Ardetus ((Are-dee-tus))

Established in 1 Metah  amongst the barren wastes, Ardetus was the first city to be created after the cataclysm of the Andier. The founder of the city is Voun Mountainbreaker, the Great Dragon-king. Lord Voun used his earth magic to both subjugate the surviving bands of humans and to create the unique features of the city such as the crater, the advanced rainwater capturing system, and the sewer system of the Old district. This construction continued even as the city-state continue to assimilate the burgeoning peoples in the slowly recovering wastelands.   This assimilation grated against many of these peoples, some of whom formed opposing groups that waged war. Most of these groups were defeated easily, however, two greater opposing forces formed: the Elvish Coalition and the Mavanish Empire. The war raged as the city continued to grow until 19 M when the two remaining forces reached an uneasy peace. The city recovered from its losses and continued to expand its already sizable naval force in preparation for a secondary conflict until 31 M, when Lord Voun was killed in his conflict with the Cosancoga Demon, Scrios. Suddenly emboldened by his death and the way the whole of the nation recoiled from the sizable loss, The Conjoined Kingdom succeded from the city-state in 33 M; kickstarting a second territory war. This new war did not eat through the forces of the Ardetinian empire as the first one had, clashing with such a small, meager force. However, they soon found their advances halted by both the clever, subversive tactics of the renegade people, and the devastating, sporadic attacks of the lupine god of that region, Dread Thvalto. Without their powerful leader, the Ardetinians were unable to break the forces of the Conjoined Kingdom and, as such, allowed the renegades to keep the meager -mostly worthless- lands they had managed to cling to. The last of their forces left Conjoined land in 40 M.   As Ardetus entered a peace that the city had never before experienced, they quickly encountered an unexpected problem: The crater in which they had made their home, the walls that had sheltered them from attack were now constricting the swiftly growing population. While the royalty did consider attempting to expand the crater, without the power of Lord Voun, it would have been a monumental task. Instead, they hastily began construction of the Highplains, forgoing the care and intent that the Old district was constructed with; which is part of the reason it is such a mess in the modern-day. By 200 M the poor were isolated to the Highplains, while the rich and powerful thrived in the Old district as economic pressures and the pressures of the royalty expelled the poor from the heart of the city in droves. This and the paltry living conditions in the Highplains created much tension between the two districts, the obvious and quite literal class divide growing as nothing was done to alleviate their plight.   This tension spawned the very large Ardetinian contingent of Aftoi's revolutionary force, who -on Aftoi's orders- began performing attacks on the Old district. Even as Aftoi and the Mavanish contingent were captured or killed in 344 M, the Ardetinian contingent has still yet to be fully eradicated; taking on the name 'The People's Army'.   In 375 M the People's Army grew to such an influence that the royals seeded many of their demands such as renovating the sewer systems and gifting land at the edges of the Highplains to be public farming land. However, these demands were only the most trivial and the People's Army began to covertly break very important things. Thus kicked off a generation-long war within the boundaries of Ardetus as the government began raiding and arresting suspected members and the People's Army retaliated with explosives. Eventually, the perfect weapon came to bear that would allow Ardetus to eliminate the People's Army in 415 M: a young, fervent Lux Lightcarver.