Theban
Yes, our city has plenty of gardens, and plenty of song and dance in the air, but beneath every those, there's a thorn, waiting to sting when you pluck it... Prince Oneiron Silver-Piston
Demographics
A good number of Halflings surpass the human population, but there is also a good deal of half-elves and half-orcs living in the city, or working the farmlands.
Government
In theory, it is a Principality, but Prince Oneiron has broken with the former tradition of the Prince as the sole ruler, to him having a large council of men of different stations.
Defences
The City has a stone and mortar outer wall, with several watchtowers, but also there are several inner walls made up of brick and mortar, with a few simple towers and machicolations over them. The Prince's House itself is actually a maze of sorts made to confuse incoming armies.
And then there is the populace. The Thebans are known to be fiercely loyal to the city and its Prince (with a few few exceptions, the town gossip say), so the people are not only required by law to be armed, every man, of age has to spend one month a year in service of the militia. Additionally, the Prince encourages the use of the bow in many shooting contests on several festivals and events, inviting everyone to compete to who is the better archer (other competitions include staff-fighting, wrestling, and even Dagger-dancing).
Industry & Trade
The city deals on trade, especially from the goods North of the Valley, but also of the fish they get, and part of the woods and coal from the East.
Because of the pervasiveness of the Murren Banking Society, most of the trade is not made in actual gold coin, instead is made through banking notes made and signed by the Society. While the trade of smaller goods is still made via barter or coin, anything larger than a 100 gold will be used with notes, and the notes can be exchanged into gold or other goods at both the Banking Houses or the Merchant Guild.
And in the subject of steam technology, some some workshops due exists, most people have been slightly isolated from the great wonders of other societies like in the Duskborn Elves , or in other cities such as Twelve-Tower City in the Northlands; instead, many still rely on the 'tried and true' methods of their Kanathi predecessors, and the use the Old Magic, when all else fails.
Infrastructure
The City has created a series of canals that take some of the water from the River Murren right into the city, so everyone can hace access to clean water. With time, several other water-works have been constructed to take advantage of the Murren: Watermills, public baths, and even canals for the richer districts. A series of city-wide Sewers are in construction. The Four Main roads that make up the layout of the old city are surrounded by fountains of variable size, all of them with depictions of Kannathi gods and heroes of ancient days.
Some of the public light are still made up of torches, but the majority of the roads are of cobblestone.
Guilds and Factions
The Merchant's Guild of Theban is known for its ruthlessness and protectionist rackets when it comes to foreign traders, and will quickly force them to sign in with them, or leave. Additionally, there is the Murren Banking Society, which administers most of the wealth of the Merchant's Guild, many of the cities within the Valley Princes, and just about every bounty for outlaws.
History
Theban's history can be tied to be the Expansion of the Kanathi empire, before The Desolation, when Kanathi explorers crossed the mountains and saw the verdant valleys and forest that were fed by the Murren river. The peoples living there were a mix of Northlanders, and previous inhabitants of what would later become The Crimson Lands, as well as a good number of Greenborn Elves Orcs.
In time, these explorers began to slowly create settlements and create links between the Empire, and the people living in the Valley. One of these cities, Theban, began as a Garden-city of the soon-to-become nobility of the land.
As the Desolation happened, many Kanathi refugees (most of them surviving Halflings) began to cross the mountains, to seek shelter. At first, they were welcomed, but as more appeared, and food began to be scarce, many cities began to close their gates... Except Theban. This was because the ruler at the time, Enki-Dar was not only in love with her halfling wife -lady Eleshkigal- and she begged him to be merciful to the refugees, but also because his city was so close to the mountains, that he knew that angered valley-dwellers would come to his city to kill the refugees, so he needed a loyal population to help him defend the city.
And so it happened, but what he didn't predict that, in the coming defense, many humans would die... But the majority of the halflings would survive.
This is how the Halfling population became so dominant in Theban, and the rest of the history would be slightly uneventful, until the Crimson Crusade.
Theban would later on harbor many spies of the The Tetrarchy of Faith , as long as they shared their secrets to the princes, and did the same to spies from the cities of The Northlands, using this information to keep them away not just from Theban, but also from the Valley.
However, Theban would, at one point, be at a crossroads because the new Prince was a convert of the Tetrarchy, so many people believed that he would sell his city to the Crimson Crusade. This caused some unrest on the city, and even to cause two assassination attempts on Prince Dondarrion of the Iron Crown.
However, during his Coronation, Dondarrion immediately ordered every priest of the Tetrarchy to be slain, and every member and sympathizer of the Crimson Crusade to be dragged unto the streets and butchered for all to see, to show that his loyalty was to the city alone, and not to some foreign power. This was known as the Coronation of a Thousand Daggers, and it brought the Ire of the Crimson Crusade.
Many of the cities of the valley were originally happy to permit the Crimson army to simply march to Theban and let the city burn, just as long as they were unharmed, but Dondarrion brought to each and every Prince a letter, and soon enough, each Prince began to defend Theban, for the sake of liberty from the Cusade's eventual takeover.
No one knows what was in those letters, but it's assumed it might have been a threat form Dondarrion, as well as a few hints of some secrets he had found out. Whatever they were, it helped to keep the rest of the Princes in line.
After the Crusade was over, Dondarrion's son, Prince Donnakh the Deaf, helped in the rebuilding of the roads and aqueducts of the other cities, and sent stone, wood, and food for aid. In time, Theban has become a capital of sorts, and the Princes maintain yearly festivals, reminding them that united can be stronger than any foe.
Architecture
Geography
The surrounding landscape of Theban is a mix of fertile farmland, small streams that divert from the Murren, and from the East, the mountainside, which provides some of the rock quarries that provide the stones for the construction of new buildings.
Natural Resources
Besides the land being incredibly fertile, the few woodlands that were not cut down for the farmlands, the extension of the city, or turned into garden-forests for the peasantry to gather wood and herbs, it has become the Prince's Woods, a natural terrain for hunting.
The Murren River also has smaller streams that divert into the farmlands, flodding and reseeding in predictable patterns every year, making the farmland even more fertile as the silt that is left helps with the fertility of the region.
Alternative Name(s)
City of Gardens, City of Song, City of the Thousand Knives
Type
City
Population
Roughly in the 12'583.
Inhabitant Demonym
Thebans
Location under
Owner/Ruler
Characters in Location
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