Monstruia

On the edge of human civilization, on the outer end of the great valley, lies the country of Monstruia. A holy land for adventurers. Danger-seeking men and women from all races come to this country. They come here not for the ground itself, nor for the exquisite living space, no, they come here for the monsters. This is a land of opportunity where one can make a great amount of money in a short amount of time. If they are strong enough of course. The weak here perish, mostly by their ignorance and arrogance.

Monstruia is filled with monsters, in all shapes and sizes. Though the more west you go, the larger the monsters will get. Since you'll get closer to the monster spawning habitats in the Western Wastes. Mainly a lot of flying, climbing and digging monsters will infiltrate from the Western Wastes.

## History

Throughout the Era of Elves and the Era of Men the land has always been wild and untamed. The Dragon empire of Calenor and the Dwarves had some incursions into the region to quell the stream of monsters coming from them. However, they've never truly had dominion over it. The few settlements, fortresses and bases they had have all but been destroyed over the millennia.

It was not until a combined effort of Eduvia, Vertex and Tonar that the land was cleared of the most dangerous monsters and it was able to be settled. Because of the fact that it was a collaboration there was no attempt by the three to directly take dominion of the land. All three countries had benefits with the existence of Monstruia with the fact that it would keep the monsters out of their own borders. The three did prevent a centralized government from taking power in the region.

After the founding of Monstruia a lot of glory seekers came there to slay the biggest monsters they could find. Many new villages were settled and the country has been growing ever since.

## Culture

The people are a hardy, stubborn but warm folk that value family and name instead of hearth and territory. Frequent monster attacks means that small towns often have to evacuate themselves if there’s a creature that’s too powerful to handle for the adventurer’s guild there. Since the land is fairly sparsely populated there is land enough for everyone. So people don’t often fuzz about personal disputes. Because territorial possession and resources don’t matter as much, status is often measured in physical/magical power, reputation and wealth.

Monstruia is not a centralized country in the slightest, it is ruled by a senate of guild leaders and mayors. Though this senate barely comes together and is only called upon in cases of national threat. Most of the local authority is given to the elected regional mayor. To be elected you need to be either the guild leader of a national level guild or a mayor of a city.

## Guilds

Guilds play an important role in Monstruian society. They form the basis on which most towns and cities are build. The biggest guilds are national level guilds with at least a 100 masters of craft and establishments in two or more towns or cities. Masters of craft can be high-ranking monster hunters but also master blacksmiths. Or 250 in one locations though that is extremely rare.

There are four types of guilds in Monstruia each consisting of different people.

### Adventurer's guilds

These guilds are the founding forces of most towns and cities. They were the pioneers that first came to this land looking for glory. Most of the towns, only have one adventurer’s guild since that became a town’s image and status symbol. There are some cities that have multiple adventurer's guilds but these are rare.

### Merchant guilds

The merchant guilds are the people who came after the adventurers. They saw the potential of wealth and resources in the regions of Monstruia. They were the first peddlers that traveled between the adventurer guilds and the countries around it. They have now grown into large trade companies with regular caravans crossing the lands to conduct the tri-trade between Monstruia, Eduvia and Tonar.

### Artisan guilds

These are often smaller guilds of Artisans of the same craft like the blacksmith’s guild or the stonemason’s guild. These guilds mainly try to protect their small businesses from the big companies and their monopolies. There are often many of these guilds in a single city. Though the city must reach a certain size before artisan’s guild are formed there. They usually don’t branch out to other cities, but it does happen from time to time.

### Banking guilds

These are only seen in bigger cities and there are only a few of them in Monstruia as in that several of them have multiple branches in other cities. The competition between the several banking guilds is also very fierce and some have even stooped to having gangs do dirty work for them. Most of the gangs have some bankers as their financial backers.