plugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigAtlas: Union of Harthera
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Harthera
The Hartheran Union, commonly named Harthera, is an imperialist maritime nation state dominating the northeast of Anásthias. It is one of the two great powers of the viridOrorrMEOrorrOrorrOrorrOrorr
Vahltor is the capital city of Hartheraplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigHarthera
The Hartheran Union, commonly named Harthera, is an imperialist maritime nation state dominating the northeast of Anásthias. It is one of the two great powers of the modern epoch, arguably the most technologically and militarily powerful nation in the world, only matched by the vast size and wealth of its neighbour, viridOrorrMEOrorrOrorrOrorrOrorr (also: Vultor, Vuhltore; archaic names: Biyahl, Bahl Dorr, Buldoya). It is one of the grandest, wealthiest and most powerful cities in the world, but its surrounding walls limit the city's expansion, creating cramped streets, oppressive towers, poor housing, poverty, disease and squalor in its poorest quarters. It is colloquially known as “The City of Keys”, due to it's many gates, and because of the House of Keysplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigHouse of Keys
The House of Keys is a legislative body of the Hartheran government. Its members are called Keymen or Clavigers, membership consisting of heads of government boards and committees, as well as representatives from the nation's cities and regions.
Governance
This is in a series of articles on, one of the chambers of Hartheran governmentplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigHartheran Government
The government of the Hartheran Union is an oligarchy centralised in Vahltor, where the wealthy rule through a labyrinthine bureaucracy of committees, boards and assemblies who all jealously guard their powers.
Governance
This is in a series of articles on HartheraHartheraHartheraHartheraHartheraHartheran.
Hover over image to see details
This is in a series of articles related to the city of Vahltor, capital of the Hartheran Unionplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigHartheran Union
Formal name of the nation of Harthera..
The first known settlement in the region was the ancient city of Biyahl, the spiritual capital of the Kingdom of Emanunéplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigKingdom of Emánuné
Emánuné [eh-MAN-oo-nay, imæn'uːeɪ] was an ancient kingdom occupying the fertile valley of the River Velun, in what is now modern Harthera.
Ancient Northeast Anasthias
This is in a series of articles about the ancient history of Northeast HM. The name meant “dividing place” or “where two meet”, referring to the junction of the River Velunplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigRiver Velun
The River Velun is the greatest river of northern Harthera, flowing from the foothills of the Dun Jaen mountains in the far west of the country, through the great virid forests, plains and farmlands of central Harthera to the sea. It joins with the Verais at the city of Vahltor, capital of HartheraHartheranHartheraHarthera and the River Veraisplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigRiver Verais
The Verais is a river in Harthera, which flows from the Saloyan Highlands in the east, meeting the River Velun at the city of Vahltor.
Harthera
This is in a series of articles about Harthera
* Name: Hartheran Union, Union of Harthera, Uhartrah * Government: Military-Mercantile Oligarchy. The Ensanni trade fort Bahl Dorr, “dorr” being a Thalsic word for city, indicates “imperial city at Biyahl”. Saloyans contracted this to Buldoya, which in Hartheranplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigHarthera
The Hartheran Union, commonly named Harthera, is an imperialist maritime nation state dominating the northeast of Anásthias. It is one of the two great powers of the modern epoch, arguably the most technologically and militarily powerful nation in the world, only matched by the vast size and wealth of its neighbour, viridOrorrMEOrorrOrorrOrorrOrorr times became Vultor, later Vahltor.
Sited at the confluence of two rivers, where the Verais flows into the Velun, throughout history the city was a crossing point between imperial powers to the east and west.
It was a religious centre from early times, the sacred centre of the Kingdom of Emanunéplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigKingdom of Emánuné
Emánuné [eh-MAN-oo-nay, imæn'uːeɪ] was an ancient kingdom occupying the fertile valley of the River Velun, in what is now modern Harthera.
Ancient Northeast Anasthias
This is in a series of articles about the ancient history of Northeast HM. The rocky promontory at the confluence of the two rivers, now the site of the Detatedn Palace - was in ancient times called the Temple Mount. According to Emanuné religion, this was the birthplace of creation, where “the yama of the Iron God descended from heaven into the spread youmee of the Mother Goddess, from which all life was born”. The Emanuné royal city lay on the hill now known as the Old City, with a grand processional route between the two sites.
