Reader beware: the following might not be as flowery or as elaborate as it really should be, since I really want to get this out before the Tedeshan's next war with the Exaanos starts for real, and I don't want to keep QH hanging while I agonize over the quality of my writing here.

Okay, last time we were here the Tedeshan had exactly one city-state, one stateless proto-city, and a bunch of minor, unnamed lesser settlements. Now the Tedeshan have 4 city-states, and no other major settlements of note. Each of the city-states, their histories, and the current relations between them are as follows.

Terrkarn is the first, most prosperous, and largest of the four. Terrkarn's rise has been mostly covered in the short series of posts I made on the topic. Terrkarn's wealth and prominence is primarily from its status as a regional trade hub, and secondarily from natural resources such as salt. Most of the successive Tedeshani city-states modelled their governments, customs, and traditions from Terrkarn, and it has the status of sort of an honourary capital city for the Tedeshan.

Shaikarn was the second true city-state, and the first non-trivial urbanized settlement in Tedeshan. Terrkarn rse to city-statehood first due to its aforementioned mercantile dominance, but Shaikarn was not far behind. Shaikarn is now something of an internal trade hub in Tedeshan, while Terrkarn is the external hub. Most Tedeshan goods produced to the north and east flow through Shaikarn to Terrkarn, and foreign goods imported from Terrkarn similarly flow through Shaikarn to the northern and eastern reaches of Tedeshan. Shaikarn's salt and limestone quarries are larger and more developed than Terrkarn's, and the city supplies much of those minerals throughout Tedeshan and beyond.

Cuprikarn is the third proto-city to have risen to city-statehood. Cuprikarn is located on the Shaikyr river north of Shaikarn, and trades to Shaikarn wood from the north and west in exchange for limestone, salt, and foreign goods brought in from Terrkarn. In recent decades the copper mining and copper-working have become big deals too, where it's trading throughout Tedeshan and also to the Exaanos, who are weirdly obsessed with the reddish stone-thing.

Tansikarn is the newest and smallest of the city-states. Tansikarn's yuge forests and great sea access give it advantages in maritime trade unshared by any other Tedeshani city. Trade with the Seyirvaes is a big deal for this city, due to its geographical proximity to Seyirvaes lands compared to Terrkarn. The writing system of the Seyirvaes was introduced to the Tansikarn intelligentsia shortly after it was introduced to Terrkarn's, but became mainstream among most educated people in Tansikarn first. Also tin will be a big industry in this city soon^TM .

Currently Terrkarn has a population of about 13k peeps, Shaikarn ~10k, Cuprikarn ~8k, and Tansikarn ~4k. Tansikarn is both by far the smallest and the fastest growing. All four city-states are aware of each other's existence and generally respect each other's sovereignty. Most of the cities currently enjoy mutually-beneficial rather than competitive trade relations with each other, with the exception of Terrkarn and Tansikarn. Tansikarn's foray into foreign maritime trade has upset Terrkarn's traditional near-monopoly over the field, but for now Tansikarn isn't much of a real competitor to Terrkarni dominance except in Seyirvaes. You guys should expect some perfectly legal blockades and shit between these two soon^TM .

As can be inferred from the above, open warfare or even raids of any scale aren't really a thing between the city-states, and fighting bandits, highwaymen, catspaws, and other criminal scum is the top priority of armed personnel employed by the cities. Cuprikarn and Tansikarn also both occasionally involve themselves in Exaanos raids on smaller Tedeshani settlements in the area, but the Exaanos as of yet have been too cowardly to dare assault the cities or their directly-controlled lands. Each of the cities has a double-rowed, stone wall around the main commercial and political centres, and palisades or single-rowed stone walls are common around other sub-city towns, particularly those near the Exaanos borders.

Each city has about a couple hundred men who are professional or semi-professional watchmen and guards, and most of the adult men of each city have some experience with weaponry, but mostly for hunting and fishing. The northern cities of Cuprikarn and Tansikarn make some efforts to create a citizen-militia of all fighting age men, but these militiamen are still hardly well-equipped, seasoned, disciplined fighters.

Map of the extant Tedeshan city-states, circa year 2200.