Luten-Augusburg

[cool art of luten-augusburg]

Luten-Augusburg is the largest city on the continent of Nostrum, beating the capital of Redwine by some measure. It is also reckoned to be older than the capital by many, but that's a more controversial subject.

It is nestled in a bay on the western shore of Nostrum.

History

It is said that there were once two cities that shared the bay: Luten's Burg and August's Burg. Both of them founded by figures lost almost entirely to history, whoever Luten or August may have been, the only thing that's known for sure about them is that they predate the history of a united Nostrum. What is known is that over the centuries the two cities grew to the point that they no longer had a border, and from there they united politically.

Early Strife

Like in the modern city, the ancient city has a problem with factionalism. It is a city largely without regulation or oversight, and whose people have rejected such overtures in the past. Instead of a single governing body, it is a mess of a thousand different traditions trying to coexist peacefully, and failing. The earliest major conflict mirrors the modern conflict: disputes between trade guilds.

The Rule of Five

Before Nostrum was united, it was split between five distinct rulers. The King in Redwine; the Council of Luten-Augusburg; the Duke of the Redfort; The House of the Marcher Lord; and, the Duke of the Southlands.

The Council of Luten-Augusburg was unique in that it was led not by a single autarch, and nobility played no part in who could sit on the council. Instead, the people of the city were ruled mostly by business magnates. Guild masters, traders, insurance brokers, so on and so on.

These rulers nominally did not rule by fiat, but by representing a larger swathe of the population and sustaining them. So long as someone could support an entire district of the city, they would be permitted onto the council. Have their distict be subjugated by another faction, or fail to keep them in line, and they would no longer be allowed to sit on the council.

Unlike the other four duchies, Luten-Augusburg did not expand its territory by military action. They barely had a military to speak of. The city relied entirely on mercenaries from other parts of Nostrum or Westfal, and the councillors inside Luten-Augusburg competed for the greatest prize of them all: access to the city's docks and the astounding wealth that could be made from trade there.

Subjugation

Luten-Augusburg did not enter peacefully into vassalage. Attempts to negotiate vassalage were made, but largely ignored. The city's councillors could not agree on terms, and so after a few years of negotiation communications broke down.

At this same time, The House of the Marcher Lord was seeking an alliance with the King in Redwine. The latter refused, and by tradition it is thought that the King in Redwine refused because The Marcher Lord of that age was too impoverished to grant him what he felt was a suitable dowry for his daughter. In pursuit of a suitable dowry, The Marcher Lord set out to burn Luten-Augusburg to the ground.

He did.

Abandonment

When Luten-Augusburg fell, its citizens fled. The city depopulated overnight as an incredible bounty of riches were stolen from the city. The merchant elite were split: some fled to Westfal, their later generations eventually establishing the Princedom of Eastla. Many others fled to the nascent client-state of Cthonia, the Narrows. Those would eventually go on to become the first administrators of that realm, growing it and making future Reaps much more efficient.

The city itself wasn't quite reduced to ashes, but near enough. It became the site of a massive reclamation project: hundreds of farms around the region were built with bricks reclaimed from the fallen city, and so on. Much reduced and in squalor, the city limped along for centuries until the cold took it.

The Thaw

Luten-Augusburg died a quiet death during the long winters where the sun disappeared for nearly a whole generation. Perhaps a few people took shelter from the rampant starvation and cannibalism in its old decrepit walls, but history will never know for sure.

What is known is that it was reclaimed and refounded after the thawing of the ice. Its ideal position, far from Cthonia while near to Westfal and Suzer, became a boon once more as it once again grew in prosperity. This time, however, under the rule of the King in Redwine, this time largely undisputed ruler of all of Nostrum.

The von Sabots

Its proximity to Westfal proved a danger when an expanionist emperor sought to claim Nostrum, starting with Luten-Augusburg, as the glorious Empyrean Empire had done before him. It was thought that the city would fall quickly, as a storm had destroyed Nostrum's fleet and so a blockade of Luten-Augusburg would be trivial for the empire.

