Gerreach

"Wealth's ladder spills forth from a neat collection of stately mansions into a crude mess of society's forgotten. The city reeks on one side of man's finest perfume, and on the other of their grimest odor. This is Gerreach, where rich and poor live side-by-side in not-so-happy matrimony. The two-headed city." - House Gwerrith Chronicler, Jethol Ironcheek

Gerreach sits at a socio-geographical crossroads of central Gwendor, being on the edge of the Basin, reaching out into the Wandering territories and downwards along the Lord's Way. The city is therefore comprised of key demographics from every one of these regions, each of which migrated and settled for wildly different reasons. These different groups have come together in a twisted symbiotic relationship that serves all involved: the rich require workers, and the poor require employment. The result of this has been a wide diaspora of fledging trades and cottege businesses which sustain the majority of the population, while farming supports the rest.

In the 'Blue Districts', there are enclaves of the super wealthy whose wealth outgrew the political landscape of Lord's Redoubt and other urban centres. Contrary to the espoused narrative, leaving the River Region has not dilluted the political rivalries of these super-wealthy 'Barons' and 'Baronesses', but rather Gerreach's relative isolation from external law enforcement combined with their economic power has created somewhat of a free-for-all. Opposing factions openly attack each other, carving up slum districts between themselves, running rackets, collecting taxes. House Gwerrith, Dorröchk and Arratheen affiliated factions all compete for control, each exacting cruel revenge on their rivals. So intense is the conflict between these factions at times that the official leadership of House Gwerrith and Dorröchk have condemned the factions that invoke their name. In the wake of these denouncements, each excommunicated faction was forced to take on new heraldry, birthing a new host of disagreements and fractures. As it stands, there are more than twenty lesser successor organisations, with four main families remaining dominant: the Laurite Gerwin's, the Dorcian's, the Förysians and the Laurite Volkmar's. 

The two Laurite factions are a manifestation of the Gerwin-Volkmar Fued, originating from The Night of Sharp Whispers. These two factions, though techincally borne of the same House, despise each other, and split after their predecessor organisation, the Laurite Family, was denounced by Gwerrith. This is because the union was held together by little more than common interest and lineage from the start, with each sub-faction feeding of the other, but with exclusion came abandon as their enforced shared culture fell away. This gave way for old wounds to reopen, and old fueds be settled where House custom would otherwise intervene. This constant conflict has bred each family to be aggressively competitive, reflected in the fact that skirmishes between these groups alone constitute around a third of the unrest in the city. 

The Dorcian's are simply a family previously of House Dorröchk, but since excommunication they have also diverged from their parent House, much like the Laurite factions. Nevertheless, the Dorcian's remain loyal to their House, whether it accepts them or not, and are more concerned with maintaining their power than expanding it. This is all, according to them, in the aim of being reintergrated into the House. However, their many tenuous claims to various areas have left many wandering as to whether they are truly so noble. 

Finally, the Förysian's. They are a family whose House did not disavow them, but have distanced themselves from it nonethless- publicly at least. The motivations for this are unknown, but some speculate that the family's practises would tarnish the already recovering House Arratheen image. From reports, this faction is the coldest and most calculating; their actions being primarily concerned with the soft power of the city's administration, rather than direct control of its businesses. These priorities have done nothing but unsettle rival factions, who have struggled to dislodge such unseen power, being accustomed to contesting more concrete assets. 

To many onlookers, these families-come-juntas are greed-driven militant capitalists who draw a veil of 'House honour' over their schemes to hide the obscenity of their methods. Nevertheless, whether in service of this illusion, or because they are truly valued, House allegiances are a matter of life and death for those who involve themselves in the power-brokering of the city, while all those too impotent or squalid to participate rely on blending in, and not drawing attention to themselves. In this vein, the law of this city is just as much the law of hired mercenaries as it is the Lord's Watch, with rumoured bribes and corruption keeping the wheels of this manic paradise turning. 

"A city of dual aspiration, the two-headed beast of dream and deliquency. Gerreach is a paradise for any, though for specifically whom depends on your street number." - local travel guide and ranger, Tellisar Redmane

Type

City