In the second and first centuries BMEplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigBME (Before Modern Epoch)
Used to date years Before the Modern Epoch., the priestly kingdom became a pawn in the game of power between the Dor-en-Sann Empireplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigDor-en-Sann
The Empire of Dor-en-Sann, one of the largest multicultural empires in history. and the Grand Palatinate of Saloyaplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigGrand Palatinate of Saloya
The Grand Palatinate of Saloya, sometimes poetically referred to as the Rose Empire, was a historic Eloyoun nation in northeast Anásthias. It was home to the Saloyan people and the Saloyan language. The Palatinate was a complex oligarchy, highly civilised and cultured. Until the start of the BMEBMEBMEBMEBMEBMEBMEBMEMEMEMEME.
The EnSanni gained a concession to build a trading post, Bahl Dorr, on the west bank of the river, on the site of the modern Docks. This rapidly grew into an imperial colony with its own garrison, becoming particularly important when Emanuné became a protectorate in 128 BME.
In 30 BME the Saloyansplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigSaloya
Referring to the historic civilisation, the Grand Palatinate of Saloya. conquered Emanuné, raze much of the old imperial city. It was soon resettled, and named Buldoya. Within a century this city was in turn seized by the Jundaplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigJunda People
The Junda are an Iskean-ethnic people found throughout the Junda Isles and the northeast coast of Anásthias, whose conquest of the mainland led to the foundation of the modern state of Harthera.
Historically they were notable for their shamanic religion and unique calendar, the Junda stormscale.
Junda peoples commonly raided the coasts for food and goods, having little of worth to trade on their home islands. They were accidentally instrumental in the downfall of the barbarians who founded what became the modern Hartheran state.
Vuhltore can in fact be seen as three cities, as it is divided into three by the rivers. On the west bank, the EnSanni imperial garrison city Bahl Dorr was built on an ancient river bend, in a basin formed by low hills. The Saloyansplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigSaloya
Referring to the historic civilisation, the Grand Palatinate of Saloya. and early Hartheransplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigHarthera
The Hartheran Union, commonly named Harthera, is an imperialist maritime nation state dominating the northeast of Anásthias. It is one of the two great powers of the modern epoch, arguably the most technologically and militarily powerful nation in the world, only matched by the vast size and wealth of its neighbour, viridOrorrMEOrorrOrorrOrorrOrorr extended this to a fortified city, with walls atop the hills that surround this basin. Beyond this were a series of small towns and villages that were eventually enclosed with by stone walls, swallowed up by the city.
In the east was the original Emanuné city of Biyahl, built on the low domed hill now known as the Old City. It was essentially a sprawling ceremonial complex, lightly defended; a series of halls and palaces for the administration of the ancient kingdom. The Saloyans rebuilt the crumbling complex as a winter capital, housing the Palatine's court during the winter months when the upland roads were blocked by snow. The Saloyan palace-city was virtually destroyed during an earthquake that split the hill, forming the cliffs and barren rockscape further east. With its fortifications breeched the opportunistic Jundaplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigJunda People
The Junda are an Iskean-ethnic people found throughout the Junda Isles and the northeast coast of Anásthias, whose conquest of the mainland led to the foundation of the modern state of Harthera.
Historically they were notable for their shamanic religion and unique calendar, the Junda stormscale.
Junda peoples commonly raided the coasts for food and goods, having little of worth to trade on their home islands. They were accidentally instrumental in the downfall of the easily seized the city, and later built an impressive fortress here in what has forever after been called the Old City.
When the city government moved to the Detatedn, the old fortress was half abandoned, and turned into a mortuary temple and crematorium. For centuries the quarter was run-down, haunted and depressing, until the slum-land was cleared to build the new Basilica and University.
Last is the southern quarter. The Temple Mount was built by the early Emanune people, on a spur of rock where the rivers joined. The surrounding land was rocky and uninhabited except for isolated huts. The Saloya maintained the temple complex, but the old religion gradually decayed and the temples fell into ruin. Later, the Junda took advantage of the rock's strategic location above the landscape, and using Saloyan expertise turned the whole area into a fortress, now called the Detatedn. The fortress has been added to over the centuries, and is now a sprawling mass of walls, towers, courts and dungeons.