History proved these predictions wrong, however. There would be no siege of the city at all. In Nostrum at the time there was a Westfalian knight turned mercenary, who had recently been elected to captaincy over the company. Godric von Sabot, Godric the Audacious, led his fellow Westfalians into a trap. Pretending to join the side of his countrymen, Godric and his mercenaries were invited to guard the emperor's disembarkation.

Instead, while the army disembarked, Godric sprung his trap. Slaughtering the betrayed army, he lost perhaps a dozen men while the emperor lost as many as a thousand, forcing his fleet to turn away from the favorable shore near Luten-Augusburg, and travel along the coast further north. There, the rest of the Westfalian host would be destroyed weeks later by the first Invocation of Lugu.

For his invaluable service, Godric von Sabot would be granted Luten-Augusburg.

Modern Day

It has been many long seasons since Godric von Sabot was granted the city as his fief. Since then, there have been three generations of rulers and a few dozen seasons have passed.

Culture

Luten-Augusburg is caught between two worlds. It is on the continent of Nostrum, but it has been rebuilt by Westfalian architects and most of its population would not consider themselves natively Nostrum. Being of neither culture, it has become its own thing. Growing in different directions from both.

The Three Cities

It is a common trope that Luten-Augusburg is not one city, but three. The history has been twisted to make this make sense: founded by August, founded by Luten, destroyed, and then rebuilt by Godric von Sabot. Or, founded once, founded twice, founded a third time. The number five is considered of some significance by most of Nostrum, because it is a number that is perceived as being highly recursive in their history and folklore. In that same way, three is a significant number culturally in Luten-Augusburg.

The trope of it being three cities also comes up in the sense of the city having three strata. The First City, meaning the city that everyone sees and inhabits. With law-abiding citizens, honest work, and so on. The Second City is thus the city that criminals inhabit, and their world. The Third City, depending on who one asks, is thus the city of either magic or fiction or both. It is said that when a work is fictionalizing events in Luten-Augusburg, it is taking place in the Third City.

Undercity

Another way that the city is divided is between the overcity and the undercity. Underneath Luten-Augusburg are a vast network of tunnels, hideouts, and excavations. Once these served a purpose, and some still do, such as containing massive reservoirs of water that would sustain the city through droughts or siege. Most have been abandoned, and lacking anywhere else to live, criminals and refugees, outcasts of all kinds, have taken over the undercity. Most guards refuse to venture into it.

Patron-Client System

Another cultural holdover from Westfal, this one a cultural holdover from the Empyrean Empire, is the notion of a patron. Someone who supports the community, and in exchange is supported by that comunity. This is something that has never been formalized into law: not since the days before the Pentarchy, when a similar system was formalized under the council of oligarchs.

Most people who live long-term in the city will become the client of a powerful patron. And usually, instead of relying on the secular authorities, they will go to their patron to solve their problems instead.

This is another way the city is divided into "three." The Overcity, the Undercity, and the City Unseen.

Climate

Hot summers, mild winters. It does not snow often in Luten-Augusubrg, and when it does it's usually celebrated.

Law and Order

There is no single guard force in the city. Instead, there are several different mercenary companies, private outfits, and individuals who have been contracted with the city to enforce its laws and ordinances. The way it typically goes is as follows:

1. A criminal has commited a crime, there are witnesses.

2. One of these witnesses report the crime to an authority. Already it can get complicated: which company?

3. The authority starts to look for the criminal. That is, if the crime is profitable. Finding a murderer would net the company a solid commission. Finding someone who's just refusing to pay a few pennies in tax would not pay but a pittance.

4. They find the criminal, and arrest them. Unless the criminal is violent, the company won't be paid by the city until they're tried by a representative of the king. If the criminal is violent, the company is paid whether or not the criminal survives the altercation. Plenty of nonviolent criminals, for some reason, are reported to have died when attempting to violently escape custody.

5. The criminal will be put into a holding cell, usually overnight, then transferred to a proper dungeon underneath the castle until they can be seen to. More than once, this escort has been ambushed by associates of the criminal in question before they reach the castle's dungeons.

6. The criminal is tried by a representative of the king, and sentenced.

Because of this long, arduous process and the rampant potential for mischief and corruption, often what will happen is that people take it into their own hands when they've been wronged.