Game World Info:
For ages the old world was ruled by a line of Paladin Emperors who maintained the rule of law and justice. Then 38 years ago Empress Ivy was delivered of identical twin sons, she tried to raise them to carry on the tradition but the second son turned angry and resentful, then at 18 he disappeared. His mother grew melancholy and allowed her vigilance to lapse. Dark forces gathered. Three years later the prince re-emerged at the head of an army which overran the world. Only the mages city of Kezwalsky was unconquered, and it too would have fallen had five epic heroes not used ritual magic to shift it to the new world. That was 7 years ago. They have rebuilt and opened up land to farm, but there was an unintended side effect, beneath the city is a jumbled maze of caverns and tunnels, filled with treasure and danger. In response to this and the many out of work heroes the Adventurers’ Guild formed, a guild of which you are a member.

Heroic Details:
What is my base of operations?: The City of Kezwalsky and the villages in the vicinity. The city was brought to this world in an epic ritual magic to save it from the hordes of darkness that had overrun the rest of the world. The city is more than ten miles in diameter but almost half of that is given over to a wild tangle of forest at the cities heart. There are trails that cut through the Heartwood, and people rent horses from several stables to go riding in it, but you would be well advised not to linger more than 24 hours within its borders unless you are very powerful or as at home in the wilds as the beasts and birds.

Do I look different from everyone else?: That depends, do you look like a slightly elfin 5 to 6 foot tall Irish person with red hair and green eyes? If not, then yes, you do. To answer the subtext of the question; the people here are humans with a healthy dose of elven ancestry mostly of the irish-caucasian persuasion, there are numbers of dwarves and other races as well but humans and half elves comprise some 75% of the people, with another 10% being the elves that are the parents of the half elves and the other 15% being split fairly evenly among the other races with about a 2% margin of error drawn from all the groups that covers more unusual races and individuals who have strangely mixed ancestry, such as the proprietor of the largest inn who is a half-celestial half-dragon, half-elf. (A quarter of each actually, but that is not really relevant.) Chances are that unless you are a tri-krien or something similarly strange your appearance will likely pass without significant comment.

How do I make a living?: Adventuring is a lucrative profession. One good job can set you up with money to keep you in beef, bread, butter, and beer for weeks if not months. However it is not entirely reliable work so most adventurers have a trade they can fall back on when times are lean. Blacksmithing, cartography, transcription, leather working, tailoring and brewing are all common choices, and everyone knows that bards and healers are never precisely off the job.

Have I been doing this long?: Well, maybe. Weather you are a new member of the Adventurers’ Guild or an old hand at this is largely up to you. Your characters start off at 5th level, but that could mean they just got fired from their job in the constabulary, or quit their junior teaching position at the academy of music, or the leader of their abby came into their cell one morning and told them she had a vision instructing her to send them off adventuring, or just as easily that you have been living from job to job as a wizard for hire with the guild since before the Dark Prince’s War. Its up to you.

Are we at war or at peace?: The Scars of the Dark Prince’s War still linger but in the 7 years since the city was shifted to its new world they have been at peace. The city landed in the middle of a ravaged wasteland which powerful magic has restored to its natural splendor. The land lay at the confluence of three nations who all had disclaimed ownership of the valueless wastes and who now are wise enough to know that a city state with power enough to restore it makes a better ally and trading partner than enemy.

What am I doing with these other guys?: Everyone in the Adventurers’ Guild ether forms a party or is assigned to one, which you did is up to the players to decide.

How are lives affected by magic?: Magic is pervasive, and dangerous. People tend to be a touch wary of wizards sorcerers and other magic users until they know what kind of person they are. The same goes for clerics, though their holy symbols serve as a more ready identifier for telling good from bad. That said it is a phrase so well worn as to be an aphorism: “A mage is dangerous, but more so to those who treat them ill.”

How are lives affected by religion?: Both the classic D&D gods and those of pathfinder are present in the city. The most popular gods are the celestial lovers Pelor and Sarenrae, because they are both powerful and their clergy do many good works within the city and abroad. (And since their gods are a married couple they can bring twice the divine spell casters to bear on a problem as most faiths.) The city has freedom of religion, but interestingly limited freedom of expression. You can worship any god you want, but only good deities' clergy are allowed to freely proselytize. (Chaotic good faiths are allowed to proselytize just as vigorously as lawful ones, but even lawful neutral deities are not free to proselytize, because they can have evil clerics.)