Between these three centres, areas of land were gradually enclosed by dykes and then by walls, eventually settling into the rough ring shape of the city today.
The city is the capital of Hartheraplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigHarthera
The Hartheran Union, commonly named Harthera, is an imperialist maritime nation state dominating the northeast of Anásthias. It is one of the two great powers of the modern epoch, arguably the most technologically and militarily powerful nation in the world, only matched by the vast size and wealth of its neighbour, viridOrorrMEOrorrOrorrOrorrOrorr, and of Teloyun cordromeplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigCordrome
Harthera
This is in a series of articles about Harthera
* Name: Hartheran Union, Union of Harthera, Uhartrah * Government: Military-Mercantile Oligarchy * Capital: Vahltor * Foundation: 1 ME (Traditional) * Religion: Church of Hartrah * Language: Hartraan (official), also Saloyan, Rouvawetig, Junda
A cordrome is an administrative unit of the Hartheran, the military province surrounding it. The city is heavily fortified, and as it has grown, new walls were built, so that the city is a series of walled districts. No new districts have been constructed for several centuries, though the city's districts have been internally rebuilt many times.
There are sound reasons for limiting the city's growth, bearing in mind Hartherans' logical and militaristic mindset. First and foremost is military strategy.
Urban warfare is the worst and bloodiest kind of fighting. In unwalled cities, the enemy can easily take outlying districts, using them as bases, garrisons and sniper posts, while the defender fights a street-by-street battle, often involving civilians. In case of a siege of Vahltore however, the enemy would find it difficult to take the city except by breaching it district by district. The walls would still be secure, allowing artillery fire from the walls. The walls are also a highway allowing militia to move quickly to attack and to retreat in safety. The many towers are fortresses in themselves, all very costly to take. This rationale applies equally to insurrections within the city. By keeping districts separate and the population enclosed, armed uprisings are limited to separate portions of the city.
To enforce this defensive strategy, the military government prohibits any building within two miles of the city walls, so that approaching forces will have no cover against artillery fire. This has created a curious effect as the city has expanded. The city is surrounded by a ring of sparsely inhabited farmland, around which are clusters of dormitory towns and villages, housing agricultural labourers and city workers too poor to find accommodation within the city. As time progresses these towns will undoubtedly merge into a ring of suburban sprawl, separated from the city proper by a ring of agricultural parkland.
The second reason for maintaining internal walls is fire control. By dividing the city into distinct regions, fire outbreaks (a constant scourge in any dense city) are more easy to control. Every large tower along the walls has water tanks, pumps and hoses, allowing fires within pumping distance of the tower to be controlled by a mist of water. This might not save the entire district, but it will prevent it spreading throughout the city.
The last reason is an economic one. As the city has expanded over the centuries, each successively enclosed district has had longer walls. The cost of constructing miles of heavy outer fortifications, often over difficult terrain, has become prohibitively expensive. The threat of direct invasion has also greatly decreased as Harthera's regional enemies have been crushed, so the expense of constructing new walls now seems an unnecessary extravagance.
The city has not come under external military threat for many centuries.
Each city district is administered by a Bueroch-Director (J. dyerog ). A bueroch is a military administrator, responsible for: deploying and maintaing the local militia, maintaining good order, patrolling the perimeter walls, and monitoring traffic through the internal and external gates. Bueroch offices also keep registers of births and deaths, and issue identity papers and the various passes needed to travel throughout the city. Buerochs are often retired military officials, appointed by the city governor.
The Hartheran government is very security conscious, threatened internally by nationalists, and externally by Ororrplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigOrorr
Ororr [o-ROARR, ɒ̝rɔ'ɾ], also called the Holy Motherland of Ororr, is a theocratic nation in Anásthias, one of the world's great powers. It the largest nation in the world, perhaps the largest empire in history, occupying the entire northwest of the continent between the mountains and the sea. Ororrlanguagelanguagelanguage and its pernicious religionplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigMother Church of Ororr (Therism)
The Mother Church is the state religion of Ororr, which combines both religion and government in one institution. It is based on the teachings of the Great Prophet Therion, who in the early decades of the modern era raised an army that conquered much of northwestern OrorrOrorrOrorrOrorrOrorrMEMEOrorrMEMEOrorrOrorrHerHerHerHerHerHerHerHerHerher. Therefore every citizen is issued with documents at birth, and transport is only permitted by license, in an attempt to control both sedition and internal migration.
