The Karthin Cities
The Karthin cities began as human coastal settlements along the eastern shore of Silt Bay, sandwiched between Normaer and the Kartheesi plains. The cities get their name from the fact that they later became protectorates of the catfolk of the Kartheesi plains. The Kartheesan Tribal Council has pledged to throw in the considerable might of the assembled tribes in defense of the cities should they ever be attacked, and in exchange they pay taxes to the tribes in the form of manufactured goods. The catfolk have little use for currency, and this arrangement suits them just fine.
The Cities themselves are bound to each other by a network of mutual defense treaties couched within complex trade agreements and division of labor regulations about road maintenance in the region. Also established in the agreements is a Weights and Measures Committee, headquartered in Ostham, the easternmost of the Cities. The Committee is composed of representatives from the Trade Councils of each City, and their main duties center around fixing exchange rates and values of common trade goods and commodities.
Each of the five Cities (Ostham in the east, Brightmere northwest of Ostham on the coast, Corwald far to the north, Blackbush, southwest of Ostham along the coast, and Windcliff on the coast southwest of Blackbush) is nominally governed by a Trade Council led by a Commissioner. In reality, the Trade Council rarely does more than administrate, and actual policy decisions are usually done by direct democracy. Major issues form the the center of large town hall gatherings. By tradition, only the owner of a business may be recognized to speak at one of these gatherings, but any adult may cast a vote.
Aside from the five Cities, there are a number of satellite villages in the region. The villages form important stops along the routes of merchants between cities, and so the Cities find it in their best interest to protect those villages which are near them. Generally, each village has a certain City it is affiliated with. It is laborers from these villages that are usually employed to maintain the roads between the Cities. Due to their small size, the villages usually have a more traditional mayor or sheriff in leadership, rather than a trade council.
The Cities are a cultural melting pot, and there is no specific "Karthin" ethnicity. About 40% of the population are ethnically Norveen humans, and another 30% are Diz'res elves. A significant transient population of Torvar dwarves exists in the region. There are even a few members of the "savage" races of Druugheim struggling against prejudices to be productive members of society.
Geography
The Karthin cities are arranged along the eastern edge of Silt Bay, a large warm water body shielded from the weather of the West Sea and Everreaching Ocean by the landmass of Normaer. The nature of the Karthin coast begins as rocky coasts at the southern end, gradually shifting to soft sand beaches at the north.
History
While there is no explicit Karthin ethnicity, some sages believe the beginnings of one are in the making for humans, coming from mostly from Norveen stock, with some admixture with settlers from all across the continent that came to be in the Cities.
Additionally, while the Karthin Cities may have only recently been confederated as a single political concept and a protectorate of the Kartheesan Tribal Council, the cities formed around and because of existing settlements, and the region has been inhabited to some degree or another by humans for most of recorded history, and during some history that is less recorded. Local legends connect to a people known has the Yoohun who occupied that area long ago, with Norveen oral legends of the time recounting that they had disappeared, after they all "walked away into the grass and became like cats." Curiously, the Kartheesan stories describe the Yoohun as a stubborn and unchanging civilization, that perished because they refused to learn to hunt in the grasslands as flooding repeatedly washed away their villages.
Tourism
Most travel to and from the Karthin Cities is economic in nature, but there is a fairly robust culinary and artistic culture present that visitors could enjoy.
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