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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PHDungeon" data-source="post: 5019095" data-attributes="member: 86320">The party has determined that Flagg has headed south out of the Nentir Vale towards the city of Grimsburg, and they  will be heading there after him. The following is a brief history of the city:The site where Grimsburg stands has been a Skanzi settlement for centuries. However it was about the year 420, during the height of the Empire of Nerath that it began the transformation from a skanzi town to a cosmopolitan city. Colonists from Nerath were moving into the region in large numbers. Many were looking for land and opportunity, but many others were fleeing persecution. The Nerathi and Skanzi populations intermingled in Grimsburg, and though at first there was much tension and hostility between the two ethnic groups that hostility gradually faded. The Nerathi built stone manors and a large temple to Rao. They created a university and even built a series of man made islands at the mouth of Nentir river, which became the city’s main harbor and entertainment district. Over the next two hundred years the city more or less flourishedThough Rao’s faith had a strong presence in the city, the Nerathi who had come to Grimsburg were mainly dissidents of the empire. Many of them did not agree with some of the Empire’s policies and they were looking for a place where they could live that would be less stifling. Idealists would say that this resulted in a very cosmopolitan city- a place were new ideas and beliefs were valued and discussed openly without fear of persecution. Some of the brightest minds in the empire moved to Grimsburg, and many of those minds were practitioners of the arcane arts. Cynics would say that for every liberal free thinker to arrive in Grimsburg arrived at least five immoral opportunists who were either fleeing the law of the empire or just looking for a place to engage in their illicit activities unimpeded. By the time year 621 arrived (The beginning of the War of Retribution), Grimsburg had become a haven not only for mages, but also for criminals of all sort. The entertainment district was festering with brothels and gambling halls. Crime was rampant and the city government was thoroughly corrupt.Grimsburg was hit early in the War of Retribution. The skanzi people rose in vast numbers to move against the Empire. In the Nentir vale they drove the Nerathi lords from their manors, and they either slaughtered them or forced them to join the skanzi horde. In Grimsburg the same thing occurred. Blood ran in the streets as the skanzi rose up against the Nerathi. Priests of Rao received the harshest treatment and were killed in particularly violent ways. For weeks Grimsburg was a place of complete anarchy and chaos. Eventually, the skanzi emerged triumphant and a semblance of order was restored to the beleaguered city. A vast shipyard was constructed, and Grimsburg’s population tripled almost overnight, as skanzi warriors from all over the north poured through its gates eager to join in Odin’s holy war. Grimsburg became the seat of massive skanzi army. The population boom did not last long, for soon the skanzi long ships were sailing south en mass towards Nerathi mainland. For several decades they pillaged and raided the Nerathi people. In the year 668 the Bloodspear war began. With so many good skanzi warriors away from home, the communities of the vale were left vulnerable, and most of them were razed to the ground by the fearsome orcs. Eventually the men of the vale with the aid of the dwarves of Hammerfast and the elves of the Harkenwood pushed repelled the orc horde from the vale, but it left the Nentir Vale a shattered fragment of what it once was. The horde never made it as far south as Grimsburg, but the effects of the war were still felt, for many of the cities best warriors had ended up traveling north to fight the orcs, and had died. The city had become weak, and it had lost its bravest and finest, leaving it to the city’s criminals and scum.Finally, in 682 Odin decided that Rao and his mortal followers had been punished enough and the War of Retribution ended. By this time the skanzi people were weary of the bloodshed, and though they had grown rich from the treasure they had looted from the empire, the wealth had come at a cost. Nerath had been strong and had put up great resistance. Many skanzi warriors had been lost in Bloodspear war and the War of Retribution , and the skanzi people needed time to replace their fallen warriors. By this time Grimsburg had fallen far from its glory days. It was a mere shadow of its former self. Its best and brightest were gone, and it was the cowardly and corrupt that still remained.In the past one hundred years, Grimsburg has begun to rebound from the toll taken by the War of Retribution. Nerathi merchants have started trading in Grimsburg once again, and the city remains a haven for spellcasters. The city continues to be the greatest city in the North, and every year new immigrants from the fallen Empire of Nerath arrive seeking their fortunes. The church of Rao has reestablished itself and an uneasy truce exists between the priests of the sungod and the battle clerics of the Aesir. Crime and corruption remain a huge problem in the city, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Styes. The Styes is a district of decaying man made islands that was once the pride of the city. It is now a virtually autonomous district with its own city council. It is a continual reminder that Grimsburg still has a long way to go to regain its lost glory.</blockquote>

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