Osksi is an ancient, cultured and cruel city, ruled by a small clique of noble families whose word is law within the boundaries of their empire. Osksi has feuded with Mordant for years over who is actually the leading power in southern Alastari. At one time or another each city could fairly make the claim. The first of the Ririorni tribes to enter Alastari after the Chaos War, the Osksi were quick to take the best that the poor land offered, and to hold it fiercely afterward, driving off the later-arriving tribes. However, some thirty to forty years after the Osksi's arrival, three or four tribes arrived almost simultaneously--the Mordanti, the Jhansites, the Jhelumites, and the Trocarans. Setting a precedent for their later dealings, the Osksi drove the weaker Mordanti away, fought one inconclusive battle with the stronger Jhelumites before offering them an alliance, and then used the Jhelumites as a buffer between Osksi and the Jhansites and Trocarans, who were eventually forced east. The Osksi are often thought effete or cowardly by outsiders, but in truth they simply prefer not to waste resources on war when blackmail, bluff or a poisoned blade could do the job as well. Treachery and intrigue are a way of life in the decadent Osksi Empire. Though the Osksi are for the most part the same racial mix as the rest of the Federation (which is to say, about half Rirorni and half everything else from the great mixing pot that is Alastari), there is also a strain of darkelven blood in the Osksi Empire, strongest in Cliffhome, which was for many years allied to the underground darkelven city of Faerhso, but present in other places as well. (Though contact with Faerhso is long lost, there are numerous small darkelven tribes which still live above-ground in the Empire, as well as farther south in the Silverwald Forest.) The Osksi Empire also has an increasing proportion of Adantri blood. The Adantri, immigrants from the Empire of Lirath Kai to the southwest of Alastari, are an extremely honorable people with a tradition of martial arts study. The rest of Alastari hopes that their influence will have a leavening effect on the Osksi character.
Osksi is a center of manufacture and trade, and though the land around it is harsh and not particularly productive for farming, the Empire is well-known for sheep and goat herding, and Osksian woolens bring a high price in the chillier northern lands.
Ruler: The Council of Lords. The spokesman is Medan Havendish-Dredron, Count of Klavannish.
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