Duthgar

Officially, Duthgar is ruled by King Koso the 1st, a dead dog that has been preserved by taxidermy. He came to power in 6660 SU but, due to the fact that he is not considered fit to lead, the Advisers to the king rule in his stead as an Oligarchy.

After the Civil war that erupted due to King Koso's coronation, there were 8 advisers who were given the ability to appoint their own successor in the event of their death, but these were always very political choices. When an adviser died without a successor, their seat was left empty. Thus, there are now only 3 advisers who dispense the rule of the King. In the last 76 years, there have been a total of 27 different advisers and none of them stepped down from their position. They have all died during their tenure, most officially due to natural causes. The current advisers are Vedris Eowdra, Kaei Eowdra, and Pira Olomaric. Vedris and Kaei are two of the sons of Wilgord Eowdra, a previous adviser.

Officially, it is illegal to worship gods other than the seven seen or unseen gods, but this law is very lax in most places and only enforced where the town governor is particularly zealous. There are some temples to non-approved gods but mostly outside of cities and settlements, which allows them to operate with less harassment as long as they're large enough that doing anything to them wouldn't be a quiet affair.

### History

The area that is now known as Duthgar was originally controlled by warring tribes of disparate humans, each claiming its own area and then fighting over the resources around them. Occasionally, one tribe might wipe out another and permanently expand its area, but this expansion was limited by the birth rate. In 2057, a man called Norf Gathia, the tribal leader of the Duth tribe, raided a neighbouring tribe but, instead of stealing supplies and leaving or wiping out the defeated group, he left a contingent of his own people there to rule over the tribe. This new tactic allowed the Duth tribe to expand its influence quickly. Some nearby tribes, who saw their power rapidly growing, pledged fealty to them, while others banded together to form a defense against them, and still others followed suit and started to gather tribes under their own banners. By 2104, when Norf was 74 and starting to slow due to age, he named himself King over his group of tribes and named this budding nation Duthgar; at this time, his nation covered most of Central Ward. Duthgar continued to grow where and when it could, subsuming the other tribes around them. By 2332, Duthgar had 5 main opponents that surrounded them: to the west, the nation of Lowsland, Grecca and Bori-Bokti to the south, The Powls to the north, and the Gnomish people of Muin-Ru to the east. A peace settled over the area as these nations sized one another up. Muin-Ru had no ambitions to expand westward and the gnomes were quite well equipped to fend off any sort of attempt; they were, however, quite willing to sell weapons to the four human nations that now ruled over the land.

A sort of cold war started as each of the nations continued to grow their armies, armaments, and defenses until 2984, when Lowsland entered into a devastating civil war which lasted 18 years, after which the country split into two nations, North Lowslands and South Lowslands. In this weakened state, North Lowsland was attacked by Duthgar, who convinced the Bori-Bokti to attack the south simultaneously, just 6 years after they stopped fighting. The war went well for Duthgar and they were able to take over and incorporate most of North Lowsland into their nation, right up to the border with Mer-Fen; this area is now The North Lowsand Ward. The Bori-Bokti, however, were less successful versus the south and South Lowsland remained. The Powls were the next to fall in 3246 in a very quick invasion. It was thought that their capital city of Old Vashton would have been able to hold out against a prolonged siege, with its walls of Akariean Silk, but rather than fight, when they saw the overwhelming forces of Duthgar, the Powl simply accepted their offer of joining the nation.

Bori-Bokti invaded Grecca in 3298 and took most of the land from the Grecc people, pushing them back to a large forest that the Bori considered to now be theirs. Though just a few rebel fighters remained, the Bori were never able to fully exterminate the Grecc, though they would regularly send patrols through the forest, looking for their camps and killing all of the Grecc they found, that is, when they didn't just disappear into the shadows. The ample supply of human corpses left decaying in the forest attracted Strix and other darker creatures that were able to multiply and spread unhindered within the forest between these warring tribes.

