The Tergatan Kingdom
Location: A manmade mountain just north of the Dead Wastes of Deisach, shadowed on the north side by Alassus Mt.
Description: Tergata itself is surrounded by a ring of vine-covered rumble, evidence of its former glory. There is some human life evident here, as miners will occasionally attempt to salvage stone from the crumbling and ancient buildings. Eventually the ruins and moss-covered streets give way to the rebuilt and inhabited portion of Tergata. Stout stone houses and buildings built in the dwarven architectural style surround the Creeping Depths, a large, deep lake of black, stinking waters that surrounds the remains of the legendary castle of UnTergata.
UnTergata itself is a man-made mountain with a massive network of tunnels. Turrets, towers, and ramparts dot it, but most of the structure is within the mountain itself. It is within UnTergata that the Legion of Tergata trains to recapture the honor and glory that its kingdom once had.
Government: Tergata is a culture that views itself as having sinned against its own nation and their god, Dio. People obey the dictates of the Dwarven Arbiters and model their lives after the Legion of Tergata: Work and physical hardship seen as repentance, philosophies and ideas having to pass an ideological litmus test in which the promotion of these ideas will somehow contribute to bringing back Tergata's former glory and the honor of its people. The King is the absolute ruler, expected to appoint his own council, though he does bow to the authority of the Dwarven Empire. The monarch is selected from a dynastic line dating back to Gorak the Conqueror, and is seen as the citizen of Tergata most free from sin.
Current leader: King Jonase Haven
History: Tergata is a city rich with history and thousands of years old. First created on divine command by humans during the age of Divine War, this was seen as Dio's greatest stronghold, indeed his foothold on the world of Mortals from which he sought to spread his influence and Law. It weathered countless sieges by impressive forces as the Divine War dragged on. The first time it knew peace was when Volkain and Dio stopped their epic battle and retreated from the realm of human affairs.
The Age of elves was one of great tension for Tergata. Already a military giant, it seemed that if open military conflict broke out between the Dwarves and the Elves, Tergata would face heavy pressure from the now-underground dwarven forces to fight for their side. This led Tergata to spend massive amounts of money on their military, in an already militarized culture. In the end, the Dwarves chose a more indirect form of warfare with the elves. However, the military buildup did leave Tergata well-prepared to deal with what was to come.
In the Age of Chaos, Tergata was a bastion of stability and a stronghold for Deisach. While the world raged around it, Tergata remained as unmoving and unchanging as a rock pounded by the surf. When Rein rose and his Red Empire rampaged across Fou Lu, Tergata was one of the few cities it could not conquer. Not only were Rein's forces beaten, they were humiliated, crushed by Tergata's natural defenses and well-trained warrior society. After this, Tergata became a symbol of Deisach's strength, and kingdoms all over the earth continent looked to them for protection.
During the 250 years of relative peace that Rein's Empire managed to orchestrate, Tergata withdrew from its isolation and opened up its borders to immigrants, its markets to trade, and its society to new ideas. This would prove, unfortunately, the worst mistake that the rulers of Deisach ever made.
Towards the end of the Age of Rein (230 AR), a destructive and horrifying ideology that embraced the violent destruction of all non-human races was spreading across the world from the western Dzanatorian isles, particularly in Ercus and Deisach. They called themselves the Seekers, and they heralded the dawn of the Age of Mortal Wars. The leaders of Tergata, not realizing the threat the Seekers posed, sat idly by, blithely ignoring the facts, while violent crimes against non-humans skyrocketed in their city.
When Asmodean Nyruvial and his armies swarmed out of the West, all it took was the assassination of the current King and a few well-placed agents placing blame on an elven politician to toss the city into Civil war, with the decent humans and non-humans of Tergata holing up in UnTergata to protect the existing council of nobles and the remaining elves in the city, while in the city's streets a demagogic, incendiary General named Maro Orlossa rallied the mobs. The civil war left tens of thousands dead, and ended only when Asmodean sent High Seekers Tyrok and Avyra to help Maro in the battle. With the help of the Seekers, Maro slaughtered the noble houses and the High Council. In what was perhaps the darkest day in Deisach's history, Maro Orlossa was crowned King of Tergata and swore fealty to the Supreme Seeker, Asmodean Nyruvial.
For the next seven years, Tergata was the base from which the Seekers would send forth their forces to lay waste to Deisach. Innumerable non-humans were butchered at their hands. Entire towns and villages disappeared. For the better part of a decade, life in Deisach became a nightmare, with Tergata as the citadel from which it was all orchestrated.
No tyranny that terrible can last, however. In 259 AR, an elven retaliation force struck Tergata while the Supreme Seeker was dealing with enemies in Andriath. With most of his men taken to fight in a foreign war, Maro went mad when he realized that the man he had sworn fealty would cause his city to be conquered for the first time in history. Calling upon the defenses the Gods had given to Tergata when it was created, he lay waste to his own city, flooding it and nearly sinking it into the earth before he was stopped.
Gorak the Conqueror was Deisach's next king. He had been among the elven retaliation force that had taken Tergata back. Having been born in Tergata and having been a General of high rank before being exiled by Maro for his disloyalty to the Seekers, his knowledge of the city was invaluable in conquering it. He was crowned after Maro's death, and dedicated his rule to regaining the honor of the Tergatan people. He founded the Legion of Tergata, a spear-wielding warrior society that lives by the rules of permanent hardship and endurance. He was the first regional leader to willingly recognize the authority of Errak'Dio, Supreme Arbiter of the dwarves, when the dwarves stepped forth into Deisach to rebuild the the destruction left by the Seekers. The Seekers, by this time, had been thoroughly defeated and Asmodean Nyruvial had been killed, though their ideology lingered on.
Tergata had suffered much from the Seeker wars. It experienced a bit of an economic boon when the dwarves rebuilt parts of the city, but quickly spiralled into recession. Many of the people living there were literally dirt poor, a result of Tergata's farms having been burnt by the Seekers, and most of their professional manufacturers-metalsmiths- having been killed during the war. In addition, after the Seeker wars, the advent of the musket made UnTergata not nearly as much of a vital strategic position as it once was. Tergata made itself useful for the dwarves by sending its Legion forth to quell pro-Seeker riots in the southern provinces of the Dwarven Empire.
These riots, ignored by the dwarves as they wrested political control away from regional feudal leaders, eventually erupted into a full-scale Civil War. Tergata's streets were once again flooded with radical, murderous Seekers. The only difference was, this time Tergatan citizens fought against them tooth and nail.
The death toll was heavy, but eventually the Pro-Seekers were destroyed, driven back into the provinces they came from, where Dwarven Arbiters hounded them mercilessly.
Tergata, since then, has been nothing but a region of stagnation and despair. The dwarves granted them the right to build airships for the dwarven fleet in the 600s in the hope that it would promote economic revitalization, but results have been minimal thus far.
Population: Tergata itself has a population of two million, with the surrounding countryside which it governs over adding another million to the population. It is overwhelmingly human, 90%, with the remaining 10% dwarven.
Empire: Tergata is part of the Dwarven Empire.
Military: People in Tergata wishing to join the military have two choices: They can either join with the Dwarven Empire's forces, or they can join Tergata's own legion, the Legion of Tergata.
