Corpus Tamrielicum - The Imperial Library

[70] Wayrest, Jewel of the Bay
[70] WAYREST, JEWEL OF THE BAY
Wayrest, Jewel of the Bay
by Sathyr Longleat
Wayrest is one of the most glorious cities of western Tamriel: sparkling in her contemporary
beauty, lustrous by her past. She is prized above all cities in High Rock -- no other city has
contributed, and continues to contribute so much to the culture of the Bretons. The spirits of
her genius children continue to haunt the streets; you can see them in the gabled roofs, grand
boulevards, aromatic marketplaces. The people of Wayrest have an instictive appreciation of
their past, but are not obsessed by it, as the people of Daggerfall seem to be. One feels that
one is in a modern city when one visits Wayrest, but there is a magic in the air that could only
come from thirty-two centuries of civilization.
It is difficult for historians to declare a certain date for the foundation of Wayrest. A
settlement of some variety had been existence where the Bjoulsae River feeds the Iliac Bay
possibly since the 800th year of the First Era. The traders and fishermen of Wayrest were
surrounded by hostile parties: the orc capitol Orsinium had grown like a poison weed to the
north, and the Akaviri pirates and raiders crowded the islands to the west. There is no mystery
to Wayrest's name. After the fighting most travellers had to endure passing through the
eastern end of the Iliac Bay, the little fishing village on the Bjoulsae was a welcome rest.
Nowhere in the much vaunted censuses of the Skyrim Occupation is Wayrest mentioned. In
the Annals of Daggerfall, King Joile's letter to Gaiden Shinji of the Order of Diagna contains
the following reference: "The orcs have been much plaguing the Wayresters and impeding
traffic to the heart of the land." The date given for the letter was 1E 948.
Wayrest only truly bloomed after the razing of Orsinium in 1E 980. The hard-working traders
and merchants were instrumental in forming the Masconian Trade Way and thus reducing the
pirate activity on the Bay. At this time, Wayrest occupied both banks of the Bjoulsae. A
successful mercantile family, the Gardners, built a walled palace on the High Rock side of the
river and, over time, allowed banks and other businesses within its walls. It was a Gardner,
Farangel, who was proclaimed king when Wayrest accepted ambassadors from the Camorian
Empire, and was granted the right to call itself a kingdom in the 1100th year of the 1st Era.
Although Wayrest became a kingdom under the command of one family, the merchants
continued to wield incredible power. Many economists have alleged that Wayrest's eternal
wealth, despite all her hardships, comes from this rare relationship between the merchants and
the crown. The Gardner Dynasty fell, followed by the Cumberland Dynasty, which was
followed by the Horley Dynasty, and finally, in the Third Era, the Septim Dynasty. No citizen
of another kingdom of comparable age can, with one hand, name all the families who have
ever ruled. Never has a king of Wayrest been deposed by revolution or assassination. Except
for those of the Septim family, every king of Wayrest can trace his line back to a merchant
prince of Wayrest. The merchants and king respect one another, and this relationship
strengthens both.
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