Undugsk
| Undugsk | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Country |  Lutoborsk |
| Starosty | Undugsk |
| Foundation | 199 BCE |
| Population (2024) | |
| • Total | 7,302,990 |
Undugsk is the largest city of the Lutoborsk, laying on the Torican Bay.
History
Abani
Undugsk was originally known as Abani, meaning 'buckskin' in the Undughu language and referring to the strip of leather cut out to define the city's limits in its founding myth. Its founding is conventionally dated to 199 BCE.
The city emerged as a major independent power of the Five Leagues by the 2nd century CE; by 334 it established the Undughu Empire and became the hegemon of Unscany. Abani was not the origin of the cult to the sea-god Opto, but as it consolidated the Undughu Empire it secured recognition as Opto's foremost place of worship after the Protocol War in 402. This conflict, which circumscribed the powers of the Undughu Emperor, led to a council of Abani's elders becoming the most senior executive authority in the Empire. In the Empire, their power was repeatedly challenged by its imperial subjects demanding representation, reaching a climax with the Pyrolaters' War and the Mermaids' War in the 6th century. This crisis led a faction known as the Nadzoly to take power in 537, restoring absolute power to the Emperor based on the ideals of eser. Abani itself seemed diminuted to merely another city in a Chotarian-style empire; its elders tried to reverse this by installing Hola II after the death of Hoshah, but in 590 they were defeated by Hosed I from Tiha, and the city finally fell from imperial prominence.
In the 9th century Abani underwent an economic and cultural revival, being restored as the Undughu capital; it was now named Undughy (Late Imperial ōldoğī), the very concept of the Undughu civilisation condensed into a city. It became a metropolis and entrepot for sea trade on the Esperasian Ocean. During the tumultous end of the empire in the 10th to 11th centuries, the city managed to survive, though obviously in a diminished state, under the leadership of its guild council. It paid homage to a series of champion warlords and Secote rulers.
Triarch and hegemon
During the Triple Triarchy Undugsk was one of the three great cities and powers in Unscany alongside Kothyn and Uman. It was a Sirian stronghold and an ally of Great Doyotia, although it also had a notable Vesnite population. The Moving Library once resided in Undugsk. Like the rest of Unscany, Vaestism became popular with freeholders in the hinterland and career soldiers as they entered conflict with the great cities and their perceivedly decadent cultures; by the late 16th century they had become a febrile, revolutionary force, though Sirian power in Undugsk was for the time being secure.
After the Unjust War in 1599, Undugsk became the single power of all Unscany in the Undugskan Hegemony. After unsuccessful interventions to defend Siriash in the region, it was taken over by Vesnites, who undertook haphazard Neritsovid-style reforms that caused significant factional conflict over the use of new, dangerously broad powers. By the 18th century the citizenry's attempts to overthrow the perceivedly corrupt Neritsophile establishment paralysed the Unscan state during several engagements of the Tardy War. Undugsk fell into one last civil war in the War of the Banner in the 1730s, with Vladibor V of the Lutoborsk restoring order in 1739. The city lost its hegemony as Kothyn and Uman were removed from its power; Vladibor also installed a starosta to supervise the city.
Lutoborian city
The new, humbled administration of Undugsk accepted the 'Compact of Vladibor V', an agreement to win lasting autonomy through commitment in the Peridot Wars. The organisation of the war effort helped the healing of political divisions from the War of the Banner greatly. Political harmony was further restored as the city organised into a Combination to defend its Flank State rights before the Vozhd and his starosta, and coordinated to back Vladibor VI of the Lutoborsk's pro-autonomy platform. With this, the Compact of Vladibor V was sealed as fait accompli, while the Combination provided for an orderly conduct of the city's respublican politics that had been unheard of in over a century.
After the 1850 Reconstitutive Action Undugsk joined in the trend of consolidating regional governments, with the Dagharachi dynasty taking advantage to dominate office by the 1880s.