POI Name: City of Dunkeleich
Credits: Header, Star Fortress
Type: City
Position: Situated at the Western parts of Wesalla Province, Frizania.
Consolidation Thread:
Architect: The city was originally built by an old realm that existed during the 5th and 6th century, and it was then renovated by the Iron Cult after the Iron Cult Rebellion during the early 9th Century.
Description: Characterised by the grim colours of its buildings due to excess humidity and low temperatures, Dunkeleich is a settlement bustling with activity. At the port, ships from across the Western Erova make their way upriver to sell exotic goods, or deliver large shipments of resources intended for the ever-hungry industries of the Iron Cult. Others seek for advices of the experienced physicians and Plague Doctors that reside in the city, or a bargain for the expensive technological advancements of the Iron Cult. There is heavy military presence in the city, while the protective walls around it are built in a star-shape.
ATTRIBUTES
- Main Stats
- Defence: High
- Defensive Elements:
- Star Fortresses
The city is surrounded by several fortification complexes which are interlinked and intergraded to the main city wall, making any attempt against the settlement a painful and rather difficult process. Arrayed on towers and thick wall sections, there are artillery emplacements and trap doors meant to enhance the defenders' effort during a siege. - Moats
There are several rims of well-dug moats, through which deviated river flow goes through, ensuring they will remain open and with enough flow to carry away any corpses or debris that find their way in the water.
- Star Fortresses
- Defensive Elements:
- Offence: Low
- Offensive Elements:
- Army Garrison
A significantly large number of troops can be garrisoned within the city's walls, ensuring the supply routes remain open as well as the defensibility of the settlement in case of a siege. When the city itself is not threatened, the army garrisoned within it can act as an offensive force for the surrounding regions. - Naval Headquarters
The Iron Cult's navy, regardless how small, is anchored in the fortified naval headquarters within the city's Southern districts, allowing limited access to the river's northern regions and riverborne raids to Fontrois and Ponthois provinces.
- Army Garrison
- Offensive Elements:
- Durability: High
- Scarcity: Unique
- Defence: High
- TvM Requirement: 3v1
Strengths
- Operation Center. The city of Dunkeleich serves as a major merchant and military centre, being able to supply armies and naval elements campaigning northward, while also hosting the Northern Armies Command atop its citadel.
- War Industries. Dunkeleich is a large city which produces a significant proportion of the Iron Cult's war supplies.
Weaknesses
- Riverside Port. Although its defenses are sophisticated when faced with a land invasion, the access to the wide river between Wesalla and Fontrois provinces creates the continuous threat of a riverborne raid. A breach via the riverside can greatly threaten the city's defensibility.
- Crime Paradise. Such a massive settlement hosts any kind of denizens of any background, including a rather sizeable reserve of scum and villains, making crime and street violence a rather frequent daily event where the Iron Cult's enforcers are not present...
Historical Information
Dunkeleich was among the first settlements to succum to violence during the early years of the Iron Cult Rebellion. Initially, cultists flooded the streets, capitalizing in riots that were already a daily occurance, protesting the horrid living conditions and the excess corruption that characterised the old regime. When riots were brutally supressed by the local authorities, the Iron Cult's agents were quick to arm the masses with smuggled weaponry from the port and push them to an open revolt, with promises of freedom and better life when the old opression was finally unmade.
The revolt sunk the city in chaos, with many of its districts succuming to the flames set either by the rebels or by the troops who struggled to pacify them. From riots and mass charges against the city watch's outposts, the engagement in Dunkeleich devolved into ruthless street fighting and chaotic plundering from both sides, as the once united rebels gradually broke into warring factions.
By 826, when the Iron Cult's forces finally gained the upper hand in the war and moved to Wesalla, their leaders offered the rulers of Dunkeleich a pardon should they yield the city, in exchange for protection and an end to the revolt. After an agreement was struck, those who once urged and led the citizens against their overlords with promises and favours, now unleashed the revolutionary army of the Iron Cult into the city and carved the districts with hundreds of dead denizens, eventually cutting the rebels off the river. The revolting districts starved within barely weeks, while the warring rebel factions, now exhausted and deprived, mostly surrendered, or turned against their fellow rebels in hopes to carry favour with the Iron Cult.
By 842, Dunkeleich was transformed, with high structures and new, complex defenses being built by thousands of slaves originating from the captured, or old associates of the revolt the Iron Cult had instigated in the city before the treacherous deal with the local rulers. As of the old regime, the nobles were found incapable of ruling over such a large settlement, and capitalizing on the leverage the huge numbers of Iron Cult troops residing within the city, soon forced the nobles to serve the cult, becoming little more than mere minions to the Plague Doctors' bidding. During the next two decades, any remnant of the old regime was extinct, or turned to slavery over the new legal system introduced by the Iron Cult.
