The western edge of the vast Ovrusaen Empire contains the Vrothian Republic. Its capital city is Milashur, located at the confluence of two rivers, among the foothills of a mountain range.

The flatlands in the west border upon the Gulf of Bazón, but those areas make up only a minority of this very hilly and mountainous country.

The most important river in the republic may be the Tasza-rzeka. It flows through the heart of Milashur, into some narrow canyons and out of the southern reaches of the Grobo Mountains to become what the Duchy of Raskot calls the River Tazieu.

The republic is no stranger to cold, dry winters with frequent snow on mountains. Sometimes that snow reaches down into the settlements in the cities. Blizzards are not unknown, though more likely in the more remote areas and at higher elevations. The real backwater settlements are often on the lookout for avalanches and mudslides during the winter months.

Most of the rivers running through the republic are navigable year-round, if other geographical features allows it. This may be more treacherous in winter due to ice, but the Vrothians have developed some technology to deal with it.

Summers are warm and dry with occasional thunderstorms that produce lightning strikes and their ensuing wildfires.

The mountainous geography of the country has encouraged the leaders (and anyone they can conscript for cheap labor) to invest heavily in capturing rainfall and snowmelt, transporting it via aqueducts and pipes, and storing it in cisterns in population centers. In the few places where Vrothians practice agriculture, they freely share their knowledge of digging wells and irrigating from natural water sources.

On paper, the republic is constitutional and parliamentary. There is an extensive set of written laws and a rich legal tradition of producing written official interpretations. This certainly doesn’t prevent the proliferation of official misinterpretations that may not be applied evenly to the citizens. There are varying degrees of stability and corruption, depending on who holds the reins of power in various locations.

The strong written legal tradition has inspired other intellectual traditions, including general research and scholarship, oratory, and debate around secular topics.

Officially, the republic is secular, and tries to prevent any particular religion, belief system, or form of worship influence its laws too much. In practice, every official is trying to leave their stamp on the law or its practice, and excessive religious influence is only addressed when someone finds it and calls it out.

The republic’s military is part volunteer, part convicted criminals working off their sentences, and part mercenary. The official line is that the volunteers are the largest component, and that serving the republic through military service is an honorable deed, but the reality on the ground may vary from fort to fort and battlefield to battlefield.

Thanks to considerable immigration and emigration over the years, the republic is culturally heterogeneous and could almost be described as polyglot. There are many significant cultural and religious enclaves within the borders; they generally tolerate each other well but sometimes they are in tension. In general, forms of worship that do not directly harm others are left alone.

There is one official language of government and commerce, that happens to be shared by neighboring nations including the Duchy of Raskot. People will shift to other languages when practical.

The republic is quite proud of its considerable skill in manufacturing, industry, and crafted goods, whose raw materials are often obtained by trade. Every city within the republic has a tale of a recent industrial accident with significant casualties and property damage. Sometimes this produces civil unrest.

Thanks to this skill in manufacturing and crafting, Vrothian arts tend to focus on the tangible rather than the experiential: paintings, sculpture, textiles, architecture, and written works are most frequently produced. Sometimes the written works may be staged for performance.

The economic structure of the republic is mostly capitalism, fettered by as few regulations as those in power can stomach. The well-connected tend to find laws consistently favoring, if not entrenching, their business interests. Mobility between economic strata is mostly based on accumulated material wealth and knowing the right people.

Because there are so few constraints upon economic activity within the republic, there is a lot of innovation in private industry, much of it born from naked temporal ambition. Some of the innovations are practical enough to provide broader benefit to society. Older traditions that are less practical or beneficial often wither and die because of economic factors. In some respects, the economy is the culture of the nation. That is the expected state of things in the cities, though there are a few academics and other skeptics who openly question it.

The leaders of both the city of Milashur and the entire Vrothian Republic deeply understand the importance of trade to a country that relatively little arable land that can barely feed the people who live on it, let alone those who live in distant towns and cities. Therefore the republic’s diplomats tend to be some of the most successful and well-connected merchants.

Among the eastern foothills of the Grobo Mountains, where the the flowing waters of the broader Tasza-rzeka are bolstered by the smaller Borstigsflod, sits this city of about 90,000. The confluence of the two rivers divides the city roughly into three districts.

The northern Hramskrug, a sliver between the two rivers and the smallest of the three districts, is dominated by the religious, academic, and cultural institutions that can afford to maintain a presence there. The district also hosts some of the most adventurous architecture in the city and the republic.

The eastern Zakonskrug hosts most of the Republic’s government buildings including the Supreme Ministry, the Parliament Halls, and the Court Civil. The most affluent citizens and most prestigious businesses also call this district home. Anyone who wants to look important, powerful, or well-connected tries to gain a foothold here.

The western Treznikrug is the largest of the three districts, and it is where all the business of the citizens gets done. The center of the district hosts the city government buildings, respectable but less obviously opulent than the republic’s establishments. Most of the rest of the district is commercial and residential, arranged in whatever unregulated mishmash appeared to make sense at the time to whoever built it. Nearly all social classes are represented here, from the affluent to the destitute and everything in between.

gospodar

A gold coin, worth ten sluga. The standard unit of wealth within the Republic.

knez

A platinum coin, worth ten gospodar. Uncommon in cities, rare elsewhere.

Milashuri

The proper demonym for a resident of the city of Milashur.

Millie

An insult towards someone believed to be from Milashur, often uttered by people from the Duchy of Raskot.

Raskotnik

An insult towards someone believed to be from the Duchy of Raskot.

sluga

A silver coin, worth ten zupan.

Vrothian

The proper demonym for a resident of the Vrothian Republic.

zupan

A copper coin. The smallest recognized denomination in the Republic.

Names of places and people within the city of Milashur and the broader Vrothian Republic till tend to sound Germanic, Norse, Slavic, or Turkic. Hard consonants, gutturals and sibiliants in these names are not uncommon.