Vennim City - Commission for a D&D home game

**Derek Von Zarovich** · 01-16-2018, 02:53 PM

They call it the Jewel of the south, the place where people gamble their shirt and lose everything. Vennim's City main income comes from the many gambling houses in town. They are controlled/owned by two warring factions, the Turtle Necks and the Golden Cloaks. Should brave adventurers come this way, they will find themselves caught in the unending plethora of plots and conspiracies within the city.

Here's some background lore to it.

Vennim City, they call it the jewel of the south because it is the only successful city on the lower part of the continent. Other bigger settlements have been abandoned or lost to wars. The countryside is dotted with smaller towns and hamlets; minuscule points of light in the harsh lands. The country is a poor one, except for the capital. Roads are dangerous, most people die in the same place they were born because traveling is expensive and dangerous. Bad men and sellswords roam the lands looking for easy prey, and when they do get some gold to spend, they always go and spend it all in Vennim City.

You can find it all in Vennim City, but the one thing that shines brighter is the playhouses. Money games and betting are the sources of the city’s wealth; there are enough places to visit every week and never run out of. The nobles visit the wealthy playhouses where bets are paid in gold ingots, precious stones and sometimes exotic animals and spices. The populace visits more affordable and discreet playhouses, they spend their wages in games and nights of fun. From time to time a good hand or good dice come and they bet big and go home with a small fortune, often barely making up the loses of past game nights. Even the lowest of townsfolk, the working class, farmers, and beggars find backroom alleys where they bet big on copper pieces and tomorrow’s meals.

No one is impervious to the gambling industry in Vennim City. The playhouses are controlled by powerful factions inside the city. Most people have something to do with the business in one way or another. Either people are players or they work for the playhouses or the factions controlling them. Every person a pawn in the bigger scheme of things in the city. There are two powerful factions that control more than half of the games that happen in Vennim City. The Turtle Necks, which control the city council; and the Golden Cloaks, whose leader is the town minister himself. These two warring factions wage turf wars all year round.