Mir Val

To the east and to the north, in the plains beyond the hills that break the forest border, there is a city of wealth and decadence and hedonism and danger - The Independent City State of Mir Val. The name is something of a joke to its citizens, living under the weak-willed mayor-ship of a man who allows his city to be puppeteer-ed by guilds of thieves and extortionists and mercenaries and murderers. Yet there's freedom that can be found in lawlessness, as a few reliable connections in this city is all one needs to escape punishment for their past crimes, even if they were committed beyond the city walls. Its history is mired in more legends and lies than proof and truth, but one thing is certain: It only exists for what lies underneath it.

Mir Val would have no economy, no infrastructure, no defensive force, no power in this world, were it not for its sister city that lies just beneath the surface, beneath the shadows - Ylisz'tir, the largest city in the Underdark. Mir Val is sustained only by Ylisz'tir's demand for the resources of the surface world, and the skewed morality of its dark-dwelling denizens makes it one of the few places that would choose to have dealings with Mir Val in the first place. Ylisz'tir is rich and powerful and cultured and developed - more so even than many cities on the surface - but it is also far more dangerous. Rather than lawlessness, its laws seem to encourage what many might consider criminal behavior, legalizing many circumstances of theft and murder and enslavement in line with the grim philosophy of the Underdark: Survival of the Fittest. Really, no society practices a more pure form of capitalism.