Thesk
Thesk is a land of shrewd but friendly merchants and able farmers. The trade route that leads to the far land of Kara-Tur allows the Theskians to see all kinds of people and interact with many cultures, making Thesk one of the more tolerant nations in Faerûn. After being decimated by the Tuigan horde, the people of Thesk are rebuilding their cities and towns, and they have even made a home for the orc army left behind by the Zhentarim.
Structure
Thesk is a loosely-governed nation; the Golden Way has allowed Theskians to become very wealthy, which led to their current form of government. The wealthiest person in a city becomes mayor, and joins the other mayors on a council that governs the nation. The council meets once a year in a different city each time. If an emergency situation arises, the representatives gather more quickly (usually by magical means). The cities of Nyth, Phent, Phsant, Tammar, Two-Stars and Milvarune, and the smaller settlements of Thassalra, Ethvale and Tezir-on-the-Marsh are usually represented at such councils. A representative of Telflamm also attends, and sometimes representatives of the nation’s orc and gnome populations if they have matters to raise with the rulers.
Thesk has no capital city as such, but Phsant nominally fulfils that role as the largest city within Thesk, and Telflamm is sometimes used as a meeting place and fallback position given both its location on the Inner Sea and its substantial size.
Culture
People in the rural areas of Thesk live like common folk, tending to their soil and livestock. Unlike in other parts of Faerûn, a number of the farmers and ranchers in Thesk are full-blooded orcs. Orcs also inhabit the cities, blending in with the other merchants and workers who serve the Golden Way, the major trade route that connects Faerûn to the Utter East. Acclimatized to strange faces, languages, and goods, the people of Thesk have a long history of profiting from caravans from all parts of the world and go out of their way to welcome visitors.
History
Early History
In eons past, the lands of Thesk were once part of the empire of Narfell, but little survived the Great Conflagration that destroyed that empire in the Year of Recompense, −150 DR.
Thesk remained largely empty until Windyn Balindre pioneered the Golden Way trade route to Kara-Tur in the Year of the Winding Road, 917 DR, and immigrants from Impiltur began to settle the land. Balindre and these settlers founded the city of Telflamm in Year of the Fearless Peasant, 926 DR. The country of Thesk was founded by the Alliance of the Cities of the Golden Way in the Year of the Turning Wheel, 937 DR.
Princess Delile Balindre declared Telflamm (and thus all of Thesk) independent from Impiltur in the Year of the Majesty, 1177 DR.
In the Year of the Seer's Fires, 1086 DR, Thay invaded and captured the two southernmost cities of Thesk, Nethjet and Nethentir. Twenty-five years later, in the Year of the Bloody Fields, 1110 DR, Thay again invaded, marching on the city of Phent, but this time the combined forces of Impiltur and Thesk defeated the Red Wizards of Thay. Relations between the two nations eventually cooled and, in the Year of the Crown, 1351 DR, one of the first Thayan enclaves was established in Telflamm.
Modern History
In 1360 DR, the Tuigan Horde, led by Horselord Yamun Khahan invaded Faerûn from the Hordelands in the east. To meet the threat, the people of the western heartlands, lead by King Azoun IV of Cormyr raised a great alliance made of troops from Cormyr, the Dalelands, Hillsfar, Ravens Bluff, Dwarves from the Earthfast Mountains, and others. Sembia provided funds to hire mercenaries, and Zhentil Keep contributed 1000 Orcs. The armies of the west totaled 28,000 against 100,000 Tuigans. Despite the odds, the alliance defeated the invading horde on the Golden Way near Phsant. The eastern half of Thesk was in ruins, but with the Tuigan threat neutralized, trade with Kara-Tur could resume, and with it, the flow of money into the land. The Orcs decided to settle in the country, becoming "civilized", and the people of Thesk grew to accept them.
Seeing opportunity in a weakened Thesk, the Sharkjaw pirates descend on Telflamm in 1364 DR and make it their home port until the Shadowmasters managed to drive them out, leaving them unchallenged to expand their influence in the still recovering city.
Demography and Population
Thesk is an unusually multicultural nation. Humans make up the bulk of the population but there is a strong gnome populace, particularly in the Dragonjaw Mountains, where a friendly family of copper dragons also resides. Isolated numbers of dragonkin can also be found. Central Thesk is also home to numerous orcs, members of the army that Zhentil Keep left behind to help guard against a Tuigan resurgence. Subsequent troubles for the Zhentarim meant these orcs have been more or less forgotten about, and other orcs have arrived from across Faerûn to bolster their numbers. Remarkably, these orcs have taken to more civilised pursuits, finding gainful employment in mines in the Thesk Mountains, as well as caravan guards along the Golden Way. Orcs are often found in taverns and markets in Theskan cities behaving no worse than any other citizen.
Thesk is also home to not-insignificant numbers of Shou, both traders from the Empire who have remained behind to open markets in Faerûn and a successive wave of immigrants searching for new opportunities in the lands to the west. Even some Tuigan can be found in Thesk, survivors of Yamun’s army who were unwilling to make the long trek back to their homeland and have found new employment as guards or bandits.
Territories
Thesk lies between the Plateau of Thay and the Forest of Lethyr. Vast portions of the land are virtually empty - most folk live along the road from Telflamm to Two Stars.
Military
Thesk has no standing army as such, but each city maintains a small, well-trained militia, and the presence of thousands of battle-hardened orcs who have agreed to fight for Thesk if the need arises again is, oddly, reassuring. Thesk also has one ace in the hole in the form of the copper dragon Filauxerimos and his family who lair on Cape Dragonfang and have developed good relations with Thesk and could come to the nation’s aid in dire need, although some believe that the dragon is too fickle and his understanding of the urgency of non-draconic affairs is limited to be a reliable ally.
Thesk does have one significant internal threat: the Shadowmaster guild has spread from Telflamm to have chapters in most settlements of the realm. The guild is busy manipulating affairs in the country from behind the scenes to its own, inscrutable purposes.
Religion
As a mercantile nation, Thesk is strong in its devotion to Waukeen, Goddess of Trade and Wealth, and Tyrmora, Goddess of Luck. Thesk’s wide-open plains are home to many farmsteads, so Chauntea is also venerated. Thesk is often the jumping-off point for great journeys and adventures into the vastness of the east, so Shaundakul, patron of travellers and explorers, is also a popular god.
Thesk does have a darker side though, with an underground religious movement dedicated to Cyric present, and the Shadowmasters are strong in their devotion to Mask, though some are believed to have also flirted with worshipping Shar, Goddess of Shadows, instead.
Foreign Relations
Thesk enjoys good relations with Aglarond, Rashemen and Impiltur, and excellent relations across the Inner Sea with Cormyr, Sembia and Zhentil Keep. Its relations with Thay used to be quite frosty, but in recent years Thay has invested in an embassy in Telflamm and improving trading relations. The Thayans using Theskan territory without permission to attack Rashemen nine years ago has not been forgotten, but the fact that Thesk is militarily the weakest of the four nations surrounding Thay and the most likely to fall should Thay ever launch a concerted attack is also well-understood in Thesk, which tempers expectations of how the relationship should develop.
Food, gnome goods, iron, Kara-Turan goods
Gold, horses, trade goods
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