Who or what is going to try to kill me?: That is a good question, but not one I can concretely answer. I can say with veracity that there will be undead and animals, most likely evil humans, half elves, and fiendish creatures, but my campaigns tend to be fairly omnivorous in terms of the nasty things that will try to make a meal of you.

Where can I sell this loot?: There are a number of markets and other places to dispose of goods in the city, and the money changers offer good rates to adventurers. As you gain in power you will find yourself requiring the services of the artificer’s guild to trade in unwanted magic items and/or independent mages to increase enchantments on gear you have outgrown the usefulness of. Those far advanced in the Adventurers’ Guild will also find that there are many investment opportunities available to the discerning buyer from the ongoing land reclamation projects and resulting farming potentials to the burgeoning manufacturing sector, and other business deals looking for investors such as import/export concerns and of course banking firms. If none of that appeals to you tax shelters on your hard earned coin are widely available in many forms from charitable donations to the deserving poor, to investing in improvements to the national infrastructure, to deductions for paying for certain funeral expenses in advance, and of course the ever popular tithe to your chosen deity's church.

Mundane Details:
Who is in charge?: The city is ruled by the Pentarchs, the five great heros who led the city in the Dark Prince’s War and who devised the epic magic that brought it to this new world. They are a half-elf druid, a halfling cleric, a human wizard, an elven barbarian, and an half-orc summoner. All of them are epic level, and we mean epic-epic. Below the Pentarchs the city is a republic. Many if not most in the city are in utter awe of their leaders, and worship them like living gods, which they try to quash as best they can but are not above turning to their advantage at need.

Who has the biggest army?: This also is not a simple question. Kezwalsky’s is the strongest, but least numerous. They can muster many powerful leaders and champions but not the raw numbers of the other three nations. Gorgemor has the most troops but they are poorly trained and equipped. Londero has the skyknights, formations of heroic warriors with flying mounts, but their normal formations are week by comparison. Algeveran has the most well rounded army but cannot match the others in their specific areas.

Who has the most wealth and power?: The greatest wealth rests with the guilds, but power rests with no specific group except the bureaucracy and the Pentarchs. Of the guilds the Adventurers’ Guild and the Artificers’ Guild are the strongest, but even they dare not make any kind of power play. All exists in a well maintained state of balance.

What kind of money do people use?: The standard is the gold piece, as usual, but there is and extra level below copper pieces, called farthings, which are small copper coins worth a tenth of a cp. This is the currency of small purchases; one farthing can buy a cup of juice, or a small candy, or a packet of sugar, and five will get you a mug of coco on the First Snow holiday or a sandwich at a deli. Denominations of coin are as follows:

PP: Don’t exist, at least not as official currency, their place is taken by the Libertine (Formerly called a Sovereign, before the Dark Prince’s War.), a very large gold coin. Above this level money rarely exists except in ledgers. Upon request the government issues magically protected negotiable bonds on albino deerskin velum up to 1000 GP but few have use for them and therefore few are issued.

GP: Marks (Formerly called a Crown, before the Dark Prince’s War.)

(1/2GP: Solar
2SP: Lunar
The solar and lunar are minted to the specifications of various religions by the national mint. Counterfeiting is frightfully common and occupies much of the time of the mint’s “enforcement devision”. Some merchants refuse to take them, though this is not strictly legal, but the constables rarely enforce that statute. The most trusted variants are those of the Celestial Lovers, who have their own private teams of anti-counterfeiting enforcers and those of the gods of commerce, who do the same. Any faith can commission a run of coins, they must provide the gold or silver to make them, wages for the labor, the dies with which they are to be pressed, plus 10% gratuity for the added difficulty of using nonstandard dies and specs. Further the government can order the coins removed from circulation at any time, repatriated to the mint for inspection and probable re-smelting. This is done when there seem to be more counterfeits in circulation than genuine coins.)

SP: Shillings
CP: Pence
1/10 CP: Farthings (In most situations I will not ask players to track every farthing, it is covered under ‘meals: 1 CP per day’, but players may wish to anyway, especially when they are poor, and it could be that having those 5 farthings to buy a sandwich means the difference between taking damage from starvation and not.)

The city is also awash in foreign and archaic coinage, whose values can vary wildly, even from one day to the next. It is advisable that you trade in archaic coins promptly at a money changers because they tend to loose value as more of them are discovered.

Who Maintains Law and Order?: That is the job of the constabulary. They number into their thousands and have many specialists on hand for more troublesome individuals like wizards and sorcerers.

