The waters around the Nelanther Isles were often regarded as the boundary between Coriel's northern seafaring routes and the southern seas. This vast, scattered archipelago of over a thousand small islands stretched from Amn all the way to the Trackless Sea.
More than half the islands here lacked fresh water and were unsuitable for docking and resupplying. Yet a few possessed drinkable water and could barely sustain life, drawing pirates eager to seize them for themselves—pirates who preyed upon ships from Amn, Calimshan, the Sword Coast, and the Moonshadow Archipelago. After all, the narrow Asevir Strait between the Nelanther Isles and the Vhaeraun Peninsula was an unavoidable passage for every ship traveling between the northern and southern seas!
Merchants could hardly make a huge detour into the Trackless Sea just to avoid the pirates that constantly emerged here.
That was the territory of the Squid Collective, while unknown routes and the deep sea meant even more unpredictable dangers. Often, a sudden storm was enough to send one into the bottomless depths beneath the raging waves of Umberlee, goddess of the sea.
And this trend rapidly expanded alongside the suddenly flourishing trade of Amn, Water-Drawing City, and Minas Tirith in the Northlands along the northern coast.
Aside from the brutality and plunder they depended upon for survival, the pirates of Nelanther were nothing like their counterparts on the Dragon Coast or in the north.
Most pirates on the Dragon Coast and in the north were humans or demihumans, whereas the pirates of the Nelanther Isles were predominantly nonhuman races—Orcs, Lizardfolk, Ogres, and Minotaurs.
Some of those thugs would occasionally observe a bit of chivalry for the sake of long-term prosperity. The pirates of the Nelanther Isles, however, often tortured their captives without restraint to squeeze out their last scrap of value,