Westruun

The city of Westruun is the center of Tal’Dorei, a crossroads of culture along the Silvercut Roadway that welcomes adventurers, traders, and vagabonds of all kinds. Despite its name, Westruun is more east than west, and was in fact named after Palest Westruun, the trader and philosopher who founded the city. Westruun suffered under the relentless assaults of Stronmaus, Scion of Storms, and was the stage for some of the bloodiest battles during the Elemental Scions Crisis. Only through a combined effort of the Shields of the Plains, The Ashari, various paladin orders, and eventually even the wild Rivermaw Herd was the elemental titan defeated at the Battle of the Bramblewoods. Despite the damage inflicted by its enemies, Westruun was one of the first cities in Tal’Dorei to recover from the Crisis. Though its government is deeply in debt to both the League of Miracles and a number of adventuring parties, the city has long since reclaimed its place of importance as an economic, academic, and political power within Tal’Dorei.

Government

Westruun underwent a political revolution in the wake of the Elemental Scions’s defeat. The former margrave, Brandon Zimmerset, was a tyrant who claimed absolute power for himself following the power vacuum left behind by the war. The title of margrave is a holdover from the authoritarian rule of Warren Drassig centuries ago, and those who hold that office are appointed for life by the council. A group of local idealists called the Retrievers banded with adventurers and mercenaries to overthrow Zimmerset a decade after he took power, and instated their leader as the lord mayor instead. Elections for the position of Lord Mayor of Westruun are held every five years, with no term limits. All adult citizens of the city who have lived there for at least five years have a vote, though only a fraction of the people actually use it.
The Retrievers continue to be a political force in Westruun, and several of Westruun’s delegates to the Tal'Dorei Council are members of this faction. They are campaigning to abolish the office of margrave from all settlements in Tal’Dorei. Though they have broad support in the council, the council doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally demand its constituent city-states to change their system of government. The revolution-minded Retrievers are somewhat stifled by the need to compromise with other cities.
Lord Mayor Tristenique Kallos is a middle-aged goliath and former leader of the Retrievers. She has never lost a vote for reelection, and holds executive power over the city’s defenses, along with the ability to dissolve any business or guild, and to exile any person from the city at her discretion. She rules Westruun with the aid of a council of ten advisors.

Defense

The lord mayor commands a city guard of about 1,200 trained soldiers known as the Shields of the Plains, though most folk just call them the Shields. Westruun’s soldiery is spread thin across the walls of the city itself, stationed at the gates of the dozens of outlying settlements and conducting raids against small cells of Ravagers across the plains.
Many people in town would like to gather their forces and put an end to the Ravagers’ death cult once and for all, but the Shields are spread too thin to mount an effective offensive. Even in their current state, dozens— if not hundreds—of mercenaries, bounty hunters, and adventurers pass through Westruun every year in search of bloody work that the Shields are too beleaguered to handle themselves.

Debt

Before he was ousted, Margrave Brandon Zimmerset authorized hundreds of reconstruction bounties— offers of gold to anyone who could rebuild the immense damage the city suffered during the Scion of Storms’ attack. Bounties were placed on the city’s siege-breaking stone walls, majestic towers and parapets, and even its iconic post-and-beam houses, many of which were razed completely during the attack.
The margrave expected these bounties to be slowly completed over decades, but they were all snapped up and completed in a few short years by the arcanomancers serving a group called the League of Miracles. The margrave was saddled with a crushing debt, one that he was both unwilling and unable to pay before being ousted by the Retrievers. As his successor, Lord Mayor Tristenique Kallos inherited Zimmerset’s immense debt to the league, and is constantly seeking to find ways to alleviate their pressure—especially as the league continues to use the debt as leverage to buy the allegiance of her advisory council.

Geography

Miles of farmland and fields surround Westruun’s towering stone walls—except to the west, where the city is bordered by the Bramblewood and dwarfed by the mist-shrouded peak of Gatshadow. Nearly two dozen villages and towns surround the city’s walls. The city’s interior is divided into six wards:
Scholar Ward. Westruun’s northwestern ward is home to the Cobalt Reserve, Tal’Dorei’s largest public library and private archive. It’s also home to a number of other erudite institutions that instruct knowledge-seekers from across the Dividing Plains. Westhall Academy is the most renowned of them all, but in the shadow of these revered institutions is the College of the Savvy, a school for the arts founded by the storied bard and champion of intuition referred to only as the White Duke.
Temple Ward. The city’s small southern ward is replete with major temples to the Prime Deities and homes for their clergy. The most important gods of the Dividing Plains are The Lawbearer, The Wildmother, and The Platinum Dragon, and it’s made obvious by their huge, resplendent sanctuaries in the Temple Ward. The greatest temples here are the First Bastion, the Wild Arbor, and the Platinum Dragon’s Rest.
Opal Ward. Westruun’s central district is also its municipal heart. The ward has no residential housing, but is home to the Lord Mayor’s Residence, the Hall of Reason, and the public square.
Residential Ward. The northeastern section of Westruun is the city’s most densely populated ward, housing over two-thirds of its population. There are no major landmarks in this ward, though every neighborhood in the ward has its own unique culture. Even though tourists might not visit the landmarks here, there are countless local bakeries, shops, and pubs beloved by its residents.
Market Ward. Westruun’s southwestern ward contains the majority of its businesses, trade stands, and production warehouses. Some of these businesses are historic fixtures of the city, rebuilt by the League of Miracles in years past, but many sell overpriced wares to cater to tourists, adventurers, and the city’s wealthy elite.
It’s currently in fashion for store owners to live in a second story above their shops, though less scrupulous businesspeople have turned their residences into gambling dens, black markets, and illegal brothels. The most significant building in this ward is the Exandrian Exchange, a marble-walled auction house where hundreds of vendors hawk rare and unusual items from across Tal’Dorei. A satellite location of Gilmore’s Glorious Goods, a famed magic item shop in Emon, is a beloved attraction of this district.
Underwalk Ward. The city’s newest ward is underground. It’s an extension of the residential sprawl built from repurposed sections of the sewers, underground military bunkers, and the wine cellars of mansions annihilated by the Scion of Storms.
The Underwalk was frantically excavated during the invasion of the Elemental Scions in hopes of keeping the populace hidden. It has been largely abandoned for the past twenty years, save for those too poor to return even to the Residential Ward, but an effort has been made in the past two years to create a unique and vibrant ecosystem in the Underwalk. The optimistic entrepreneurs trying to popularize Underwalk housing hire adventurers in great quantities, for every day, new and unsettling rumors of many-headed monstrosities prowling the Underwalk’s shadowed roads spread to the surface.
The best-known entrance to this tangle of tunnels is the Underwalk Gates, a forty-foot-wide staircase in the Residential Ward that descends into a gaping opening lit only by torchlight. Another entrance known mostly to The Clasp is a single unassuming manhole in the Opal Ward, topped with a metal cover emblazoned with the crest of Westruun.

Demographics

61% humans, 10% gnomes, 7% tieflings, 5% orcs, 4% half-giants, 1% gnolls, 12% other races

Population

51,980

Location under

Republic of Tal'Dorei