“In the time before cities, lost somewhere in the sand, a once-great thief sought shelter from the sun. He found the mouth of Airdruuma in the mountainside that led into the deep and infinite darkness, and with nowhere else to go, he went.
The thief expected death. What he found instead was a world of darkness littered with vibrant colors and people. He befriended these people, and over many years, they began to assemble a settlement of outcasts, traders, and thieves.
And from this settlement came a city, and the city, a name-- Theyne, after the man who took what he wanted and never turned away a lost soul in the darkness.”
The darkness of the Underdark has become a refuge for many who seek to escape life above ground. Thieves, criminals, runaways, and others congregating into small settlements that over time have grown into cities unimpeded by surface traditions or governments. Here, the people are free, and in that freedom comes the ability of either great evil or great freedom.
Theyne, the City of Thieves, buried deep below the Whispering Sands, has curated itself into a notable civilization over the past few centuries. A merchant town of many colors and many peoples, governed only by the honor that binds them. Anyone is welcome so long as they have something to buy, sell, or trade. Deals done in the darkness are never spoken of once one makes their way back beneath the Embris sun.
The city itself is built around a massive rock pillar that stretches from the basin of the gargantuan cavern to the top, a spiraling network of tunnels and roads, colorful houses, with an ornate black market at the heart of it all. This rock spire is surrounded by a strange, almost ethereal forest called the Theynwood. This forest is carefully watched by the denizens of Theyne to eliminate any threats that may arise, but otherwise it is a beautiful, luminescent garden of otherworldly flora and fauna.
Be careful not to stray too far beyond the Theynwood, however. After all, Theyne is still a rare beacon of light in an infinite and unforeseeable darkness, and dangers are always prone to lurk within the unknown. Travel to and from here is still something of a taboo subject, too, so the singular unspoken rule is this: what happens in Theyne stays in Theyne.
The city has no formal government, but powerful thieves' guilds maintain a businesslike decency with each other as they oversee trade and commerce. Gang wars have come and gone as the years have passed, but none have brought the city to its knees; the people there are as equally hardy as stone. Presently, three prominent guilds have come forward as the acting powers and have divided the city between each other in an ongoing argument of territory.
The Moonlighters are the largest and oldest of the three guilds-- a renowned group of burglars and thieves that operate in cities above ground to bring their hauls back below the earth. They are a close-knit network and they aren’t afraid to take what they want from whoever has it.
The Caidhen Thar are the newest and most mysterious of the three: a group of trained assassins without equal. Rumor is that one of their methods for weeding out new members is sending them out into the darkness with an impossible task, and only those that return alive are worthy of joining them in full.
The Sons of Nazarus are a guild of secretive merchants and traders that oversee the black market of Theyne. They are immensely wealthy with a bottomless greed for the next big treasure.