Venkis

The majority of the workers deal with either the fishing or shipping industry as it is the most abundant trade to date. There is fertile land to the east that is worked by local land holders, but fishing is the major food supply in the city. While the city itself seems huge it is only spread out across the landscape and molds to the hillsides and river banks. More often than not where a road hits a hill or a river, it will follow the contour instead of going over or through it. There are walkways across the water in some areas but few wagon roads as the Merchant Quarter is where the market place is located and it is nestled very close to the warehouse district and the main entrance to the city.

The city itself is built on the eastern side of the River Vella and has a large naval yard in the mouth of the bay. The civilian harbor is patrolled by military longboats daily to ensure there is as little illegal shipping, illegal transportation of goods, or other illegal or harmful acts being done. Slavery is not accepted in the kingdom and only work gangs are only considered acceptable by the government for needs of punishment for criminals. This is a true port city, the streets are wide and open to let the ocean breeze filter through to cool off the cobblestones daily, and to remove the stench of the warehouse district where all the tanneries and fisheries are located. The locals call this Dirty Town as it is rarely cleaned more than once every few months.

Crime is relatively high, yet organized in the city. The leaders of the Syndicate here are smarter than those in Volmara and keep things relatively quiet and isolated. They tend to only rob those who would fail to report the loss to the authorities due to the unsure nature of the items or funds that were lost. Murder, while not unknown, is very uncommon. The few drunken brawls that lead to serious harm or death happen, but actually murder is rare as it attracts to much attention. Now, people come up missing on a regular basis. Kidnaping for ransom is a practice that is becoming more and more popular as it pays the quickest and most of the time can be done without any repercussions as long as the person who was kidnaped is not overly important to the Duke or another important noble.

Magic shops frequent the city occasionally, but rarely ever last due to the fact that there is little to sell to anyone who is not a Conocha. There is no real academy here but a small group of regular Conocha frequent the city and even have bought an inn that charges smaller fees to Conocha of all kinds. This inn is also home to the Midnight’s Apothecary. The Midnight’s Apothecary is the only store to stand the test of time, as it is run by a group of Conocha who offer services to the public as well as the local government. They hire themselves out for various tasks and even have devised a way to create spell cubes similar to a scroll only much smaller and far cheaper to make. These cubes have minor spells carved into them that can be used by anyone who is taught how to use them.

While they are farthest from the borders that have local hostiles, the city of Venkis still has their share of difficulty. Occasionally small fleets of raiders that come from islands west of the coast, rogue Keirn, pirates, and even swarms of abominations that come from the water or the near by Isle de Sangellaso cause problems for the locals. That is where the navy comes in. The navy of Venkis is unsurpassed by any other culture so far to date, as they are one of the few cities to be predominate on the ocean and therefore have built up a need for a navy. Over half of the military is basically navy, while a good portion of the local militia are fishermen or traders with armed ships.

In 2780A, a large fleet of raiders and pirates crested the horizon over the Bay of Pearls. While the fleet was not larger than the one that Venkis could deploy, half of their ships were on patrol up and down the coast and were not there to assist in blockading the bay. What made this enemy fleet worse is that there were Conocha (Magic Users) on the ships using their magic to assist the raiders as well as ships of corrupted sailing recklessly toward the harbor. Fast coast huggers were sent to gather the remaining fleet and the fight for the harbor ensued. For two days the battle slowly reached closer and closer into the harbor. Already a handful of ships had landed in the harbor or up and down the coast and had assaulted the city in various places. Fighting had erupted everyone and the streets ran with blood from both defender and raider. The raiding Conocha laid havoc to the defenders ships and defenses, using their magic to destroy ships and sections of the harbor so that the defenders had little choice but to fall back to the coast. When it seemed that the rest of the invaders would finally unload into the city and overrun the rest of the defenders with their superior numbers, the rest of the Venkis fleet arrived. When the other half of Venkis’s fleet arrived it had a portion of the small fleet of Stormgarde as flanking ships to stop the smaller swifter cutters from getting behind the larger troop ships. They encircled the raiders ships and sunk everyone to the keel and shot anyone swimming in the water giving no quarter even to those who asked. The street fighting lasted in pockets for a few days afterwards, but finally most of the invaders were killed or driven out. From then on the local fisherman decided to raise their ships in the defense of the city, and Conocha volunteered to sail on board the naval ships in case another incident like this happened again.

Resident Ruler - Baron Taelwin
Population - 68,985
Military - 4,000
Calvary - 800
City Guard - 2,000
Navy - 7,900
Militia -3,000 (varies due to fishermen)
Civilian -51,285
Nobility - 4,380
Commoner - 41,801
Other - 5,104 Includes travelers, miners, farmers, those who live outside the city and rogues.

Racial Demographics
Derevo - 3%
Gison - 9%
Human - 59%
Keirn - 5%
Lemiean - 3%
Olwynn - 10%
Sslassti - 1%