Galen’s Morning Light
Galen, added alongside Y’ffelon in ESO’s Firesong DLC, feels like the point where the Systres archipelago finally tips from Breton politics into druid heartland. It sits to the north‑west of High Isle and just west of the smoking cone of Y’ffelon, and its mix of open plains, thick woodland, and creeping jungle gives it a more untamed character than its neighbour. The sense is very much that this is where the archipelago’s roots lie, even if the Breton nobility have been trying to shape it to their needs for centuries.
Vastyr, on the south coast, is the island’s main city. During the Interregnum it acts as House Mornard’s seat of power, its cathedral‑crowned cliffs and harbour walls making their authority visible long before you step through the gates. Count Leonard Mornard oversees the island from here, but the story makes it clear that his reach is patchy: druids govern their own enclaves and the wilds beyond the roads essentially run on druid law and custom. Later histories note that House Mornard’s fortunes never fully recover from their part in mishandling the Knahaten Flu and backing King Ranser’s doomed war against Emeric, leaving them with mining interests, trade routes, and Amenos prison rather than the full dukedom they once enjoyed.
The island breaks down into three broad biomes. To the south, around Vastyr and the coast, the land bears the marks of Breton settlement: fields, vineyards, hunting lodges, and a network of roads connecting outlying farms and watchtowers. To the west, dense forests hide druid circles, stone circles, and the ruins of older structures half‑swallowed by moss, while the north thickens into more tangled jungle where paths twist around towering roots and waterfalls. Volcanic activity leaks in from Y’ffelon along the eastern side, especially around delves such as Embervine, Ivyhame, and the lava‑ringed Llanshara, where fissures, ash, and bubbling pools give the impression that the island’s underlying geology is still shifting. Volcanic Vents world events flare up at points like Llanshara and the Vastyr outskirts, with Stonelore druids asking you to help seal eruptions before they can do more damage.
Druidic ruins and living circles are scattered across all of this, and they are what give Galen its particular weight. The Druids of Galen are remembered in Breton history as the ones who first began shaping the Systres into a refuge, using nature magic to stabilise and green islands that would otherwise have been much harsher places to live. Firesong’s quests fill in the picture: Stonelore, Eldertide, and Firesong druids each claim to carry forward a piece of the True Way, and ancient sites in the jungle and on the coasts hint at the work they did in taming both Galen and Y’ffelon. The idea that they helped terraform the archipelago—making Y’ffelon, in particular, something more than a bare volcanic spike—sits quietly under much of the dialogue here.
House Mornard’s story is woven tightly into this backdrop. Once broader rulers of the Systres, they are now effectively confined to Galen and forced to negotiate with druid circles they once treated as subjects. The main questline has you working with Sir Stefan Mornard and Druid Laurel to repel the Dreadsail and Firesong assault on Vastyr, rescue captives from Draoife Dell, and eventually confront Archdruid Orlaith over her plans for the three sacred seeds. The Dreadsails make full use of Galen’s exposed shores and the chaos of the Three Banners War to raid and pressure the island, underlining how thin its defences have become.
Even its name carries layers. In‑game lore suggests several possible origins: that Galen was named for a Nedic figure who became the first druid queen, for an island on a lake tied to the rise of the True Way, or for a tutelary spirit said to have taught proto‑Bretons the first druidic practices. None of these versions is nailed down as canon, but taken together they reflect how strongly the island is associated with beginnings, teachings, and the old agreements between people and land.
Walking Galen now, with druid enclaves rebuilding and House Mornard diminished but still present in Vastyr, you get the sense of a place shaped as much by those older pacts as by any recent war or treaty. The varied biomes, the constant rumble from Y’ffelon, and the mix of Breton stonework and druid standing stones make it feel like a hinge between natural forces and human ambition, and a space where new stories can lean on a surprisingly deep stack of history.
