised, and even used. (After the Norsunder war, their total failure to defend their country caused the Darzei family to hire someone from the military academy at Marloven Hess to reorganize their command and training.)

Nelsaim is the gateway for trade from the wild hinterlands of the middle of Drael, and they have a peace treaty with the sunsider morvende, the symbold of which is a sword: if there are problems, that sword will vanish from the capital and reappear in the hands of the morvende. Farmland, fruits, grains, are the main crops, traded with western neighbors. In time, Eleyad and Daraen will probably reunite with Nelsaim.

Culturally they show a great deal of influence from the morvende and maulan who trade with them, using symbols left over from the ancient Venn: the tree is their symbol, yet there is no discernible connection to the ancient Tree of Ydrasal and all its implications for the Venn. The leading houses all adopted a specific type of tree as emblems, and the grades of nobility are recognized in formal array by garlands, down to the lowest rank, who displays a single leaf. The architecture shows influence from the equatorial islands in layered and segmented roofs whose open spaces beheath the overlaps can be aired in summer and closed in winter.

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