Thrownin

The Empire of Thrownin is a City-State ("empire" in name only) in the northeast corner of the Known World, guarding the Orcish Pass through the Spine Mountains.

Structure
Within the Empire is the City of Thrownin, built around the Castle of Thrownin (also known as Thrownin Keep). The city is surrounded by defensive walls. Outside the wall is a tent city, where residents too poor to live in the city proper reside. The tent city is also where the farmers' market exists, as well as where one would go to find a sellsword or a black market.

Beyond the tent city are the farms of Thrownin. For five days' ride, roughly 200 miles, in any direction from the city, there is just farmland. These farms all support the massive population of Thrownin.

South of the farms lies the Mirkwood Swamp.

History
Thrownin was established thousands of years ago as a wooden city of soldiers with the express purpose of combating Orcish raiding parties that emerged from the Orcish Pass. Slowly but surely, as the centuries passed, Thrownin became a kingdom, and eventually the sprawling empire it is today.

Culture & Politics
Thrownin, as an empire, has been characterized as "Chaotic Good," meaning that they want people to be happy and free, but they don't much care for laws. Order is upheld by a multitude of independent militia; the official "city guard" is sparse and loosely organized. This allows for a strong criminal element within the city, including vast, active guilds for assassins, thieves, and mercenaries, which only barely bother to cover their activities.

The leader of Thrownin is a Regent. They have never had a king, and don't believe in kings; they prefer Regents because they can be impeached. The current Regent, who has served and been popular for many years, is Gregory Altante.

Consistent with the value they place on individual freedom, the populace is vehemently opposed to slavery. This is at odds with the west-to-east traffic coming through their lands, as many of the Tieflings that come out of the Orcish Pass are slavers looking to peddle their "merchandise" at the city-state to Thrownin's west, on the aptly named Slaver's Bay. Thrownin, therefore, is constantly in some state of war with these others; often, it's a cold war, but it regularly blossoms into a full-scale conflict.

Its location to the extreme north end of the map has put Thrownin in contact with the barbarian tribes of the Known World.

The Empire is home of a large elf and half-elf population, who are almost universally impoverished and hated. Many of them are indentured servants (technically not slaves, because if there's one thing humans love, it's technicalities). Most live in the tent cities outside the wall.

Amenities
The notably amazing bakery Greenbush, located conveniently on the corner of 2nd Street and Milhouse Road, serves (among other confections) delicious fritters the size of an orc's head. Word of its delectable creations has spread far and wide in the Known World. Its current owner is Cynthia, who inherited the bakery from her father.

Directly next door to Greenbush Bakery is a tavern called The Merry Hob. Its proprietor has been on the wrong side of the law several times, but Cynthia finds him unobtrusive.

Thrownin is a modern enough city to possess a working sewer system, however it is notably terrible. The infrastructure required for adequate sewage disposal was built to inadequate specifications, and roughly twice a year, it all backs up, flooding the streets with literal excrement.

Thrownin has an active community board.

History
Within the last few years, there was an unsuccessful assassination attempt made on Regent Altante. This attempt was carried out by none other than Kazita and Fafnir. As a result, most of the City Guard (and certainly all of the Captains) in Thrownin know Kazita's face and does not like her.

Culture & Politics
Thrownin is officially agnostic. No temples are allowed inside the city, and only small, makeshift ones exist in the tent city outside. The government and the guilds are completely secular; they do not like religion. These feelings are tied in to an event in the city's past which happened about a thousand years ago.

Thrownin, by and large, hates Tieflings.

Thrownin's population is generally worldly enough to be able to recognize different Dragonborn.