Mel Shenshir
| The City of Mel Shenshir | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type: | Capital City |
| Population: | 70000 |
| Located in: | Amalur |
Mel Shenshir is a city lying on the eastern side of Drianna's vein in Amalur, and is the capital city of the Confederacy of Mel Shenshir. Rather than being ruled by a monarch or elected council, Mel Shenshir is ruled by the Guildpact - a treaty between ten Guilds that are each responsible for different aspects of the running of the city.
Mel Shenshir was founded in 1-1293 by immigrants from the city of Klurikon in the Fortenmar desert. Over time, it replaced Klurikon as the largest - and eventually only - Great Power on the eastern side of Amalur free of the influence of the Winter Fae. Mel Shenshir has frequently clashed with the other Great Powers of Amalur - Tala Rane and Rathir - with the three now existing in an uneasy stalemate.
History
Mel Shenshir existed for over 2000 years before the Guildpact was established by Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind. At this time, the roles that each of the guilds would play was also specified, as well initial leaders put in place.
Mel Shenshir has played a key role in the three defining conflicts of Amalur - the First, Second and Third wars. In the First War, Mel Shenshir began as a silent partner to Rathir, not joining the conflict until 2-2552, a full two years after the war had begun. However, in the Second War - fought between the Alliance of the West (Tala Rane and Rathir temporarily working together to prevent Mel Shenshir from encroaching on their side of Drianna's vein) and the Third War between Rathir and Mel Shenshir, the city was a pivotal player, and the power of the Guilds and the Guildpact that binds them was only increased.
The Guilds of Mel Shenshir
Ten Guilds make up Mel Shenshir, each responsible for different aspects of running the city, and having control over different districts within it.
The Azorious Senate
Leader: Odric of Thraben
Location: Crown Village
Law, order and civility. Such are the pillars of the Azorius Senate, the closest thing the city of Mel Shenshir has to a functioning government. The Azorius Senate works alongside the Boros Legion and Selesnya Conclave to see to the enforcement of the law, and the Orzhov Syndicate to see to the provision of advocates and lawmages for accusers/claimants/complainants/plaintiffs and defendants. Ultimately, however, the Azorius advocates for blind justice, peace, and the status quo.
House Dimir
Leader: Lazav
Location: Unknown
House Dimir is a guild of secrecy, manipulation and underhanded deals, a shadowy organization operating behind the scenes to twist Mel Shenshir to its own ends. The guild provides espionage, smuggling, burglary, counter-intelligence, assassination and other illegal services for the Ravnican populace, although its patrons are unaware that they are in fact employing the guild, instead thinking they are employing guildless mercenaries or another guild such as the Rakdos. The guild is so secretive that even its own agents often do not know who they truly work for.
The Gruul Clans
Leader: Domri Rade
Location: Varied
The Gruul are decentralized, lacking any sort of real leadership. The guild is thought of as nothing but a loose affiliation of clans. Exploited and ignored, they started to take any reason to cause chaos, any reason to destroy a symbol of civilization. Most Gruul hold contempt for those outside the Clans, referring to them as "cobble roaches".
The Selesnya Conclave
Leader: Trostani
Location: Brightbell Farthing
The Selesnya Conclave is a decentralized collective variably described as a "selfless, nurturing, spiritual group" or a "brainwashing nature cult” and involves itself in the establishment and maintenance of peace, life, and unity in Mel Shenshir. Despite their appearance of being a "good" and "peace-loving", in truth the guild has a sinister streak. The Conclave used to employ its quietmen and other members to silence the civilians of Mel Shenshir..
The Orzhov Syndicate
Leader: Tesya Orzhov
Location: Highcoin Borough
The Orzhov Syndicate is the Mel Shenshir Guild of business, where the dead exist solely to rule. Nearly every business in Mel Shenshir ties back to the Orzhov in some way or another. While they bear the facade of a religious group and may have been a true faith at one point, they now worship only profit and power. The Orzhov guild is founded on the beliefs that wealth is power, that structure breeds wealth, and that guilt creates structure. The guild is a combination of a religion, credit-lending agency, and crime syndicate. An ostentatious hierarchy of priests, enforcers, and ghostly councillors’ rules over a congregation of guilt-bound loyalists, indebted ghosts, and thrull servants.
The Izzet League
Leader: Ral Zarek
Location: Archtower Borough
The Izzet League are charged with attending to Mel Shenshir civic works, including water supply systems, sewers, heating systems, boilers, and roadways. In addition to carrying out these functions, the Izzet members — obsessive, keen, and creative intellectuals, who often have short attention spans — are known to perform magical experiments, ever with reckless abandon and sometimes with spectacular but severe results. Unlike the other guilds, the Izzet do not openly strive for hegemony of the city and the plane. Instead, integral to the Izzet League, a guild of masters of both theoretical and applied science and spellcraft, is the passionate seeking of, and thirst for, knowledge.
The Golgari Swarm
Leader: Glissa, The Traitor
Location: Varied
The Golgari Swarm is the embodiment of life and death. The teeming masses of the Swarm believe that life and death are both natural and equally essential too. To them, life and death are natural elements of a cycle with no intermediary break. Growth is power that comes slowly, but it is also ruthless and inevitable, and this makes growth a key virtue of the Swarm's power. Their necromantic magic has made the Golgari the largest Mel Shenshirian guild. Much like a swarm of insects, the Golgari often seem to behave more like a single organism than as a group of individuals. The whole Swarm is driven by a primal instinct to survive and reproduce.
The Boros Legion
Leader: Taric, Sword of the Legion
Location: Sword District
The Boros Legion was founded by Razia, a militant flaming-sword-wielding archangel capable of using flame and light magic who fervently and firmly believed in harmonious coexistence in Mel Shenshir, even if lives were lost and blood was shed in achieving this. The Legion functions as the righteous and zealous constabulary and Standing Army of Mel Shenshir, as the League of Wojek and Boros Army, respectively, and enforces Mel Shenshir laws created by the Azorius Senate. The Boros Legion is known to use many fire spells.
The Simic Combine
Leader: Momir Vig
Location: Archorb Borough
The Simic Combine are Mel Shenshir’s stewards of nature and the wild; its mission is to preserve the natural world even as the city continues to grow. The guild seeks to protect the elements of the plane that are incompatible or mutually exclusive with its overpopulated, urban conditions. The guild uses magic to coax new morphologies from existing creatures, as well as to combine traits from multiple organisms in one. Some of these are unique creatures that can't reproduce. A few multiply and become part of the guild's fabric. The emotionally distant relationship that the Simic biomancers have with the rest of Mel Shenshir’s society makes the common man wary of the guild, thinking of them as crazy mutant makers. Even so, the Simic make up the physicians of Mel Shenshir and so injuries and illness are taken to the reputable doctors.