Saint-Hippolyte
The crown jewel of the Arnése colonial empire, Saint-Hippolyte is a tropical island to the far west of Arné, across the Euric Ocean. At some 60,000 square kilometres, it is one of the largest islands in the Îles de Crepuscule archipelago, which lies off the Sunward coast. Its rugged, volcanic and mountain-encrusted interior means that much of this territory is largely uninhabited, with settlement favoring the low-lying coastal regions.
Revenues from Saint-Hippolyte's sugar and coffee made up a significant portion of the Crown's income on the eve of the Revolution. This trade was placed entirely in the hands of a small clique of human and dwarven mercantile interests based out of the port of Jeannais. Outside the ranks of the royal administration and this monopolistic company, most inhabitants of mainland Arné knew next to nothing about life on the island.
The island that would become known as Saint-Hippolyte was discovered by the elves of Arcadie in 1460 EC. Though rumors of lands west of the great Euric Ocean had circulated among mariners and mystics for centuries, no recorded contact was made before the Sunward Expedition of 1458-1460, which brought elvenkind to the New World. Known by the native Kin as Qisqilla, the island became a key early hub of Herculian colonization. The Herculians knew the island as La Serena, a moniker owing to the deep and protected harbor that became the site of their original settlement. This colony was dedicated to 5th-century saint Hippolytus of Optia, from which its Arnése name is drawn.
The Herculian settlers found the native population of the island a savage and primitive multitude, who were best put to work extracting gold and silver from the mountainous interior. When these deposits ran out in the 1500s, Herculian interests moved further west into the Sunward Isles, and the Crown was forced to find a new staple for La Serena's economy. Native tobacco and imported coffee soon became major crops, but nothing would be as consequential and fateful for the island as sugarcane.
The cultivation of sugarcane necessitated considerable investments of capital, labor and time. In time, this would concentrate the island's economy nearly fully in the hands of a small class of plantation owners. The initial workforce of halfling migrants proved unreliable, with tropical diseases and resistance to the back-breaking labor involved causing the available manpower to shrink rapidly. The native Kin were no longer numerous enough to suffice, either. The island soon declined into a backwater, a footnote in the Herculian Empire.
The island was ceded to Arné in 1618. The new administration hoped to reinvigorate the sugar trade, but faced similar labor shortages as their predecessors. Gradually, they began to look outwards, and downwards.
The devastating crusades in the New World and their culmination in the Deluge brought thousands and thousands of devils into elven hands. With their innate adaptability and ability to come back even from death, devils were found to be perfect workers for the hard labor of the plantation. Traditional Arnése laws afforded certain rights to different Arcadian Kin as part of the "harmonious society", but devils and native Kin had no such protections. They also had no right to own land of their own, legally practice any independent trade, or even serve in the local militias. Their only recourse was, in many cases, to sign themselves away to indentured servitude for those who did own land and property. When their lives ran out, their children and successors would find themselves facing the same fate.
The sugar industry would expand massively over the following decades. These de facto slaves, devil and otherwise, grew far more numerous than freemen. The plantation economy became the sole focus of the island, to the extent that grain now had to be imported from the metropole. The Crown instituted strict restrictions on trade to ensure it received the full bounty of the island's riches, a fact that the local Creole elites would find ever irritating.
For these elites, the Revolution presented a golden opportunity to be rid of such interference and gain autonomy and self-governance for the island. For the laborers on their fields, the Declaration of Universal Rights was a spark in a powder keg...
Îles du Crepuscule
Besides the crown jewel of Saint-Hippolyte, Arné's holdings in the archipelago include the smaller islands of Jouné, Petite-Terre, Point-Médian, Saint-Yves and Terre-Nouvelle. They are also mostly dedicated to the cultivation of sugarcane through exploited labor.
Terre-de-Soufre
A barren but strategically vital island holding approximately at the midpoint between Arné and the Sunward. Terre-de-Soufre's rugged, defensive terrain and deep anchorage have made it a key Arnése naval base for three centuries. It has only a small permanent population and produces sulfur as its only export. Terre-de-Soufre lies close to the Ivernian (previously Herculian) twin islands of Mwy Madoc and Llai Madoc.
L'Outremer and Avallen
The northernmost landmass of the Sunward holds an Arnése colonial territory commonly known as L'Outremer, or as Avallen (as named by its Ivernian discoverer). This large but sparsely uninhabited wilderness is mostly of interest for the fur trade, with "civilization" limited to small trading posts and forts along navigeable rivers. Aside from the furs, pine tar and pitch are important goods from the area.
Islands of the Fire Sea
The southern Fire Sea hosts several scattered Arnése trading posts and waystations, of which Île Parvain and Île Nocturne are notable as a naval station and penal colony, respectively.
Port-Orient
In the far east of the Straits of Aton, Arnése presence is modest. Among the bickering mercantile principalities of the region squats the fortified factory-town of Port-Orient (locally known as Landanak). Arnése spice merchants operate out of its confines, though they are bit players in the shadow of the Ivernian and Bruttian trading companies.
