The Crown

Irna's civil war in 1190ME lasted 21 years and consumed much of the land in its conflict in one way or another. There wasn't a family in some regard that wasn't impacted by the civil war, either losing a family member or close friend. Lord Harrington, heartbroken at the massive loss of life across his kingdom, gathered many freemen and hardened soldiers whose armies had fallen together in a peace keeping force. He would bring his army to a war-torn region and offer both sides of the force a chance for peace, hoping both sides would take him up on the offer. Sometimes it worked, other times, it required a little more effort to make it work. He would leave forces in hot spots to maintain peace, but it took another couple years for his peace keeping force to still the war machines across Irna.

Once that was over, he gathered the remaining kings of their respective lands and put forth a proposal, that there should be an emperor for the entire land and that disputes between kings can be negotiated through the court at the emperor's castle. They all, war weary, thought that it was better and cheaper than waging war and agreed. Lord Harrington setup a constitution that allowed kings a lot of autonomy in ruling their own regions. The emperor would stay out of local issues. In exchange, the kingdoms would fund the building of the city the emperor would rule out of. He called it The Crown.

Construction because a few years after the agreement was in place. Lord Harrington called great architects to design the city and summoned great builders and turned most of the now unemployed soldiers into workers for the project. Thadrik Copperhand was a dwarven architect that won the award for the design of the city. It was said to be strong, purposed and well maintainable. The elven counsel complained that it was lifeless and without natural beauty. Copperhand relented and replanned several sections with plenty of forest and natural gardens and, to this day, these are some of the most favored parts of the city for the citizens of The Crown and the visiting tourists and dignitaries.

It took over a hundred years to complete the original design. Emperor Harrington passed away well before the city was completed. His heir started the tradition of taking on an alternate name when crowned emperor. He took the name Emperor Ashank. He continued his father's work on the city and maintained the plans put in place. Harrington had imparted to his court and children the needed budget acumen to not change plans for the sake of changing them and to be frugal with the kings taxed money. Copperhand and the elven counsel was pleased to see that the central plans remained the same.

The completion of The Crown was in 1312ME with Emperor Ashank hammering in the last stone in the outer wall. A month-long celebration kicked off with all of the kings of Irna being present and several visitors from Funta, Jazirah and Shoing. Antaea, having been recently found, wasn't yet ready to play along with Irna's role in the world. As the month passed on, the leaders of the various kingdoms outside of Irna spoke to the emperor about setting up places they could maintain a presence so that trade and other aspects of business could be conducted easily. Ashank, not really giving it much thought being well inebriated said "Sure, make it so!". The kings all rushed to find places to secure their royal presence. Some when to the Holy Parish, some to the Fine district. The poorer kings went to the Sage Ward and some kings went to the trade quarter out of necessity. A bidding war opened over the better properties in each area. In the end, most of the best buildings were snapped up by the foreign kings.

The following morning Ashank, realizing what had happened and the unintended consequences of making The Crown the world's capital, had Copperhand rework parts of the castle to allow more, but smaller, spaces for these ambassadors who would be remaining behind for whenever the situation would require face to face worldwide conversations. He also commissioned one of the temples to be converted to a conference hall. The renovations took another 4 years to complete.

