Gaer Went

Gaer Went, called the 'Wild March' by their neighbours and Car Ballon ('Horseman’s Haven') by its inhabitants, is an eccentric principality on the western borders of the imperial heartland. It is the home of the Wentari, a ferociously independent subsect of Elves who have stubbornly remained outside the centuries of change that have taken place within the empire and cultivated a culture built on their bond with their native horses, their close ties to the natural world and a special reverence for its forests, along with the unconventional past-time of war. Over the centuries their land has been a part of the empire, the Wentari have been both the empire's most loyal soldiers and its most dangerous rebels.

Geography
Graced with gentle geography of wide plains and fertile grasses, as well as sheltered hills in which to build farms and cities safe from the howling wind that blows in from the sea, Gaer Went was synonymous with horses even before the local tribes learnt to domesticate them; they roam the plains all year round in large herds, many of formidably strong and hardy builds. Whereas some cultures prize speed above all in their mounts, the horses of Gaer Went are reputedly stern and unrelenting; whilst they are not the quickest chargers, they can maintain a gallop longer than nearly every other horse in the known world.

The city of Gaer Went itself is located in one of the many isolated valleys in the wind-swept plains of the principality, notorious for its many sieges and sackings as much as it is for its riders and soldiers; it is raised atop a series of ring forts, overlooking the land about it with the imperious statue of the White Mare Epona serving as the city's center and its most prominent landmark. Gaer Went is built on the bones of its ancestors; each new ring has been built after the city's defences were breached and its forebear was sacked, with every tier named in tribute to the Car Marhyff who fell defending it. It is a city without the clamour and bustle of the cosmopolitan heartland of the empire; made of dirt roads and thatched buildings, the Wentari are content to live as they have for generations, and resent luxury as a signifier of weakness and decadence. There are many marches and clear streets for parades of riders and traders from other regions of the empire who constitute the majority of the city's visitors.