Amhatr

Traditionally the largest and most important settlement in the Toasha Desert, Amhatr was the capital, successively, of the Hai Vithana and Eha Vithana khaganates. It has been an important center of Ardavan religious practice despite its relative remoteness from most Satar domains.
Located aside the largest and richest oasis in the extremely dry Toasha, settlement at Amhatr far pre-dates known history. However, it truly rose to become a city during the peak of the Dulama Empire, when it was a major staging ground for the empire's eastward expansion. After a brief period of Dulama rule, Amhatr was conquered by the migrating Hai Vithana, who settled down in the Toasha Desert and made Amhatr their capital. It flourished under the Hai Vithana khagans as a focal point of the prosperous trade between the Dulama and Moti Empires. 
During the last years of the Hai Vithana, their khagan, Avralkha, invaded a weakened Dulama Empire to the west and carved out a grand domain, the Vithanama Empire, beyond the Toasha. Emboldened by Avralkha's absence, the Moti Empire crossed the Toasha, burning the city of Amhatr to the ground. Given its important strategic and economic location, there was no question that Amhatr would be rebuilt, but the second incarnation of the city was a much lesser one, despite funds flowing in from the Karapeshai Exatai to rebuild. Those Hai Vithana who remained in Toasha desert rather than follow Avralkha onto the Taidhe became the Eha Vithana, who struggled to rebuild the mercantile prosperity of their predecessors.
Recently, the Vithanama Empire returned to the city of Amhatr, this time as conquerors seeking vengeance for the perceived insult of the Eha siding with the Karapeshai Exatai over the Vithanama in the struggle over Satores's invasion of the Moti Empire. In a more brutal reprise of the Moti sack of the city, the Vithanama burned their ancestral home to the ground and slaughtered every man, woman, child and horse in the city. Rumors holds that the Vithanama also poisoned the oasis beside which Amhatr sits, which would make reestablishment of the city far more difficult, though this rumor is as yet not confirmed.
Category:Vithana
Category:Cities