This is particularly so within Vahltor, the heart of the Hartheran State. Only residents and those with permits may enter the city's internal and exteral gates without paying a toll. This is policed by use of “keys”, giving free access to various parts of the city, for a cost. Traditionally these were physical tokens with the appearance of ornate keys, with different designs depending on the level of access within the city. The lowliest citizens will only have access to their own district or neighbouring ones, and use more crude metal designs, or sometimes even passcards of pasteboard. The wealthiest will have all-access keys to the whole city, finely wrought and plated in gold. Hence the rich are called clavigers - key-holders, often with a key design unique to their household and painted on coaches and livery.
The city's two “Restricted Districts”, the Docks and Southgate, are the only exception to this. Most Hartheran cities have free districts, where merchants and travellers from outside the city, even non-Hartherans, are given a certain freedom to enter and do business. Anyone may enter and leave these areas, but they are not allowed into the city proper. Travellers are issued with temporary documents on arrival, and anyone unable to produce these proofs on demand are liable to be questioned or ejected from the city.
Vuhltore is formed by the two rivers, the Velun and Verais, which join here. In a strictly geographical sense the Verais flows into the Velun, because the Verais is the shorter and younger river, but thereafter it is officially the Greater Verais.
The Verais begins in the Nashant uplands far to the east, in the old Saloya heartlands. It is broad and fast-flowing, long ago carving quite a deep valley into the surrounding rock east of the city. The Velun begins in the distant Dun Jaen mountains far to the west. By the time it reaches Vuhltore it has already flowed across thousands of miles, fast flowing in the mountains, through forests and crossing the rolling plains, becoming thick with silt along the way. By the time it reaches Vuhltore it is wide and slow, meandering back and forth across rich western alluvial plains, narrowing only to pass through the hills surrounding the city. The banks of the Velun are constantly shifting, and in ancient times they were swamps, then water meadows, cultivated for crops. These meadows have long since been drained to accommodate poor housing, but the banks still flood occasionally.
Textiles - various textiles are spun and fashioned in the south, and shipped to the city where they are dyed and sold as fashion dictates. Dyesgate is a noisome district of the city, its colourful effluents polluting the lower river and clouding the sky with acrid steam. Cloth is sold to textile merchants in the cloth markets, to tailors, seamstresses and fashionable clothing shops throughout the city. Clothing production is one the city's biggest industries.
Artificing - the heavy industries of metal extraction and manufacture happen elsewhere, the refined materials being shipped to the city for fine manufacture. The city's artificers produce mechanisms particularly for the navy and military - balloon heat pumps, weapons, heating devices, compasses, timepieces and so on. Only fine artifacts are produced here; the heavy industrial production for shipping goes in where the ships are constructed, in Harlon.
Eilunn was once an elite suburb in the shadow of the Bireilundt Palace, and its avenues are still lined with former grand mansions, now converted into shops apartments and tenements. Today it is mostly known as a fashionable shopping district.
Some of these mansion villas are still occupied by once-wealthy families, but most have been turned into apartments, particularly for lesser government functionaries working in the Bireilundt.
This aptly-named riverside district occupies the sloping ground between the old walls of the fortress, and the shifting banks of the river Velun. It was once not properly a district at all, and was considered outside the city proper - merely a slope of flood-prone mud between the riverbank and the walls. However, as time passed the poor built hovels here, establishing grubby markets, inns and all the services of any other district. The less poor grabbed the drier ground upslope, clinging pitifully onto the city walls. The district housed the very poorest - street cleaners, dirt movers, rubbish collectors, and the thieves and whores who inevitably spill out of poverty. But gradually the district dragged itself up from the mud and today grasps toward a grubby respectability. The riverside is clustered with wooden shacks, many on stilts, with wooden streets rising above the river mud. In winter the river often floods and sometimes freezes, making streets of ice. Various attempts have been made to check the river banks, but the land is to flat and marshy, and irregular, to easily hold it in a dependable channel. Today Velun is less violent and disease-ridden than in previous centuries, when the city would lock its gates and leave fires or plague to burn itself out within the district's walls. It still houses workers for the grubbier industries (including the cheapest whore-houses), but it is mainly the source of domestic servants, who either serve in the great houses of the South Quarter, or who cross the river by ferry into the middle-class homes of Tabray.
