City of time. Lorat was built on a chrono-anomaly: time proceeds at roughly one-half rate within the city walls relative to outside. Lorat's position is otherwise unfavorable: built on a rocky coast, with no natural harbors, which fish (and fishermen) had long avoided. The surrounding soil is poor as well – though with modern fertilization and irrigation magics farmers have been able to coax some food from it. However, speaking of irrigation, the karst limestone terrain means that there are no rivers or other readily accessible sources of fresh water; the city is reliant on inefficient rain-catchers. Oh, and the forest is haunted – possibly cursed. There simply wouldn't be an important city here, if not for the significant demand for making things happen twice as fast.
Want your brewery, mill, factory, forge, or writing project to have double the productivity? Build it in Lorat! With days that last for 50 hours instead of 24, Lorat is the solution to the world's productivity problems! The only catch: the locals just don't seem to have any sense of urgency – or so outsiders claim.
Oh, a word of caution to travelers: the time boundary, just outside the wall, can be lethal. Run through it as fast as possible, head forward. Biological systems do NOT appreciate operating at two different timescales at once, even if they only differ by a factor of two-ish.
Cultural Influence: 8 Outsiders are fascinated by Lorat and its time anomaly, and tourists will visit the area just to see it – and to extend their vacations, for that matter.
Lorat's time dilation isn't just useful for captains of industry: captains of creativity make use of the city's slower time as well. Wordsmiths who need their novella completed within the fortnight will often whisk away to Lorat, where they can burn twice the midnight oil and meet their deadline without going insane. Because so many writers and artists have visited the city, it features in a number of prominent works.
And yet, Lorat's own culture is not, in and of itself, influential. Like its economic output, Most of Lorat's cultural contributions have been made by visitors and immigrants, not the locals. These locals are frequently depicted as lazy and unmotivated – and the time anomaly is used to justify this stereotype.
Economic Influence: 13 Every efficiency-minded guild, state, and manufactory conglomerate looks to Lorat as the promised land of productivity. In practice, outsourcing here is often so impractical that it isn't worth the time boost.
Military Influence: 6 Lorat's outsourced military manufactories guarantee that the city will never be short on weapons.
The time boundary is a wonderful defensive perimeter. It can only be crossed safely at high speed, and anything outside it moves at least two times slower (from the perspective of people on the inside) so dodging arrows and catapult fire is pretty much out of the question. Not to mention the momentum boost for firing heavy objects from inside – and the penalty for anything headed in.
Continued stability in Lorat is a high priority for many outside parties who have invested in the city's infrastructure, so the city has access to all manner of foreign defensive technologies and magics, as well as discount-priced mercenaries. That being said, Lorat isn't about to go invade or threaten its rivals anytime soon; it's hardly a warlike city-state.
The sanctuary city of refugees and runaways. Farhaven explicitly forbids all extradition and does not allow bounty hunters anywhere near its walls – somehow, the guards can always sniff out bounty hunters. This is a great place to go for a fresh start, especially if a tame and reasonably prosperous city is preferred to some harsh wilderness, or the chaos of Foundling. Farhaven welcomes all and erases their past – and yet, the city does not abide violent crime. “Your slate can only be cleaned once” and “second chances are a right, third chances are a mistake” are common slogans here.
Farhaven was once a dwarven city – a city renowned for its fairness and democracy, in an age when these strange concepts made it a pariah among dwarves and humans alike.
Farhaven (along with Gorshnethkein) was among the last great dwarven cities to rest on the surface, unhidden. In fact, some still call it a dwarven city, as dwarves are a significant minority (~15%) and the ancient city charter requires that at least one dwarf must always serve on the city council. But by and large, humans are now in charge here; the result of the demographic inevitabilities of rapid human breeding and migration. The transition was gradual and peaceful; eventually the dwarves realized they weren't really in control of their ancient city, but (unlike in many other formerly-dwarven territories) they either adapted to the new human-centric normal or faded away to their secret underground holds. Humans never sought to force dwarves from a position of power, they demanded only participation in the city's mostly-democratic system of government, and eventually their numbers dictated that they were in power. Most of modern Farhaven's buildings and infrastructure have been built by humans in the past few centuries, but the overall architectural style is still decidedly dwarven.
Though the Dwarves have no love for Drow, Farhaven prided itself on being a city of safe refuge for Drow during the Underdeep Crusades and the Weeping War. It repelled at least one major siege during this time.