The large walled city of Rookroost was founded in 329 CY by an Oeridian robber-baron named Latavius, who preyed on river and road traffic within many leagues of his base. The town grew rapidly; for most of this century, it has been the major state in the Bandit Kingdoms, controlling all land up to seventy-five miles north of the Artonsamay-Zumker confluence and pulling in much legitimate trade. Rookroost’s rulers have traditionally been warriors who assassinate their predecessors, controlled all the while by the city’s powerful gang of thieves, which also controls the local assassins. Oeridian humans are dominant, but a large orc and half-orc population is present, with many other nonhumans besides (including half-fiends after the Greyhawk Wars).
A local legend says the city on the hill will never be conquered, so long as its huge raven population roosts in the city’s central square. So far, the prophecy has held true. The city resisted a siege by Tenha forces in 578 CY but was forced by treaty to stop raiding western Tenh. It wisely offered to join Iuz in 583 when the demigod’s armies laid waste to the Midlands realm to the south, and in 584 it became a regional capital. Rookroost now governs all plains, forests, and hills between Cold Run and the Zumker River, all Iuzite forces in Tenh, and the plains across the Artonsamay south to the Rift Barrens.
The city’s newest ruler, Lord Marshall Arus Mor-toth, murdered his predecessor, General Pernevi, following the loss in 586 of many of Pernevi’s fiendish advisers. Mortoth has restructured the government, heavily favoring humans over other races, except for a brutal hill giant employed as chief constable.Some say thieves and their agents really control the city, though the current administration has not overtly tried to sour relations with Dorakaa. Lord Mortoth is rumored to be disenchanted with Iuz,but he has no known relationship with Rookroost’s rogues, being a very self-centered dictator. It may be that the humans in his administration, which include very few priests of Iuz, feign their loyalty to him. Rookroost forces use their old heraldry with that of Iuz, and relations with Iuz’s local clerics are strained.