What laws do they enforce?: I am not a lawyer, and an actual code of laws would bore you to tears so I will summarize. (Listed in decreasing order of severity, approximately.)
Thou shalt not betray thy country, nor permit another to do so.
Thou shalt not murder.
Thou shalt not rape.
Thou shalt not steal from those who pay their taxes. (This includes price gouging and attempted monopolies.)
Thou shalt not enslave another sentient being nor twist the minds or actions of others by means magical or mundane.
Thou shalt not make an affray nor give violence to thy fellow citizens save in the specific conditions allowed by law.
Thou shalt not deliberately impede the constables in their work.
Thou shalt treat neither man, woman, nor beast in a cruel or abusive way.
Thou shalt not use magic recklessly.
Thou shalt not damage land or property.
Thou shalt not cause a public disturbance save in the specific conditions allowed by law.
Thou shalt pay thy taxes in full and on time or provide such services and proof of good works as to excuse thy tax debts.

What about those Taxes?: Taxes are set at precisely 10% of your gross income, regardless of what that income is, proceeds in goods are not counted, but a tax is assessed upon any land owned, which must be paid in cash or community services, and the income from raising the money to pay is also taxed.
Many people also tithe 10% to their chosen faith, which is good for a 1/2 off their taxes, coming out to a 15% of income combine cost, but which many churches will consider when someone asks for their aid. Those who need frequent assistance from divine casters often find paying their tithes to be a great savings in the long term.
Many other things can have their costs counted on a 1 to 1 basis against your taxes:

1: Purchasing a plot of land in a cemetery in which you are to be interred upon your death, as well as a coffin and buying a policy with a church or funeral home to pay off your funeral expenses in advance over time.

2: Donating money for infrastructure improvements, which is basically the same as paying taxes but you are directing the money where you think it is most needed, rather than leaving it up to the government.

3: For those without ready cash to spend even for taxes they can deduct one copper for every hour of time they give to approved community service activities.

There are many more deductions, but again, that would bore you.

How hard do the poor people have it?: The poor do all right. They are still poor but they rarely starve and most churches offer free or at cost medical care. Jobs are plentiful and wages are fairly good. They can sleep soundly at night and most people have a roof over their heads.
(There is no oppressed minority.)

How do people travel, and how easy is it?: Except for the ultra rich the horse and carriage is the last word in transit. You can hire one for a small fee and the upper middle class will keep their own to hand for their needs. The common folk will have a light horse to ride or will walk. The ultra-rich fly on magic carpets or broomsticks, and I do mean ultra-rich. The Pentarchs for example all share one 8’-10’ oriental. (They could buy broomsticks if they were willing to spend that much, but the rug conceals who precisely is riding it, which lowers the risk of assassination attempts. No one is going to succeed mind you, but they are inconvenient.)

What are the best-known landmarks?:

1: The Cathedral of the Celestial Lovers: This is Pelor & Sarenrae’s largest center of worship in the city. It is a great edifice that towers over the center east district. The building is a great circle with a number of smaller triangular towers around the edge. Inside it is divided into four equal wedges set up for worship and a central tower where only the divine spell casters may tread, housing the holy relics of the church.

2: Mount Gujar: This incredibly steep sided mountain moves capriciously around the central forest, the landscape seamlessly rippling to allow its passage. Though it is only a half mile wide at the base it is almost half again that tall. Its sides are criss crossed by natural and hewn stairs, and amidst its bulk are said to be many caves. The top of the mountain is equally strange, housing a tiny valley of natural beauty cut by a stream that flows out of a spring and into a cavern. Inside that cavern is a monastery of monks who combine divine magic with unarmed combat.

3: The Street of Small Gods: This wide boulevard runs long and straight from the north gate to the Heartwood. All along its length are many temples to lesser gods and faiths not prominent enough to buy land for a temple elsewhere in the city. It is here that many faiths get their start, with a lone cleric newly chosen attracting followers during the all faiths festival and building from that into a cult and then a true religion. The lots on this street are passed down from one faith to the next at the behest of the deities who's first temples have adorned them, the buildings themselves usually disassembled and used to build their main temples elsewhere or ascended into the heavens. In a large plaza at the midpoint of the boulevard rests the Temple of Small Gods, where anyone with sufficient fervor and in desperate need of a change in their life can prostrate themselves before a featureless statue and beg for a god to take them as their cleric. Those who are penitent and devout in their willingness to surrender to the will of a god will become clerics or oracles and begin the process of finding a space on the Street of Small Gods to raise the god’s first temple, shrine, tabernacle, or what have you.

