Felric?s Redoubt
Name: The Free City of Felric?s Redoubt.
Ruler: The Lord Mayor Eadic Ill?oding.
Government: Felric?s Redoubt is essentially an oligarchy. Membership on its Council is automatic for guild masters of major guilds and lords, but the Council has the right to invite new members. Thus others can buy their way on with a substantial bribe. The populace fills ten reserved spots with a general election.
The Council handles most of the wide, sweeping policy for the city, but for more important and time-sensitive tasks there?s the High Council. The High Council consists of ten members and the Mayor. The Council elects the High Council and the High Council elects the Mayor. One member of the high council has to be from the general election, but much of the infighting in the Council comes from the swing of High Council seats between lords and the guild masters.
Capital: Felric?s Redoubt.
Major Towns: Felric?s Redoubt (54,682).
Provinces: Felric?s Redoubt controls about 1500 square miles. This land is completely farmed and extremely fertile. Still, this is not enough farmland to support the city and they must make up for the deficit in foreign trade.
Resources/Trade: Felric?s Redoubt is a trade powerhouse. From their position on the Gulf of Orbean, they collect and distribute goods from all over Belkan?th. In fact, it?s a mark of prosperity for Maroldan merchant houses to have summer homes in or around Felric?s Redoubt. Felric?s Redoubt also benefits from its cosmopolitan nature. Every race can be found inside its walls. Dwarven crafts, Elven art, Gnomish knowledge, and halfling cooking are all readily available.
Population: 263,880, mostly Humans but with a healthy sampling of all mortal races.
Languages: Ludremonian, Maroldo, ?ldic, The Divine Tongue, many others.
Overview: Felric?s Redoubt is a tightly packed, ancient city. The buildings have long since grown into one another and when one falls someone raises a new one right on top of it. Some houses in Felric?s redoubt have five or more sets of foundations and if one were to tear down the rear wall of most buildings in the slums he?d find rotting walls of former buildings packed behind. Needless to say, termites are a problem.
Felric?s Redoubt is one of the few cities in Belkan?th with extensive sewers. Dwarves constructed these sewers during the time of the Empire by Dwarves from Uzar?g. They are palatial, able to hide entire underground organizations (which they do.) The ratcatchers?s guild, for instance, headquarters inside the sewers.
Felric?s Redoubt is also the site of a major institute of learning, Leondic University. This ancient school teaches almost every purely academic subject. One used to be to learn magic there as well, but those sections of the University have shut down, though there are rumors that certain criminal magic elements still use them at night.
Felric?s Redoubt is known as the last free city by the narcissistic people of centeral of Belkan?th. Still, if one only considers the highly feudal lands in the area, Felric?s Redoubt does have a remarkable lack of kings pushing its populace around. This is mainly due to the fact that they live within the control of the Elven Kingdom of Ingrast, which has no desire to rule a primarily Human population.
The Sons of Almia (see chapter six) feel closely connected to Felric?s Redoubt, which shares the same heritage as ?ld. They base themselves secretly in the city (it?s an open secret, as the Church doesn?t actually condone the order, but the citizens do).
Church: The city primarily follows Church of Angenus, but the churches of all the saviors are represented, as is the Atavistic church (the Atavists have their own section of town.) Only the pagan churches are forbidden inside the city limits, but even they often have small shrines outside of the walls.
Allies: Ingrast, Mab, Ludremon, Marnele.
Enemies: Uzar?g.
History: In 521 A.I. the Empire built the fortress of Kerius on the site of Felric?s Redoubt. At the time, the Empire was worried about the Elves of Ingrast, who?d caught rumors of the Killing Accord and seemed likely to revolt. In Kerius the Emperor placed a legion of his finest troops who ranged around Ingrast and took prisoner any Elf who moved farther than a bowshot from the forest?s borders.
After the declaration of the Cult of Eurustace as the state religion, these orders progressed to the murder of any Elves that left the borders. A settlement began to form to service the legion.
The Elves of Ingrast didn?t act at first. They could typically slip by the gauntlet and weren?t ready to move against the Emperor, not with most of their brethren withdrawing deeper and deeper into their own woods. The Elves bided their time and waited.
Then the Marshal began his war with the Emperor, and it seemed like the Empire might revolt. Ingrast prepared to launch an attack against Kerius, but they were forced to leave a defensive force on their entrance to the Emperor?s Roads. They assaulted but the legion beat them back.
Then, when all seemed lost, a body of knights assaulted Kerius from the sea. The knights were Humans dressed as legionaries and they tricked the legion into believing they were reinforcements.
They seized the fortress and the town through trickery, wiped out the legion, and built a bastion against the Emperor in the west. The name of the leader was Felric, and the knights were the Order of the Knights Errant from the Sons of Almia.
During the rest of the war, Felric held the city with a contingent of archers from Ingrast. Renamed Felric?s Redoubt, from here he launched attack after attack at the Emperor?s legions. With the Emperor?s Roads, he should have lost but the Marshal took most of the Emperor?s attention. Felric?s Redoubt held.
After the fall of the Empire, Felric?s Redoubt allied with Saint K?lan, drudging the depths of the Sons of Almia to supply troops for battle against the Great Fiends. From here they launched reinforcements that held back the Demon Queen. From here they sent out expeditions that held the Lich King beyond Shieldwall. From here they fought the Warlord, and it was on the walls of Felric?s Redoubt, at a shrine now marked as holy by the Dwarves, that K?lan took his fatal arrow.
Since then Felric?s Redoubt has been a monument to Human achievement in the west. It?s a financial monolith, a defensive bastion and the only free city in ?civilized? lands.
Lands: The lands of Felric?s Redoubt are rolling and fertile, farmed more completely than any lands elsewhere in Belkan?th. In fact there doesn?t seem to be one acre of unfarmed land inside their borders, save the beeches. Even the rocky areas have been leveled by Dwarves and covered in soil.
People: The people of Felric?s Redoubt are proud and noble. They tend to a light complexion with blond and dark hair equally common. They value individualism and mercantile skill. They love the Sons of Almia and many will claim in secret that they?re members (anyone who says this is probably lying). They also brag about their fledgling democracy, ignoring the fact that Nolinos has practiced full democracy for centuries. Nolinos is beyond ?civilized? lands after all.
