Government
Baldur's Gate is ruled by four grand dukes, the Council of Four. The rulers include Duke Eltan, leader of the Flaming Fist, Belt, a powerful warrior and divine spellcaster, Liia Jannath, a mage, and Entar Silvershield, the richest man in Baldur's Gate, but also a strong warrior in his own right. The Council is part of the Lords' Alliance, which includes Waterdeep, Neverwinter and Silverymoon, among others. However, with Neverwinter being wiped out by a plague whether this Alliance still exists or not is uncertain.
Baldur's Gate contains a very effective Thieves Guild, as well as a powerful and honest Merchant's League. Additionally, the Knights of the Shield and the Knights of the Unicorn are both active in the city. Various thieves guilds have risen and fallen in Baldur's Gate including Xantam's Guild and the Hands of Glory. Amn's Shadow Thieves are also known to be active in the city, although their local operations are believed to be strictly commercial.
Read more about this topic: Baldur's Gate (city)
Famous quotes containing the word government:
“The government of the United States is a device for maintaining in perpetuity the rights of the people, with the ultimate extinction of all privileged classes.”
—Calvin Coolidge (18721933)
“Whenever the society is dissolved, it is certain the government of that society cannot remain ... that being as impossible, as for the frame of a house to subsist when the materials of it are scattered and dissipated by a whirlwind, or jumbled into a confused heap by an earthquake.”
—John Locke (16321704)
“[F]rom Saratoga [N.Y.] till we got back to Northampton [Mass.], was then mostly desert. Now it is what 34. years of free and good government have made it. It shews how soon the labor of man would make a paradise of the whole earth, were it not for misgovernment, and a diversion of all his energies from their proper object, the happiness of man, to the selfish interests of kings, nobles and priests.”
—Thomas Jefferson (17431826)