[center][b]The Serene City of Caprile[/b]

Ruled by Her Serenity, Dogessa Mahria Therene III (33)[/center]

[i]Her Most Serene Dogessa, inheritor of the city from her father, Doge Mikkle Therene, has ruled for some 8 years, though the Masters of the Banking Houses claim she has ruled for no less than 15. Doge Mikkle was feeble of mind for a long period of time and Mahria was able to manipulate her father into giving her command of the local militsia, the citizen levies. Long neglected in favor of expensive Talins mercenaries, court gossip saw her as a tomboy with ambitions beyond reality. There was even talk of supplanting her for the young prince Giovan when she refused to give up her military ways, but fate intervened when Giovan was struck down by the pox.

Mahria Therene ascended the throne at the age of 25 and immediately used her loyal militzia to secure the fealty of the Banking Houses and the lowland villages before launching a period of sustained combat and siege against the Highland lords and their fortresses. The banking houses saw she was capable of destroying the brutes in their forts and opened their pocketbooks to finance a true war to secure the city of Caprile.

Today, Mahria reigns in a shaky but largely independent city. The Banking Houses enjoy a new era of profits but quietly whisper and plot while the Dogessa remains unwed and has been dismissive of marriage prospects.
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NO FLAG, NO COUNTRY!
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A colony of Talins in all but name, [b]Caprile's[/b] architecture reflects this in the everyday streets and stately buildings across the city. The Doge's palace is less a castle and more a manor home with minor fortifications and can only be spotted on the horizon from the stargazing tower, built by Doge Rian "The Mad" a century ago. The common folk's dwellings reflect the more stoic, basic needs of the people. Often made from heavy and plain stone to resist the sea gales that batter the coast, few dwellings rise above a second floor.

The Banking Row and its great houses, with their domes and windows of colored glass, line the dockside. Fitting, as they make their fortunes on which ships come to port and which sink at sea.

The Arsenal lining the river is the city's strongpoint. From here, every man and fit woman in their eighteenth year receive training with the militzia, with pike, crossbow, and sword and shield.

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[i]Long a vassal of the great city of Talins, Caprile's hill clans have served as mercenaries and brute enforcers for the greater city-states of the West while the mercantile interests in Caprile City have made small, incremental moves to secure more liberty for themselves and their city. The traditional hill-folk long dominated the politics of Caprile by dint of their mercenary ways- the survivors would bring back coin and loot from their ventures in trade for an arm, and eye, or a leg. Whenever Caprile's Doge tried to bring them to heel, the clans could retreat into mountain castles in the Fang Peaks until, waiting for their neighbors to answer the call and repel the lowland levies. The merchants of Caprile watched as their chances for independence and greater wealth came and went with every decade, feeding the city of Talins. Sitting at the mouth of the Capra river, the entrance to the Loranar valley- the great trade route to Borletta through the Fang Peaks, and with fertile pastures to the south to nurture the wool and textile trades, Caprile's greatness was always within its grasp- it needed only to break the dominance of the hill clans to seize it.

It took the wars of Lucius and Westport to break the impasse.

Called by the promise of plunder and pillage on a scale not seen in a generations, a full third of the highland clans marched to join the bloodbath. The merchants of Caprile realized that their chance had come and did not let it pass again. With a combination of men-at-arms, citizen levies, and Talins mercenaries, Caprile brought the lowland and highland villages into the fold of their new city-state while fending off opportunistic ventures from neighbors. The Highland clans returned from Westport to find the border closed to them- creating a stateless horde that was denied the food and fodder.

The past five years have seen sweeping changes come to Caprile. The mountain clans have been broken, with many descending to the lowlands for the promise of wealth through pasturing. Their mountain holdfasts have been seized by the Dogessa and turned into watchposts for the citizen-militia military. A fleet of trade-ships have been contracted to bring Caprile wool to workshops across the land, though the primary buyers are in Talins and Jacra. 

To most of the other cities in the realm, Caprile is a subject of Talins that has grown into wealth and prestige- but still a servant to its more powerful master. The fortifications being raised along the Capra river and the development of a standing army in service to the Dogessa signals ambitions for true independence. It's only a matter of time before Talins must re-assert its dominance or suffer the consequences when the Dogessa publicly refuses a command from the Grand Duke...[/i]