Following Ashank was his heirs Polleron, Glorian, Willingson, and Bulvor. In Bulvor's court, the kings petitioned for an election for the seat of the emperor from among the various kings of Irna. It is believed the elven counsel pushed for this as they were getting tired of being ruled by humans. Bulvor gave it some thought and didn't want humanity to have generations under some of the longer-lived races and said that he would agree to it provided no emperor could rule for more than 100 years. Furthermore, he also added a vote of no confidence from the kings, should 3/5th of the kings want to have a different ruler, they could call for a vote of no confidence in an open vote where, if they achieved the right number of votes, the emperor would step down. It took a few years to work out a constitution for the council of kings, as it was called, but in the end the provisions allowed for the election of the emperor from the kings, a vote of no confidence and what it took to have a vote happen in the first place. It was briefly considered to allow the subjects of each king to have a group say in the matter, to be present in the voting, but that was quickly defeated by a majority of the kings. The churches also wanted a say at the table and the kings agreed that the churches should keep with their gods and not interfere with the rules of the kings. Neither the church or the people were satisfied with the rules of the kings, and some called for unrest. Bulvor wrote his first national proclamation over the unrest, in fact the first one from any emperor that was issued. It forbade protests and unrest due to the decisions of the kings. People peacefully protesting were fined 2cp first offence, 2sp the second and finally 5gp the third. After the third they were arrested for crimes against the crown, or if they were unable to pay. House Carna purchased these prisoners so they could work off their labor.

The kings first thought the proclamation was an overextension of the emperor's power and were about to protest, however, the tribes from the North reminded the kings that, soon, this power would be one of theirs and it could be used to benefit the kings and kingdoms if used properly. Chief Cha'Ton spoke to the emperor about the proclamation and how there was no laws around it and they agreed that the kings could vote to overturn any proclamation and put it up to vote from the kings, it won a majority. This was the start of centuries of proclamations and rebuttals from the kings of the land.

As time passed, The Crown became more and more prominent in world affairs. As Antaea opened up and further kings around the world carved out their own kingdoms, diplomats took up residence in The Crown. When the trade wars started, the different trade groups setup guilds in The Crown as well, all in the trade quarter, with professional or higher educated professions in the Sage's Ward. Eventually they all merged until each major product, service, crop, or skilled job was represented by one guild that controls the majority of the trade for that product. Certainly, freelancers exist, but most of the merchants join the guild especially for protection from the thieves’ guilds. All the major, non-evil, faiths also have representation in either offices or a temple in The Crown, settling in the Holy Parish. The faiths operate in relative peace with each other, sort of an inter-faith agreement to not cause drama in The Crown. For the most part, this has sustained the city between faiths for centuries to this day.

The Crown is also the home of more spies than any other region in the world. The inter kingdom interactions range from polite information gathering to downright assassinations. The Crown, of course, takes great exception to the viler aspects of spying and has ruled that most spy activity is outlawed. Which most spies ignore anyway. As time passed, it became more and more apparent that something more than a city guard is needed to maintain peace. Emperor Malloq created the various level of guards in the city, the grey cloaks for the city guard, gold cloaks for the castle guard, purple cloaks for the royal guard and the Shadowviel is the counter-spy agency.

There are two harbors for The Crown, the first one, the Landing, outside of the Sage Ward, is where most travelers and higher end cargo comes in. Diplomats who arrive via ship travel will come in here. The ship docks are here as well. The Candlelight Harbor is mostly used for commodity cargo, pilgrims, lower cost travelers. From history, when slavery was legal, there was a large area where slaves were kept and held here have, instead, been turned in to slums where crime runs rampant. A lot of the city's workers who aren't in skilled professions live here as it is so expensive within the city to live. The prison is kept here for common prisoners. Noble prisoners are kept inside the castle's grounds.

Outside of the city walls, a large farming operation was setup, most of the farms are run by the halflings, with each dedicated to a crop that they grow. Almost all the food for the city comes in via these farms. Outside of the crops, which are the first ring of farms outside of the city, there are animal farms which produce the meat and other animal-based products (like eggs and milk). With the help of the druids, the farms around the city can keep up with the city's demand and export food to neighboring towns or ship to other lands.

Over the past century the latest emperor, Geofferson, coming close to the end of his reign, dedicated his rule to restore the city back to its original glory. Much of the decay that happened has been restored, the roads all made new, laws passed on updating buildings, with those unable to do so having their buildings seized by the government and auctioned off to the highest bidder. Apart from a few grumblings, the citizens of the city have been thrilled with the renewal.