The Ackori Isles are found off the coast of Counterroundwards Luxiterra, consisting of the largest Isle Great Ackos, Lesser Ackos to its Lightwards, the three Sail's End Isles far to the Counterroundwards, Ambitar to the Roundwards, and many smaller islands. Tropical, and battered by near constant storms, they were legendarily originally settled by a native population of shark men who may have links to the origin of the Socthys mythology. Regardless of the truth of these legends, any shark men are long gone, replaced by a group of the Xilaq people, who would become known as the Xilaq Jis. The Xilaq Jis built a number of settlements across the archipelago, some of which stood for several centuries and grew to the size of small cities. Xilaq Jis society was very familial, with great families acting as political units within the settlements and islands, with more powerful families lording it over weaker families.
It was this way until it was colonised by Magnapuri Empire, one of the furthest locations from Magnapur that the Empire reached, and by far the most Counterroundwards along the Lightwards edge of the Sabhyan Ocean, and as such one of the last colonies established by the Empire. The Isles had been trading with some of the nearer Imperial cities for at least half a century beforehand, selling its magnificent purple dye produced from the shells of a type of crab native only to the islands. However in 791 YM, a war between two of the leading families over a marriage pact gone hideously wrong had caused the dye industry to almost entirely dry up for a couple of years. Imperial General Steelstroke of the Line of Dost and Dast was called in by the Kirivic family, the losing side, to end the conflict, in return for what the Xilaq Jis thought would be a favourable trading relationship and alliance. Though the war has long since ended, many even now spit on the Kirivic name. At the head of an army of Broken Men and elvish wizards, Steelstroke built a fortress as a beachhead on Great Ackos, and proceeded to send out diplomats initially to the involved parties in the conflict, and later to the other significant families of the Ackori Isles.
The General was quick to learn that Ackori politics were complicated, and that the families had a strict sense of order and hierarchy amongst themselves ("Xilaq Jis" even translates loosely to "Ordered People"). He instructed the diplomat Poledes to investigate, and provide him with information as to the power and influence of each family. It is from this that Poledes' great work, the Hierarchy of Ackor, was written, an epic five thousand page tome detailing a history and influence each of the Xilaq Jis families, and, in an appendix that none at the time would realise the great repercussions of, a numbered hierarchy of the power and influence of each family from most to least influential. It took Poledes seven years to write this masterwork, in which time he failed to respond to any summons back to Steelstroke's court. When he returned with the finished piece, Steelstroke was so angry at his delay that he had the diplomat beaten to death with his own book. He did however keep the book, noting that it would be useful even if it had arrived as he famously stated "Later than a slave to a hiding".
The General made his opening moves several years before the Hierarchy was finished. Before striking at the Kirivics' rivals, the Dovicaraeans, Steelstroke worsened the terms of the deal to what was essentially vassalage, to which the Kirivics and their allies had little choice but to accept. Not knowing this deal had already been made, the Dovicaraeans and their allied families accepted an invite to treaty talks at the fort as supposedly neutral ground, where Steelstroke had them swiftly "tried", labelled enemies of the Empire, and executed by being boiled alive, declaring any surviving members of the families to be criminals who were to be hunted down. Steelstroke additionally took much of their land and wealth for himself, allowing the Kirivics little of the spoils of war.
Over the next couple of decades after receiving Poledes' work, Steelstroke expanded Magnapuri influence over first Great Ackos, and finally the rest of the Ackori Isles, subjugating the Ynviks, the last free family of Sail's End in 844 YM. He interfered in conflicts, engaged in gunboat diplomacy, and manipulated politics in a strategy of divide and conquer over the locals, extracting oaths of fealty and vassalage from those he could get it, and exterminating those he could not. The book was core to his efforts. Those families ranked highly in the hierarchy were courted or engaged carefully, slowly whittled down to be beatable by the Magnapuri, while those lower on it were treated more bluntly with direct threats and conquest, or in many cases largely ignored until they should prove to be difficult. This treatment extended to the families that had sworn fealty to the Empire, with those of high ranking considered with some amount of patronising respect, but those of low ranking often ending up as slaves. The patriarchs and matriarchs of each family clamoured for favour when later editions of the Hierarchy of Ackor were written, each hoping to higher status in the hierarchy. In the second edition, Steelstroke had both the Line of Magnus and his own family added as the first and second families respectively, and used the structure to codify many of the laws of the islands. He also named his fort, which by this point had grown a medium city around it, Jisvicacea, which he thought translated from the Xilaq language as "Court of the Jis", but would more accurately translate to "Bathtub of the Jis".
Under the Empire, the Ackori Isles maintained somewhat of a sense of their own identity, separate to the heartlands of the Empire. Though present, slavery was never as widespread, with wood elves acting as vassals, largely unheard of in more central parts of the Empire. High Magnapuri and the Xilaq Languages blended into what became known as "Jisvic", and the local Xilaq faith became largely syncretic with the Gods of the Slaves and Gods of the Masters, becoming known as the "Gods of the Chained Beneath the Sun". A large glassware industry grew up, and Ambitar in particular became famed for its spun crystal.
At the collapse of the Empire, it took two years for Jisvicacea to even hear of the slave revolt and Burning of the Book of Names, and longer to make sense of it and react to the changes. The lack of incoming Broken Men to the island was the most significant effect, and Patriarch Ironwater, the great grandson of Steelstroke, having lost the monopoly on violence, had to give more and more concessions over to the powerful families. Though this may have stalled his wane in power, it could not hold it off forever, and eventually, in 1023 YM, Ironwater and much of his immediate family were seized and boiled alive by the leaders of the six most powerful anti-imperial families in recompense for the "martyred Dovicaraeans". A few managed to escape and fled to Dostipur where their distant relatives stilled held power. Many of the families seen to support the Magnapuri were also wiped out in the takeover, or became greatly diminished - surprisingly the Kirivics managed to survive, perhaps due to their significantly dwindled status by this point in history.
Those six families quickly released a new edition of the Hierarchy of Ackor, labelling themselves as the first through sixth families in the hierarchy, with all others below them, and declared the islands to belong to the new "Jisvic Hierarchy" ruled by those "loyal to the Jisvic people, and not the vile slavers from far across the sea". Despite this upheaval, the law of the land had changed little with the takeover, with the great families allowed to set, amend and enforce laws, and the power of each family to affect those laws determined by strict mathematical rules around their place in the Hierarchy.
Since then, several more editions of the Hierarchy have been published at regular intervals, becoming an almost ritualistic publication in Jisvicacea, and of course many families have shifted and changed in their position within it. Though somewhat open to traders, the Isles have become known as an unusual isolationist place, with an arcane and very numerical legal system, and a strange people who speak a language and worship a faith founded nowhere else on Cursum. They often described as "the last elves before the sea", and to many they certainly feel like it.