Zobeck

The Free City of Zobeck stands proud at the crossroads of the world. It is a city where adventurers, merchants, and scoundrels from all walks of life and all nations intermingle. It is a city where wondrous inventions are dreamt and great tales of glory begin—for it is the boiling cauldron in which Midgard’s most potent minds, its largest personalities, and its most inflated egos are mixed together.   Yet no more than a century ago, the people of Zobeck lacked the freedom they enjoy today. In those days, they toiled and suffered to fill the coffers of House Stross, their feudal rulers. Everything changed when the people took up arms against the plutocrats of House Stross and threw off the shackles of tyranny. In the intervening decades, the few remaining aristocratic houses have fallen away, their hereditary lines replaced by merchants and elected officials. While the local aristocracy raged against the Revolt, the surrounding nations believed an independent Zobeck might prove a useful pawn in their political machinations. A city‑state without a lord, they figured, would be too weak to prove noisome. They agreed that so long as Zobeck remained neutral in the affairs of its “betters,” its neighbors would allow it to live on sufferance.   The people of Zobeck had other plans. Ignored by its haughty neighbors, the Free City rose like a phoenix from the ashes of the Revolt. The flames of freedom heated its forges, and Zobeck’s citizens transformed their city into a hotbed of innovation. Guided by the Free City Council, new social and political structures were born. Aided by the hand of Rava the Gear Goddess, new machines of steam and brass were forged.   In a short nine decades, the citizens of Zobeck have transformed their sleepy fiefdom into a city-state with the power to affect change all across Midgard.