Yveridia

Yveridia's history begins when a group of refugees fled their kingdom torn by civil war over religion and slavery politics. In an attempt to maintain peace, those same refugees established anti-slavery agreements for the time being. Those slaves they did have were freed and willingly sought to help rebuild the settlement they would start their new life in. After several months, the first cabins were erected and from there the settlement expanded.

The more the city grew and its people explored the land, the more they discovered. Between ores of iron, copper, gold, and others, the city was soon to be set financially. The ore would be mined out to be exported to the towns closest. There were also high concentration sof magic manifesting in crystals, and the magic iteself seemed to be the explanation as for why the ore was so rich. The magic also attracts other magical creatures, such as pixies and the like, which not only mildly affected the nature around, but were also later used in illegal exports.

The interaction with other towns and kingdoms gained the attention of both reputable and criminal individuals. However, due to the location of the town, its youth, and its size, it was the perfect haven for criminals on the run to start their lives anew - but most had no intention of improving themselves. Due to the amount that poured in over the years, they had earned the moniker of 'Rats.'

The Rats, as a result, gave the guards the nickname of 'Wolves' and 'Whelps' and the like. As the years passed, these names were adopted to empower rather than insult.

Most of the tensions between the Rats and average citizens began between merchants. Theft was on a steady rise, businesses were growing increasingly aggressive toward one another as a result, and also in an attempt to drive families out of business to make room for new ones, greedier ones owned by likeminded people. Things were being brought in through customs that shouldn't be, such as drugs, dangerous reagents, illegal or dangerous animals, and slaves. Pitting those animals against one another in forced fights became a slowly-growing interest for Rats.

The city's integration of more crime-heavy civilians was as subtle as it was slow. It wasn't peaceful per se, as there was plenty of conflicts between merchants and the like, but on the whole, it wasn't an awful place to live. There were those who were up in arms about the newly-discovered crystals scattered about the location, those of which housed intense magical power. Scholars and mages were studying the crystals, mostly what they could chip off or discover lying about without causing any adverse effects to the one gathering
and to those around them.

The city's leader himself, Charles Edgell, requested to be given some of the crystals for his own study, as he was known to be an adept mage. In a ploy to rid herself of her husband and further the agenda of those her true loyalties resided in, his wife Bernadette directed him to a mage she knew. After meeting up with said mage, he was gifted with a large cluster, which he stored in his study for inspection and note-taking. He wanted to be able to learn how to use them, to cultivate their power for Yveridia's use, and perhaps as yet another export if properly monitored.

Unfortunately, the cluster had been compromised. So as to succeed in killing the man, the cluster was chipped into without fully breaking it so that once the man finally broke the thing, an explosion unlike any other not only completely destroyed the mayor's edge-of-town home, but damaged his neighbors' homes as well. More than that, it buckled the earth beneath his home, which happened to be above a portion of the mines and the city's main water supply.

This would cause iron and copper poisoning in the water, not to mention more of the crystals in the mines having been set off in a sort of chain reaction. There were explosions beneath the earth, smaller due to the distance and how the caverns twisted further away from the city, until it struck a larger cluster of the caverns that housed much of the crystal itself. Besides poisoning the city's water supply, the excess magic also began to radiate and affect the land and animals. Some grew large and fiendish, others evolved at an impossibly fast pace, and some of the land began to twist and writhe as if alive. This posed an issue not only for those who lived within Yveridia, but for those travelling between cities.

Yveridia's population was both furious and desperate, though primarily the latter. While some were torn between blaming the late mayor for tampering with something so dangerous, most also understood no one there knew just how dangerous those crystals were, same with the newly-altered wildlife. Stepping in to fill her husband's shoes as mayor, the Bernadette began to pick up the pieces. The Rats she had relations with proposed utilizing slavery to help rebuild the town to promote faster growth, which at first caused a lot of unrest until it was pointed out that it would be a dangerous job, and that it would be safer for the citizens themselves to stay away from the mines and from the hole while it was being repaired. The slavery law was supposed to be temporary, but it remained in place as time passed and people grew comfortable with the power and success that came with it.

A wall was built to section off the part of town most affected, which would later be what divided the main part of the city and the Cesspoole as buildings were built and the city was expanded upon. Over the next few decades, the Rogue's court was established, the population of criminals increased (though remained mostly in the Cesspoole), and the city grew richer as once-illegal exports became legal, such as people, creatures, and contraband.

Dogfights remained, sure, but soon included slaves pitted against one another, and there was little tension since most of that took place behind the Cesspoole's walls. People were content to keep everything separated, and it kept both the most upstanding citizens and the worst of criminals happy. Crime families prospered in the shadows throughout the years, smart enough to avoid trouble but notorious enough to earn a reputation not to be reckoned with.