Gold Rocks is a small but prosperous city, by the standards of the Foglands.
Its name and survival come from the exploitation of the three gold mines that the city is built around. The mines themselves are said to be quite difficult to work in, owing to their endless, meandering tunnels and dangerous fauna. Moreover, miners have always refused to draw maps of the mines, citing safety reasons. Rather, they prefer passing down their knowledge themselves, one generation to the next.
Long ago, the city organized in a sort of controlled anarchy. Three communes operate each gold mine semi-independently and together, elect the people responsible for the general administration of the city. Once a year, citizens can request a plebiscite on any administrator they deem inept or corrupt, with punishments ranging from demotion to exile. The system has, so far, prevented any major power takeover, and leaves external forces with few means to destabilize the free-city.
In keeping with general practice in the Foglands, the city center houses not institutions and organisations, but food storages and dwellings for the younger generations. Gold storages are ironically deemed safer in the mines than deep in the city, where but a few men know the way in or out.