Cambra

CAPITAL: Cambra
POPULATION: 677, 049
DEMONYM: Cambran/Cambrais
MAIN EXPORT: Trade

Cambra, to the southeast by the old Kingsroad in Andover, or through Carlia by the Eastroad, is a loose confederation of merchants, traders, and artisans; they have little in the way of natural resources in their lands, but their savvy mercantile expertise has brought them immense wealth nonetheless. Cambra, unlike its northerly neighbours, is itself more properly a city-state, a bustling hub of activity criss-crossed by trade routes. It is undoubtedly the largest city in the known world, a vibrant metropolis of sorts sprawling across the winding course of the Kimber river. Its architecture is allegedly preserved from the era before the Conflagration, with high churches and labyrinthine cobblestone streets together telling a rich story of a rich land. Like a great and wealthy turtle, Cambra is defended by an impenetrable shell, thirty feet thick and so tall that those who have seen it swear that its commanding height makes the sun set earlier there than in Andover. Beyond this wall are the Cambrais hinterlands, which are sparse compared to Carlia, occupied largely by vineyards owned by urban merchant-lords and the undulating common land of the shepherds.

The wealth of the city comes from its banks and its mints: the United Bank of Cambra handles lending for clients from Andover, Carlia, and even apparently Lusitana. Merchants' records, confiscated some five decades ago in a spy scare in Redland, revealed the existence of some lands apparently even farther south than Lusitana and more easterly than Cambra: a port called Delamerais from which wheat is shipped north by a river route, and The Wending, a trading hub in its own right that seems to be the source of the soft fabric used to make peerless Cambran fashion. Indeed, the silken clothes of Cambra's richest would have ousted Andover from the lucrative clothing market if not for its sheer expense. Even a down-on-his-luck Cambran merchant from a lower-ranked guild still has wealth enough to match Andover's oldest aristocrats.

The river Kimber is not only an artery of trade, but also a more direct source of riches: an old course of the river once led north and emptied into what is now the Withern Sea, and at some point in the long-vanished past deposited beds of flecked gold into the earth. This gold is pressed by the mints into the United Bank's official currency, the guilder. Cambran clay miners, seeking a new and more local source of raw material for the busy urban potters, were the first to discover this muddy buried treasure back in the days of the Grand Duchy; the socio-economic imbalance caused by the Withern Sea gold played a decisive role in toppling the last duke, who ineptly tried to seize this new wealth for himself. In the process he nearly started a war with Andover - Cambra's usual source of fine clay - and the rest is history, with the city's government taken over by a coalition of mercantile and artisan guilds who have only increased the city's and their wealth ever since. That was one hundred and sixty years ago, well beyond memory.

Today, the government of Cambra is made up of four main guilds: the Merchants, the Bankers, the Stonemasons, and the Vintners. There are numerous others - about thirty-six guilds in total - but these four are the great movers-and-shakers in the city's political heart, known as the Granary. The Granary, a city hall of sorts, sees meetings between all the city-state's guilds, in which representatives of each guild negotiate the business of the day. They meet monthly on the day of the Cambran week called "Liberdi," literally "free-day," with an agenda assembled by clerks the day prior; special meetings can be scheduled on short notice by consent of a plurality of the guilds or by the City Right of the four main guilds. Guild status in the Granary is determined wholly by rank, which is in turn determined by a particular guild's gross income plus its membership minus double the financial penalties levied against it that year. The higher-ranked a guild is, the more votes it has in the Granary, meaning smaller guilds will either seek out new business opportunities with less concern for risk, or they will play the game cautiously and try to work favours with higher-ranked guilds, negotiating their concerns and desires up the chain. Consequently, one's status in society is determined both by one's guild membership as well as seniority. A long-serving guild member, though he may be from a low-ranking guild, will still be accorded respect. This is the case, for example, with the League of Ferrymen, which has little income and few members, rendering it the thirty-sixth ranked guild in the Granary - but it is also one of the oldest guilds in the city, and its head is seventy-four year old Aander Marchandiere; when he speaks in the Granary, he is listened to.

Cambra also gives its name to the Cambra Strait, the narrow passage of rocky scrubland that straddles the border between the waters of the Great Sea and the desert of the Withern Sea, and along which runs the Kingsroad. This, along with the gold mines of the Kimber, make Cambran territory the closest of any country to the Withern Sea, and the best port of entry to the vast eastern desert lands. According to stories told by caravan guards three drinks in at the usual Redland pubs, some who run the trade routes from Cambra have made sojourns into the Withern Sea and returned. Though the veracity of the tales told by these guards is as dubious as the story of the Fen Fiend, one has to wonder how far the trade routes of Cambra truly go. If you found the right person - and rewarded them handsomely - then, what truths could you be privy to?