Istamar – one of Claurains greatest center for trade on sea and land, was officially provided with town privliges in 387 of the second era. Already then, it had become a great crown jewel in the Deghartian Empire in the medieval Claurain. However, the former beautiful and living city, soon started to become overpupulated with new inhabitants. Within the old city walls, the space was too small. A lot of new quarters with a lot of problems started to grew outside the walls of the old town. The simple houses were high, and and a lot of the streets were replaced by water channels, with a lot of traffic in shape of boats. Here, in the darkest levels of society, paralel shadow communities of thieves, murderers and organised gangs, established one by one. The largest group was Snake gang, with a snake on their own banners. They had ther headquarter in the old sistern, inside the sewers underneath the city, organising robbery operations and different actions against local politicians and members of the council.
 
It didn’t take long before the snake gang owned the whole city and it’s political system, including most of the cooperations. The people’s dissatisfaction with the political corruption and the councils unability to fight crimes and poverty, led to riots in the streets. At the same time, a lot of lords and men and women of the council lived within their castle walls, enriched by the corrupted system. The elite of noble men and the council lived in cymbios with the criminal world and nobody trusted them when they walked on the streets with bodyguards around them. There were brothels in every corner, but also a lot of poverty and unemployment. The once beautiful city of Istamar had become the greatest hold of scum in all of Claurain.