odun

Odun-Khai
Odun-Khai is the largest city in the North-lands, and is to the west, not that far south of the shell from a worldly perspective. It houses some two hundred thousand people, and is a massive, sprawling thing, with a highly organized central area surrounded by constantly expanding rings of small shops and cheap homes.

Government:
While Odun is commonly named after whomever currently holds the spot as its governor, the encroachment of the followers of the Spirit Khai has changed this markedly. Khai has slowly developed the old government into a theocracy, with his cultists as the guiding forces.

Governor: Lassith, high priest of Khai, Cultist(12)
Important Officials: Sub-priests of Khai, Cultist(6)
City Guardsmen(normal): Hired mercenary, Soldier(1)
City Guardsmen(elite): Temple Guard, Soldier(2), Cultist(1)

Physical:
The center Odun is divided into eight districts, six major districts surrounding the central government district, with the massive residential district surrounding these. While the two northern districts are the noble residences, and restricted to public access most of the time, the other four main districts form the market of Odun, the largest marketplace in Artheria. They surround it in a rough circle, though the two 'noble' districts are somewhat seperate from the central government district, while the market districts seem to 'blend into' the edge of the government district.

Major Organizations:
Thieves guilds: As all other major cities, 'thieves guilds' exist. And also just like other major cities, they are both underground and open at once, through some bizzare twist. While the city guards never seem to find the guilds, every noble who wants to hire an assasin or poison an enemy's favorite pet seems to find one with ease. There are seven Thieve's guilds, the two largest of which operate in the market districts. The other four are, due to competition, situated pretty widely spread out in the residential district. They are highly territorial, but willing to cooperate with each other in order to elude city guards. In addition to performing assasinations, these guilds also act as a 'black market', both purchasing and selling illegal goods. These guilds have no special names, but are simply named after their leader at the time; early on in their history, there was a war among the guilds because three of them clamed the name 'Dark Blades', which resulted in this.

Thrazar's guild: Thrazar is a bit atypical for a thief. Instead of being fast, quick, or agile, hes large, tough, and brutal; as one might expect from a wild troll. It was jokingly passed about that when he tried to pick someone's pockets, they froze in fear and simply begged him not to kill them as he failed to notice their attitude and yanked their purse before walking off. In reality, this isn't far from the truth, as Thrazar would quite simply bash the target unconscious, grab his money, and leave. How he came to be a success in a thieve's guild, where quick wits were the order of the day, and a knife in the back was as common as a helping hand, was almost impossible; but it happened. Hes surprisingly smart for a wild troll, and guides the guild relatively well, managing to maintain controll of his territory in the market district with ease.

Mercenary Guilds: There are three mercenary guilds in the city of Odun. They quite commonly hire out to the city guard, or to help rid the sewers of the city of undead or other beasts, or even on occaision will send some of the elite on a quest somewhere. With as many mercenaries as make up these guilds, one could almost form an army amongst them, if one had enough money, though they might refuse to hire out mercenaries if you work with one of the other companies. They have no particular territory, and their sole concerns are in advancing themselves and the mercenaries who work for them.

Quilt of Nails: The quilt of nails is quite an odd name for a mercenary organization, but it is one, nonetheless. This name is derived from the fact that each mercenary, after successfully completing an assignment, is allowed to drive a nail with his name marked on it into the 'quilt', which is, in reality, the main table which the leaders of the organization sit at when planning major missions. If a mercenary fails a mission, he has to pull one of them out; they consider it a point of honor to have many nails in this table, and some even notch their weapons with this number, as if it were a kill count of some sort.

Adventurer's Guild: They call themselves an adventurer's guild to attract fools and posers who want to go out and seek glory and fame; but in reality, they are simply a source of mercenary jobs for the unskilled and the foolish. Some go in seeking to slay dragons, and come out getting a three-week job with the city guard, or in the sewers slaying mutated rats. On rare occaisions, more difficult, or even heroic, assignments come in, but they are generally only given to those who have proven themselves by going through numerous less glamorous missions.

Bleeding Blades: This small, rough, but well-known mercenary unit is well known for its skill, lack of fear, and complete lack of honor. All contracts with them are generally made 'half now, half on completion', because its perfectly likely that without an incentive, they might never perform the mission. But even despite this, the truly spectacular.. and horrendous.. results they achieve keeps the nobles coming back to hire them again. The Bleeding Blades, if assigned to protect a village, might very well protect it; but then, loot and pillage the village afterwards. They are often the best for the job, but when one hires a member of them, one had best be careful.