Kobir (Ko-beer)

Kobir is subject to a charter, and exists as a colony of Ragnell, one of the Duchies back in Estier. The City Council has thirteen seats. Six of them are elected positions, with a vote by any citizen who owns property. Six are appointed positions, chosen by the High Priests of Torm, Wenta, and Tymora. The last councilor is called the Governor-General and is appointed by the Duke or Duchess of Ragnell. The Governor-General has veto power and commands the standing army of Kobir.

The Eastmouth Bay Trading Company has imported all the comforts of home for the weary traveler or off-duty soldier.

Kobir is a port town at heart, with docks for trade and a shipyard that repairs and builds seagoing vessels.

If you arrive by ship, the first district you'll encounter is the Lady's Hearth, where most of Kobir's trade is conducted. Around the Temple of Tymora, various insurers, merchants, banks and gambling houses proudly stand out along the wide lanes. The docks and their surroundings are a bit less shiny, but petty crime is rare in all of Kobir - watch out for bureaucrats docking your wage, not pickpockets after your wallet. The Lady's Hearth is a large semicircle, and most of the oldest buildings are found here - except for the Citadel.
The Citadel deserves mention, although it is not a district in its own right. A fortress monastery in the heart of the city, its pale gray bastions spiral up the hill to the keep at the very top. The warrior-monks of Torm built their last fallback with all of the tricks of military architecture they could think of. However, it is understaffed as of late, with fewer recruits joining the order and more resources focused on the outer wall and its defenses.

Kobir is the oldest foothold of Estier's influence upon the continent. While the Duchy of Ragnell is still pulling its strings, the character of the city has been changing over the past few centuries. In the early years of the Eastmouth Bay Colony, the dragon Thadaryshlauth The Bloody Champion came down from the north and almost wiped out the settlement. But an unlikely alliance between the colonists and the local dwarves and orcs was able to pin down and slay this horrific creature. The folk of northwest Dorend, who had been plagued by Thadaryshlauth for generations, began to trade and ally with the new arrivals after that. However, his rumored hoard vanished into legend, or perhaps into the Eastmouth Bay Trading Company’s bank accounts.

Kobir's walls encircle some of the richest farmland in the region. Corn, an imported crop from the Duchies, has been growing well here, and many herds of sheep and cattle are driven to and fro by Company workers. Another important resource is the resilient wood acquired at great cost from the Forest. The trees there are old and often magical, and rich merchants or nobles in the Duchies eagerly buy the furniture and ships the Company sends home.