4: The Palace of Arjam Mojaniri: This is the largest museum in the city, located near the Heartwood in the artisans' district. Its collection is widely acclaimed as one of the best in the world. Many of the items on display here are priceless, including the fossil skeleton of an unknown type of dragon, which appears to have gone extinct. There are enough armor and weapons here to equip a troop of 100 militiamen, though half of them would be carrying pikes with flags on the end.

5: Golden Hall: This building is the seat of government for the city, housing the city council and the Pentarchs’ offices/apartments. The whole building’s exterior above 12 feet is gilded, a cost payed for out of the Pentarch’s own pockets. The roof is plated in brass that is polished to a shine by a crew of 100 every morning at dawn.

6: The thieves market: Never held in the same place twice within a seven year span the thieves market can put you into contact with the ‘right people’ and goods for any elicit job. The constabulary has raided the thieves market dozens of times, but almost always comes up with only a few low level crooks; the dealers, fences, and kingpins get away some how.

7: Madam Maxine’s Manor: The girls in this house of negotiable affection are all here willingly, they are nymphomaniacs and those with submissive personalities that have surrendered themselves to Madam Maxine. This is the only legal and open brothel in the city, and most of the others are very unsavory. All of the staff are daily checked for diseases and cured by the clergy of the goddess of fertility, whose temple abuts on the back of the manor’s grounds.

8: The Celestial Lovers’ Charitable Hospital: This is the largest hospital in the city, located in the west central district. It is operated by the priests of Pelor and Sarenrae as you might expect from the name, but is open to clergy and doctors of many faiths. There are chapels to many deities associated with healing on the grounds. Peculiarly there is also a small temple to the Orcish war god Gygax, because orcs see fighting infections and recovering from wounds as a battle against microscopic enemies that attempt to invade your body like a barbarian horde, and they call on the war god for aid. (This technically makes him also a god of healing, but the doctors don’t like it.)

9: The Horseshoe Road Inn: This is one of the premiere inns of the city. The rooms are neat, the food above average, the drinks tasty and in many cases potently alcoholic, and the main room well lit. It also sits next to an entrance to the vast maze of catacombs and caverns that rests bellow the city, making it popular with adventurers who have just come back with 500 gold coins burning a hole in their pockets.

10: The Halls of Justice: Looming at the heart of the south west district is the city’s jail/courthouse. Imprisoned within its walls are hundreds of men and women who have committed various crimes and are awaiting trial, sentencing, or execution. Sentences are almost never prison terms, they usually involve forced labor, fines, or capitol punishment. Trial is by jury, in the american style, and criminals are innocent unless proven guilty, but that is easer to do when you have magic on your side.

Why Is everybody Celebrating?:

Germinal 1st: The Union of the Suns: The anniversary of Pelor & Sarenrae’s wedding. Huge feast, dancing in the streets, hymns, giving of gifts. It is considered a good omen if the day is bright and sunny, a bad one if there is a thunderstorm, ‘meh’ if it is simply overcast.

Prayerful 10th to 15th: All Gods Festival: Everyone is supposed to temporarily join another religion, except divine spell casters. For one week you follow the tenets of that other faith as devoutly as your own. Many people discover the gods that they will take as their patrons during this week. The church of the Celestial Lovers takes this a step further, their clerics and oracles switch which of the suns they pray to for the week, clerics of Pelor become clerics of Sarenrae and vice versa, and some chose to remain so at least until the next year. In this way the two gods clergy are kept balanced, a 50/50 split.

Toxcatl 21: Founding Day: Kind of like the 4th of July or Guy Fawkes Day, in fact almost exactly like that. Celebrates the day that the first emperor of the old empire took the throne. Also now celebrates the day that the city was transported to its new world.

Magus 25th to Sanctity 5th: Festefall: Harvest festival, with all that entails, there are craft fairs, minstrels, competitions for biggest vegetable and so forth. Most of the cities squares are only open to foot traffic for the ten day event, forcing people to use side streets.

First Snow Day: The day of the first snowfall that sticks all business is suspended and everyone plays in the snow. Some elderly shopkeepers will stay open, bringing out trays of candy made especially for the day a few weeks in advance and brewing coco, since to play in the snow would only hurt their arthritis. Children are instructed who these people will be by their parents and given a few farthings spending money.

Equinox and Solstices are celebrated with feasts, bonfires, and dancing.

Total Eclipse: Not an every year event, but when it happens it is a major thing. On these days the powers of light and dark are considered to be in balance, everyone must do their best to tip the scales in favor of light or there will be a period of pain and suffering until the next total eclipse, which happen even less often than on earth because there are 2 suns.