Population: 51,260 (37% humans, 14% elves, 21% half-elves, 11% gnomes, 9% halflings, 8% other races)
Government: Chief Magnate Thedric Alfir rules over the Larenthian Alliance from his throne here. He is known to be a slightly harsh but overall fair ruler. This city has a large amount of overseers, as well as apprentice overseers who train to be deployed to hamlets across the alliance. Chief Alfir consults with a council, known as the Mercantable, that consists of heads of industry from each major city in the alliance. These heads of industry reside mostly in Galvenport, so they have a tendency to be not very in-tune with the true needs of their represented people.
Defense: The capital city boasts a state of the art defensive system designed and built by the master inventors of Bippenbol. The outer wall of the city is roughly 25 feet tall and made of large blocks of stone. Each tower along the wall has a catapult loaded with black powder bombs. Within the city, the Constabulary keeps the peace among the citizenry. Constables can be identified by the Galvenport insignia, a gold coin overlaid on a simple ship, embossed into their breastplate. The Chief Magnate employs his own noble guard.
Commerce: Nearly all goods are available in Galvenport, including illegal items. The underground market is sourced from a thriving smuggling empire on the sea. Contraband items include certain black powder devices, illegal magic items, and hallucinogenic substances.
Organizations: The Larenthian Trade Federation is headquartered in the city, and oversees all trade that happens in the Alliance. The Underguild runs the black market and all illegal activity in the city. The Divinaire Institute of Wizendell also has a campus in the city and holds some sway in trading and politics.
Galvenport originated as a small seaside trading post run by the then merchant lord Lawrence Galaven. Over time, through clever business deals and a fortunate location on the coast, Galvenport grew to be an expansive and prosperous city. Once Galvenport had grown to considerable size, pirates and bandits started to become a serious problem. Pirates harassed merchant ships on the sea, and bandits attacked traders travelling over land. Galvenport was losing a lot of trade. It was at this point that Galaven realized he needed support in securing his lands. He reached out to the nearby large cities with a request for an alliance. Thus, the Larenthian Alliance was formed, mostly out of a need for security, and to grow the wealth of all the neighboring cities.
Galvenport now has the most diverse available goods in the Alliance. All of the cities in the Alliance transport goods to Galvenport to have them sold to other nations. Merchant ships from many nations of Chandaria travel to Galvenport to trade exotic and illegal goods.
The city itself is made of mostly stone brick and whitewashed wood buildings packed tightly together, funneling traders and consumers alike down crowded city streets. The center of the city, the Gilded Bastion, sits perched atop a low hill, making it such that the Harbor of Nations can be seen from most of the city. Separated from the rest of the bustling, crowded city streets, the richest of Galvenport live in the Windswept Gardens. Here in their large mansions and with lush trees and hedgerows, the upper class control the trade coming in and out of the city. In the Gilded Bastion, Alfir lives in and works from the Grand Keep. His council members also live in lavish mansions in the Bastion.
Besides a large port and artisan district, Galvenport has many divine temples. Alfir has outlawed the worship of certain gods however, namely Asmodeus, Tiamat, Lolth, Vecna, and Harmonia. All of the banned gods besides Harmonia are outlawed because they have been ruled as not conducive to prosperous trade. Worship of Harmonia is banned because of the Arcane Revolution.
The Chief and his family live in the Platinum Palace atop the Treska Plateau (named after Siegfried Treska, the third Chief Magnate of the Larenthian Alliance). The members of the Mercantable, who are also by far the richest denizens of Galvenport, live at the bottom of the Ascent in large, walled-in estates known as Golden Heights. Only members of these families or people with direct invitations from members of the Mercantable or the Chief can enter into Golden Heights through the gates. The members of the Mercantable are known to throw extremely lavish parties quite often, and other elite people that don't live within Golden Heights spend multiple nights a week boozing with the members of the Mercantable. It is rare for Alfir to join these parties, but he shows every once in a while to make his presence felt.
Outside Golden Heights, the upper class lives in the Inner Locks. This is the largest enclosed district within the city. There are small shops and artisan buildings throughout the Locks, but it is mostly just living spaces.
Most people in the city either work at the port or in the MoonCorp factory. Most of the work done at the port is shipbuilding or cargo handling. People in the city are generally pretty happy with their lot in life. Work is fair and the pay is pretty good for most jobs. Galvenport has a bustling night life, for when people finish work for the day. Most folks flock to the city's various taverns, theaters, and even the city's own casino, The Jewel Casino.
MoonCorp is one of the largest employers in Galvenport. The company hires a lot of gnomes and dwarves to work in the factory in the north of the city. MoonCorp manufactures clockwork and arcane technologies for the Larenthian military. The MoonCorp compound is the most secure place in Galvenport besides the Platinum Palace.
MoonCorp has expensive contracts with the Larenthian military. Besides that, they also do business with The Clockwork Consortium and Valdens. The Clockwork Consortium and MoonCorp deal in intellectual property more than physical trade. MoonCorp has a special private section of the port where they do all of their shipping out of.
Most people in Galvenport don't necessarily like how much power MoonCorp has and how secretive the whole company is, but at the same time, they acknowledge that it is a necessary evil within the city because MoonCorp is one of the largest employers of Galvenport citizens and also brings in a ton of trade which boosts the economy of the city and the whole Alliance.
The owner of MoonCorp is Geoffrey Ouesterling. He is one of the richest men in Galvenport and lives in Golden Heights despite not being a member of the Mercantable. He is a scrawny half-elf man with frizzy brown hair and glasses. He is around 5'10 and carries himself with an air of confidence. Despite being a very astute businessman, he can be very awkward sometimes.
Not many people know much about the Underguild. It is often a very ambiguous term that refers to most criminal activity in Galvenport. The actual Underguild is actually a very well-organized hierarchy of people whose lines of work don't fit too well with the law. Members of the Underguild range from lowly thieves to bounty hunters and hitmen to heads of highly organized crime syndicate families. No matter their status, all members of the Underguild are bound by the Code. The Code only contains 3 rules. The first is that death is preferable to ratting on the Underguild. Anyone caught cooperating with authorities to sabotage the Underguild will be punished so severely they will wish they were dead. The second rule is that membership of the Underguild must be kept an utmost secret. Even close family members are not to know of one's membership with the guild. The last rule is that the Underguild is never to be cited as the source of a crime. No one committing a crime should openly claim allegiance to the Underguild or claim that the crime is a direct work of the Underguild.
None of this information is known by the average person in Galvenport. Most people can only speculate about the Underguild. Being a member of it is generally seen as a bad thing because it means that person is an active criminal.
The Divinaire Institute of Wizendell is based in Wizendell. However, it has two other campuses outside of Wizendell, one in Galvenport and one in Holfirth. Of the satellite campuses, the one in Galvenport is much larger. While the campus in Galvenport does educate many people in divination, it also serves as the Institute's center for political influence in the Alliance. The campus is located in the center for politics in the Alliance, making it much easier to assert influence in decisions.
The Divinaire Campus in Galvenport also does most of the Institute's trading since much more trade in general goes through Galvenport. The Institute exports a lot of scrolls, books, and alchemical supplies. The alchemical supply shipments are especially guarded because the same supplies can also be used to make illegal drugs.
The headmaster of the Galvenport is much more of a politician than an academic.