In 3364, South Lowsland tried to expand their territory by taking some from the High Elves of Tek-Rien. This wasn't a rare thing; the elves of Mer-Fen and Tek-Rien often rebuffed invasions from the humans. The difference this time was that, after four years, the war wasn't going well and, instead of simply pushing the humans back to their land, Tek-Rien pressed on and started taking land from Lowsland, threatening to conquer them. When the the king proposed an arranged wedding between his oldest daughter and Prince Ryle of Duthgar, Tek-Rien called for peace and withdrew their troops back to the original borders knowing that this union would come with the condition of help from the Duthgar army. The wedding however did cement the Lowslands place as part of Duthgar now.

Between the years of 3374 and 3397, Duthgar continued to put pressure on the Bori-Bokti, taking land from them gradually, pushing their border claims back as far as they could without officially starting a war. When the Bori still refused to swear loyalty to Duthgar and rumors started that they were looking to make a more permanent alliance with Muin-Ru, Duthgar attacked almost immediately with as much force as it could manage. With this, the borders of Duthgar were soon solidified - some ground was gained as Muin-Ru fell in the War of Independence and Unification as the Drazia Dynasty was formed, and some ground was lost when Grecca declared itself an independent power.

When the Last human ruler of Duthgar, King Dremar the 3rd, had twin sons, the question of who would inherit the throne was raised. As Farlin and Astor grew, they spent more time fighting over who would be a better ruler than they did actually preparing to be one. The king grew so displeased with their constant bickering and childish attempts to one up or embarrass one another that he decided to punish them, trying to scare them back in line by making his favorite dog, Koso, the next ruler, even though Koso, two years before in 6558, had died and been stuffed. Even this, however, was not enough to straighten them out. Many believe that it was always the king's intention to return the inheritance to one of his children, or at least a human, but when he suddenly died the edict was still in place. The whole country was almost instantly plunged into a state of chaos. The advisers of the king attempted to maintain control by claiming that they were now advisers to Koso and as such ruled in "his" best interest. The two princes weren't very happy about this and rallied armies to try and take the throne by force but they were each even more determined to ensure that their princely brother did not gain the throne. This sparked the beginning of the Duthgarian civil war which lasted for five years, causing a lot of damage to the country. In the end, the advisers to the king came out on top and they have passed the mantle of rulership down to those they select ever since as the new pseudo-monarchy become oligarchy.

### Demography and Population

The majority of people here are human but there are a number of cities or settlements where different races congregate also, like the Dwarven city of Girdev, the elf city Ryin, and the Goblin city Yister.

### Foreign Relations

Tensions are high between Duthgar and The Divided Regions of Bestaria. Officially, they're amicable allies, but in reality, Duthgar works to undermine the DRB's sovereignty wherever they can. Also, since the DRB northern boarder is the impassible Thebilum Wall its only real boarder is with Duthgar so they control all of the trade in and out of the DRB, though they have to be careful not to push them too hard for fear that the DRB could start a war.

Before The Thebilum Empire closed The Great Gate, there was trade between this country and Duthgar, though since any trade had to pass through Mer-Rein, the frequency of these trades was reduced but the quantity was still reasonably high. Regardless, the relationship was almost purely a business one.

Duthgar gets on quite well with the Drazia Dynasty and buys a large amount of weapons and armour from them. The country also operates as an intermediary between the Dynasty and Mer-Rein; since these two countries are not on the best of terms, Duthgar profits by buying from one and selling to the other.

Duthgar doesn't officially recognise Grecca as a country and wishes to regain this territory that used to be part of Duthgar, though it doesn't make much effort towards this goal.

Mer-Rein has a much closer relationship with Torlund than it does Duthgar but this is primarily driven by the sentiments of the general populace, while the High Council of Mer-Rein tries to maintain a greater appearance of impartiality in public. Carthorka, is the other way around; while Carthorkan raiders do still attack the Southern coast of Duthgar, the Emperor King continues to treat them quite favorably and is often successful redirecting their attacks towards Torlund.

### Wards

The country of Duthgar is separated into six wards, which are:

North Lowsand

Central Ward

Cinerare

South Lowsand

Powsland

The Summer Coast