Current situation

Ressurected by the Merchants Guild in a matter of months after the sea-portals opened, Šraku was re-built without much thought put into it. Most of the buildings are made of wood since it's cheap and easy to work with, sometimes using orcish ruins as a foundation. Impoper handling of enormous amounts of magical items causes fires, explosions, evaporations and other undesirable events on a daily basis. Everyone who sets foot in Šraku is in danger regardless of what they (don't) do - at any given moment a house nearby may collapse, a merchant's cart blow up, a herd of giant sheep rush through the street stomping on everyone in the way. It is highly advisable to pray for luck before visiting Šraku, for mortals have little control over their own life and death here.

Layout

General

The city planning was almost non-existent from the beginning, and daily fires do not help it either. One doesn't get lost in Šraku; you are lost the moment you set foot there. The old quarters burn, the new ones are erected. There are no districts per se, but the closer you are to the port, the safer it is. The warehouses are located in the outskirts, slightly deeper in the city - magical items appraisal, packaging and delivery facilities. Living quarters, as well as shops and services for the traders, tend to be located closer to the sea.

The Guests' District

The harbor area is the only part of the city that is built of stone and doesn't burn easily. Aside from the Guilds' Halls, it houses the port, taverns and the most neccessary infrastructure for the merchants from the Sword Coast. In general, safety of the guests from Faerûn is the utmost priority for the Merchants Guild, because the very existence of Šraku depends on their favorable disposition. The only building here that is not made of stone is the lighthouse, lovingly called The Nose Jr. It was named after the narrow protruding cape of the island north-east of the harbor, The Nose, carrying The Nose Jr at its rocky tip. Merchants Guild is planning to build a proper lighthouse, not for the safety reasons, but rather to impress the foreign guests.

This so-called Guests' District is separated from the lively and deadly rest of the city by The Great Wall of Šraku, reconstructed from the old Orcish city defences. The Mercenaries Guild guards it fiercely, and the goods are usually transferred from the suppliers to the members of Merchants Guild licensed for overseas trade at the Wall. There is barely anyone actually going through the Wall. Those procuring, packing, and transporting magical items are not normally allowed to set foot in the Guests' District, and the guests themsleves are strongly recommended to stay in the stone quarters, as well as arrive in and leave Šrakuby sea.

Rumour has it, though, there are some underground tonnels left from the Orc times that go under the Wall too. But even if the tonnels exist, and even if someone travels through them between the districts, they’re definitely not too chatty about it.

The Great Wall of Šraku

A thick stone wall with several small lookout towers protects the Guests' District from the chaos of Šraku. The Wall may not be not all that impressive in comparison to literally any other city wall in Kildar, but its surroundings look miserable enough to make The Wall appear majestic and oppressing. While it is very hard to get through the Wall without a permission, there is a way to get on top of it. The local guards found a loophole in their orders - to not let anyone through, - and set up quite an enterprise. For a hefty sum of money one can be guided to one of the lookout towers and given an hour of time there, usually at sunset. To ensure that the clients will not try anything funny, they are subjected to the most thorough search and stripped of all their belongings down to the underwear (the guards hand out a change of clothes for the visit). Upon agreement and for an extra fee guards can provide you with wine, snacks, blankets or whatever else you desire. For safety reasons guards buy everything themselves though, so the scope of items is limited to what can be found in Šraku.

Why would one pay a large amount of money to simply get on top of the Wall? The answer is simple - the magnificent views. To the East, the vast sea with a magical glimpse of portals in the distance stretches out til the horizon, huge merchant ships cutting through the waves. To the West, chaos is in full swing and (at least some) roofs of Šraku are burning, especially beautiful when the fires merge with the sunset. Thus, the Wall has become a prime spot for romantic dates and, especially, proposals. An engagement ring is the sole exception of what guards allow clients to bring up the Wall (after a guild mage checks it for any signs of enchantment for yet another fee, obviously). Some risky couples from other cities even make Šraku a holiday destination specifically for a date on the Wall.

Population

Despite being a former Orc capital, Šraku is now as multicultural as it gets. The only thing in common between the ones arriving in Šraku is their willingness to take risks, be it out of greed or desperation. There are barely any children or elderly, and most of the inhabitants only plan to stay here for several months to earn some gold and go home. Few daredevils made Šraku their permanent residence. They are mostly either shop- and tavernkeepers tending to the needs of temporary Šraku dwellers, or members of crime syndicates.