Kelose is a bowl-shaped area of land sloping up to the walls of the Detatedn fortress, and down to the cliff banks of the river. It was once an arable enclosure with livestock and fields of food crops, with granaries and all the minor industries to service the old fortress. It was protected by walls on one side and steep slopes falling down to the river on the other. As the fortress evolved from a military stronghold into a government complex, the richer hierarchs and powerful families took land here to build grand houses, nestled against the safety of the fortress walls.
Today the district is a graceful enclosure, the higher northern side a wealthy district of parks and gardens. The southern end is clustered with neat streets, genteel shops and well-ordered markets, serving all the needs of the great houses nearby. Along the river are newer mansions of the wealthy, with steps down to their own private landings.
Grestaian Park - this vast parkland was once an important military staging area, for martialing troops against a city invasion. Today it is a vast area of parkland and gardens, crossed by important highways that carry traffic across the city. Building is prohibited within the district, except for facilities. It is the largest area for public recreation in the city, used for fairs on public holidays, for mass state celebrations, and most famously for games and races. The most important is the annual Grestaia Chase.
Cardnenn is largely a genteel residential district, with rows of neat houses surrounding a low hill called Cardnenn Rise. The northern portion nearer the river has the main cross-city road, leading between Grestaian and the Terat Bridge. The bridge is the only real connection for goods and heavy traffic between the South Quarter and the rest of the city - Highbridge being limited to light local traffic, and the only link to the west being the Velun ferry. Along the road and near the bridge are various markets and shops, primarily serving the local area, particularly draperies, laundries, tailors and domestic suppliers.
Southgate is poor, cramped in the dip between two parallel curtain walls that once formed the outer ramparts of the city. It is one of the city's Restricted Districts: foreigners, refugees and visitors to the city can stay here temporarily, in one of the many cramped and foul-smelling hostelries that line the streets. It lies just inside the city's southern gate so is a district of markets - fruit, vegetables, livestock, flowers and every item of local produce can be bought here. It also has extensive flea markets, where migrants sell their treasured possessions for cash. An endless variety of items can be found, legal and illegal, from all over the world, on the quarter's cramped rambling streets.
Estayn is the city's industrial sector, specialising in prestige manufacturing of finished and semi-finished goods, particularly ceramics, glassware and dyed cloth.
The Old City surrounds “Holy Hill”, the highest point in the city surmounted by the domed Basilica of Holy Hartplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigBasilica of Holy Hart
The Basilica of Holy Hart in the city of Vahltor is the holiest building in the Church of Hartrah, an important site for all national rituals and celebrations. It also contains thousands of memorials and remains of important national figures and the scions of wealthy families.. It has been an important site for millennia, first as a hill fort, then as the palace of the kings of Emanunéplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigKingdom of Emánuné
Emánuné [eh-MAN-oo-nay, imæn'uːeɪ] was an ancient kingdom occupying the fertile valley of the River Velun, in what is now modern Harthera.
Ancient Northeast Anasthias
This is in a series of articles about the ancient history of Northeast HM, and later the Winter Palace of the Palatines of Saloyaplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigSaloya
Referring to the historic civilisation, the Grand Palatinate of Saloya.. During the Hartheran Commonwealthplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigHartheran Commonwealth
The Hartheran Commonwealth was a constitutional monarchy which ruled Harthera for 164 years, from 407-571 ME. The Commonwealth period marked a shift in the balance of power in the region back to the old Saloyan elites who were still wealthy landowners, particularly in the old the kings built a new Citadel here, surrounded by strong graceful walls of buttery stone, dominated by the King's Palace and the dome of the Basilica. Since the downfall of the Commonwealth the Citadel declined into a reserve for students at the University and prelates of the church.