League of Gold
The is comprised of several city-states in the fertile regions of western Salthos, with the greatest concentration along the coast. The League spans from the coast of the World Ocean where the plains adjoin , to somewhere across the Sea Between from the Shield Heights east of . The eastern borders are fuzzily defined, and tend to be as far as any League member cares to claim into the arid country east of their home, beyond which lie .
The city-states are built on the backs of slaves. A greater proportion of the population are enslaved than anywhere else on Elthos and Salthos. The nobility live in luxury that would surprise even some of the richest in the empire; the slaves live in conditions which even the poorest in the empire could barely imagine.
The League is to some extent self-sufficient. It contains decent farmland and mines of reasonable quality, which are much hated by the people forced to work in them. League ships are not always welcome in imperial ports, and past Crown intervention, in the mid-500s, has put even the most avaricious of houses off permitting League vessels to make port. However, trade still happens, facilitated by other merchants along the Elthosian coast who act as middleman.
The League is more cohesive than the , across the sea. Its members do not come and go, but remain part of it. It operates a theoretically cohesive foreign policy, with the city-state in charge rotating from year to year, though most of the time, this means dealing with raiders from the Plains Kingdoms.