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City of Tharis
| Location: | southeast region of the main Shadowgate continent |
| Rulership: | direct theocracy |
| Political ties: | Tharis holds its strongest ties with Tonovi due to the slave trade and its shared hostility to elven invaders, though its sway has been limited more recently with the rise of elven strength. Its once friendly ties with the darker magistrates of Shadow have dimmed, leaving it with neutral trade agreements but nothing more. It holds a hostile attitude to the Tsarven Empire, with whom it shares both moral disagreements and borderland disputes. |
| Religious ties: | Tharis used to be known as “city of thieves” as gods of thievery and shadows were its patrons. Since Lord Shadow established unilateral control over the city, the shades are the true rulers, representing a direct theocracy in its true meaning. |
| Tier: | Tier 1 |
Historically, Tharis arose as a logging settlement, long contested with the wood elves of the region. Maintained and then exceeded their strength, managing first to hold their own and then to press further afield, taking some of the elves as slaves and lesser citizens within the city itself. The elven slums arose from those slaves who stayed behind, guarding lands and hidden secrets that they still claimed to be theirs; the remains of Daoine'yndaar which are shifted out of the prime material plane, but still cause wellsprings of power in the area. Two distinct groups of elves became apparent; those who remained in the forests and followed the old ways, fighting the human incursions, and those who took up a tenuous existence within their walls, subject to their rule.
More recent decades have seen the rise of the drow house Rilynath in support of the urban wood elves, resulting in an uprising and a previously unknown state of strength for these elves. The wood elves of the forest still regard the drow with distrust, but will not raise arms against their deluded kinfolk in the city. The wood elves of the city have openly embraced their drow cousins and are adjusting to being more than the second-class citizens, all they have known for most of their long lives. Distrust is growing between the urban and forest wood elves, given their actions in the uprising. The human sections of the city are rebuilding in strength, having been badly defeated in the rebellion, and are presently maintaining a defensive stance within the city and a tenuous truce with the elves and drow.
Quote: The defeat of the Tharis army will likely be seen as a major strategic error in the eyes of the upper class in the city. A power struggle may ensue, with the legitimacy of whomever was ultimately responsible for such a huge defeat called into question. As Tharis no longer has the strength to forcibly evict the elves, the new powers in human-controlled Tharis may seek to strike a treaty with their neighbors, effectively splitting the city in two.