The permanent citizens call themselves Orclanders, regardless of their own race. The term stems from the old name mockingly given to the region by elves after their crushing victory over orcs. Presumably it was first ironically used by the same elves who still remember the times when Šraku was the last orcish outpost. With time, the rest of the population embraced it too, already unironically.

Economy

Magical items trade

All life in Šraku revolves around the magical items trade with the Sword Coast. Those who procure magical items from all over Kildar usually don't stay in Šraku for more than a night. They only deliver the goods to the first line warehouses on the edge of the city, where the resident mages appraise the items and clerks handle the payments. Aside from determining what the items are worth, mages also sort them by safety level, necessary packaging methods and compatibility with other artefacts. Then the items are transported to more specialised warehouses (the second line), where they are catalogued, encased in appropriate containers and stored until they find a buyer. Since all kinds of property damage are routine here, every warehouse conducts an inventory daily and issues tons of damage reports. This causes the enormous amount of bureaucracy and leads to the most unexpected result: the most widespread, dangerous and high staff turnover job in Šraku is a warehouse clerk. One can say that the most ungrateful one too - most of the papers eventually burn together with the warehouse, except for the copies delivered to the Merchants Guild house in the Guests' District.

The second line warehouses are sometimes visited by the merchants from The Guests' District who deal directly with the Sword Coast. They ensure the quality of goods and safety of packaging, though updated catalogues of items are delivered to the Guests' District daily. Finally, the orders are assembled and sent to The Great Wall, where the guards run another security check. There are few gates in The Great Wall, and the control is thorough, causing a bottleneck in the magical items logistics. This leads to significant delays and, occasionally, massive explosions. The goods are well-sealed and protected by then, otherwise Šraku would probably be wiped out not unlike Torrica, so such cases are relatively rare.

In the Guests' District the goods are delivered to the loading quay and onto the ships. Fully loaded vessels are to depart as soon as possible, so that a potential explosion would not harm the Guests' District. They are often stay anchored in the sea for days, waiting for the portal to appear. The Sword Coast wares, on the contrary, arrive to a different part of the harbor, to the intake quay, where they are immediately transferred to the local vessels and redirected to other ports of Kildar. This way, payments from Faerûn merchants never come in contact with magical items shipments and stay safe.

The Great Wall Street of Šraku

Right along The Great Wall, on the Guests' District side, lies a street full of trade missions of different scale. Here local merchants are fighting for the best deals with the Šraku warehouses as well as Faerûn delegates. Sometimes the deciding factor on which trader seals the contract is how close his office is to The Wall gates, and how long does it take for a courier to bring them a new catalogue (one can and does, however, bribe couriers to deliver catalogues to the further offices first). This is the place where great fortunes are made, earning itself a proud name of The Great Wall Street of Šraku.

Other goods and services

There is also supporting infrastructure of all sorts, providing food,shelter and everyday use wares for the traders. The quality and sources of goods and services are usually questionable, since the establishments don't expect to retain regulars or suffer from bad reviews. To issue a complaint, an angry customer has to 1) survive another day, 2) find the place again, and 3) have no bigger problems to deal with. That is, if the shop itself still exists.

Another peculiar business specific to Šraku is city map production. Since the layout changes so rapidly, the maps are updated daily, yet usually become outdated by the time there are out of typography. Anyways, having a map gives a solid advantage at orientation in the city, so people tend to buy it instead of a daily newspaper. There are several competing printing houses at any given time, but none of them live long enough to earn any kind of reputation. Some also print ads and coupons on the other side of the maps.

