Captaincy (Lutoborsk)
In Lutoborsk, a Captain (Zirideš) was anyone with the right to raise, maintain and drill an armed force, often accompanied by rights to revenues from land for that purpose. Captaincies served as an official mechanism by which the individual efforts of violent adventurers, mercenaries and colonists could be supported and co-opted by the Lutoborian government.
The first Captaincies were created in the Polcovodate era by Ljubomir in 1662, for Agar mercenaries who he sought to retain as a permanent force following his victory in the War of the Shackles. Although the name was clearly inspired by the High Captains of the southern Pièche regiments (the High Secote term, ezŭredešĭ, is the same), the actual practice more closely resembled other Neritsovid experiments with settler armies (the Kyame). The number of mercenary-settlers maintained by the High Kings fluctuated over the next few decades, but showed a general tendency to increase, especially during times of great tension such as the Tri-Insular War. But even in limited numbers, controversies about the rewards afforded to them led to considerable knyazy resentment, and major upheavals such as the Antiprophetic Rebellion. It was only towards the end of the 17th century, however, that Captains began to take on their prototypical role as frontline troops in the Tardy War. In this period, but also particularly with the general crisis of southern Vaestdom after 1701, Lutoborsk became a major destination for violent Vesnite adventurers willing to fight for their religion and for money. Under Vladibor II (r. 1705–1718) and Radomir (r. 1718–1723), the number of Captaincies granted began to rise exponentially as the High Kings sought to channel these men's energies into outward expansion. This process continued after the War of the Banner, and ultimately played a crucial part in the annexation of the questlands of Severnyy and Komandje to the north under Vladibor V (r. 1739–1780); many Captains were awarded with sweeping authority as local leaders.
Although the majority of Captains in the early period were foreigners, the demographics began to shift in favour of locals in the latter half of the 18th century, and even on their inception Moujique natives provided considerable and reliable manpower in the tradition of the Undughu champions. Under Presidency Lutoborsk, by the 1800s the majority of Captains were not first-generation Agar mercenaries campaigning against Khuikh kingdoms, but local men of Knyazchik stock pushing out onto the steppes of Inner Joriscia. This shift was not quite as dramatic as it may first appear, because many came from assimilated families established in Lutoborsk by immigrant Captains in previous generations, and the Captaincies were an important constituent of the Knyazchik system that emerged in the 18th century. Private or autonomous armed force was further employed in the suppression of Incidents, through which Captain-descended local elites carved out their place in the Plinth State. By this point 'Captain' had become a devalued term used for any settler moving into the steppe region, or into northern regions still claimed by Lutoborsk but as yet beyond its political control, and the high numbers of Captains registered were far outstripped by the even higher numbers of people referred to as such in normal usage. The official use of the term ultimately was abolished as part of the military reforms surrounding the Reconstitutive Action in the mid-19th century.
However, the Captains also secured a longer-lasting foothold in Lutoborian popular culture and imagination, being remembered as the crystallisation of a spirit of courage and enterprise identified with the knyazchiks. Captains figured prominently as adventurers and frontier men in Lutoborian and even wider Outer Joriscian literature, and zirideš remains in use as a term for a masculine adventurer-settler today. Local and private armies of the Lutoborian military are sometimes colloquially referred to as 'Captains'. Nostalgist historiography drawing links with the Undughu civilisation have also described the Captains as another incarnation of a primordial liberty in northeastern Joriscia; while an auratic quality of Undughu heritage was sufficient to explain why typically servile 'Chotarian' southerners led these efforts, there were also narratives that proposed the foreigners were actually the homecoming descendants of khaa raiders and emigrants.