Great City of Mayra

Mayra is a huge sprawling city squarely in the middle of a dry deforested steppe supplied by endless great caravans from afar. The inner city with its castles and citadels is still protected by a great city wall, but since horse nomads and orc marauders have long been driven away the city has expanded long past these walls.

A generation ago the city was hit by a necromantic curse that decimated the population, and outbreaks of necromantic energies still plague certain districts. By now however a feverish energy of reclamation and renewal has gripped the city as the city’s more powerful groups and figures desperately compete for power over the citizens’ minds and bodies.

The city is still ruled by the aristocratic human families that once conquered it and humans still occupy most if not all important seats of power: the council of Princes, the heads of the more powerful Caravans (Guilds) and most influential Churches, the judges and captains of the Watch, and so on. Humans are the biggest population group, comprising two fifths of the population. Then comes the insular and hard-working Dwarf communities which are mostly well off, the Half-Orcs who remain shut out of political positions since their rebellion last century, and the desperate Goblins who still are treated as unwelcome newcomers to the city. Elves are considered strange and alien and are required by law to live in enclaves that are little better than ghettoes. [insert additional choice here] also live in the city in significant numbers. Many communities within the city are plagued by poverty and corruption fueling a vicious cycle of gang warfare, drug abuse and desperate cults.

One of the few organizations with members from all ancestries is the City Watch. This is not because of some enlightened humanity but out of sheer necessity - policing the unruly mobs simply cannot be done without members of each community. Since the external threats to the city have long since faded away, the task of defending and ruling the city falls squarely on the City Watch, or rather, each district’s Watch. There once was a standing army intended to be supplemented by a huge city militia, but nowadays the Garrison is little more than yet another group vying for power, not recognizing the authority of the other Watch Districts.

Water is provided by miraculous underground wells while most foodstuffs are brought in by caravan. Threatening the uninterrupted supply of goods, drugs, and immigrants into the city would be one of the very few things that could unite the various factions and power brokers of the city into a formidable force.