Religion

The temple at the entrance

As one can deduce from the population of Šraku , people pray to all imaginable gods here. There is, however, one god that is believed to be the sole reason the city still stands. His temple is the first thing that greets a weary traveller approaching Šraku , standing right in front of the first line warehouses. It could be easily confused with any other nondescript shack if not for the nuggets of pure gold and jewels adorning splintery boards. For some mysterious reason nobody steals these gifts from grateful followers. For even more mysterious reason, that some say is no less than divine intervention, the shabby hut has seen dozens of warehouses around gone in flames, some of them - mere meters away from the temple walls. Not a single gold nugget fell from the sacred shack though, not a single board was scorched, no matter what cataclysms shaked its surroundings. This is the shrine to Garl Glittergold, a deity of luck, wit and trickery. All the permanent Orclanders make sure to pay their respects to Garl regularly. Or rather, only those who pray to Garl can survive in Šraku long enough to call themselves Orclanders. You may want to follow their example right upon the arrival.

Communion of Laughter

The only big religious holiday in Šraku is Communion of Laughter, a celebration of Garl's splendor and wit. It is held on the 13th day of each month. A normal Communion of Laughter includes a worship service and a period of quiet prayer; the Orclanders, however, reduced the holiday to the fun part only. Garl doesn't seem to mind though, as he keeps providing his protection to the citizens. The celebration features a great feast with a lot of alcohol, street performances, including magical ones, and a fair. Yet the main attraction remain the three competitions. Anyone joining the festival is welcome to join the contests actively and are doomed to participate passively.

The first competition, ongoing throughout the day, is the Contest of Wit. Everyone is encouraged to tell jokes to anyone around them or play pranks on other participants. That's what passive participation means - you will hear a lot of jokes, most of them bad, and can fall victim to prankers, and should be ready to hundreds of people laughing at you. In a sense, actively pranking others is safer that trying to quietly banquet somewhere in the corner - less chances to be caught. It is considered the ultimate mastery of wit to lure a pranker to believe you're a perfect victim and then prank them yourself. Few have reached this level of proficiency though.

In the end of the day, everyone is invited to vote. There is no need to know the person who you deem the wittest. At the voting, just think about the funniest joke or prank you heard and/or saw today. One of the few magical items that permanently resides in Šraku, the Mental Meter, will scan thoughts of all the people present, classify them and count the votes. Then the Mental Meter will project the best part of the winner joke or prank in the air above the heads, thus announcing the winner. The Mental Meter itself looks like a classic example of gnomish tinkering - a pile of cogs, pipes and hinges (the processing module) with a big lamp on top (the projection module). The thought scanning module is the enchantment and can't be seen with a naked eye. The Mental Meter is used exclusively for this competition and never for anything useful like performing whole-population surveys or votes.

Next is the Contest of Tales, a relatively well-organised and prudent competition. Anyone interested can get on a stage and tell a story, true or completely made up. After the tale, the listeners try to guess if the speaker was lying. Given how chaotic Šraku is, it's not always an easy thing to do. The winner is determined by public voting (no need for the Mental Meter though - the speakers are assigned ID numbers) based on how cool the story was and if the orator managed to trick their audience, i.e. most people voted a lie on a true tale or vice versa.

Finally, there is the Contest of Luck. This is essentially a lottery, but the lottery tickets can't be bought - only found all over Šraku. The tickets are enchanted and get imprinted on the person that found them, so one can't just buy more tickets from others. Some participate in the contest as a scavenger hunt of sorts, which is both potentially more beneficial and risky; others just hope there will be a ticket in their cupcake. Any strategy is valid.

The celebration concludes with the award ceremony, with prizes ranging from a sack of potatoes to a house in Stormhaven (the house happened to be the prize only once, potato-level prizes are much more prevalent). The prizes are donated by the participants themselves in order to gain Garl's blessing. It is believed that it's not the actual value of donation that matters but rather how significant it is for the donor. This way, the riches of the Orclanders are regularly redistributed under a threat of death by misfortune, - or rather by absence of divine fortune.

Government

There is not much governing happening in Šraku, though Guests' District is pretty well-organised. The dominant power here is the Merchants Guild, as well as other members of the Commerce Faction. They also enlisted support from the Mercenaries Guild, mostly as a muscle. The Governor is assigned by the Commerce Faction Council and resides in the Guests' District. His duties are mostly focused on creating the smooth and safe experience for the traders from the Sword Coast.

The Merchants Guild is also responsible for licensing the traders for dealing with the Sword Coast representatives directly. The procedure includes exams on magical items expertise and etiquette, demands recommendation letters from three respected members of the Commerce Faction and a wallet-hitting sum of money.