Rerubros

Rerubros (RE-RUH-BROS) is the largest city and capital of the Tütouzor Republic State of Sevoub. It is located along the Kabrou River in the Seitdout plain region. It was founded in 304 BNE as a planned capital city of the ancient Sevoob Kingdom. It retained its role as the main administrative center of the Seitdout region of Beikabrou until the first century BNE, and retained a role as a religious and ceremonial capital until the city was sacked and the royal family was executed in 153 NE. It continued to hold important ceremonial and symbolic purpose in later kingdoms who sought to use the history of the ancient Sevoob Kingdom to give their own lands legitimacy. It was the site of a significant battle in 627 NE during the rise of the Sikshouph Empire, which saw the decisive defeat of the New Sevoob Kingdom. It was also capital the Sikshouph Empire as well during the collapse of the empire's authority in the 15th century. The imperial court moved to Rerubros in 1472 but lost control of most of its territory shortly afterwards. The court in Rerubros continued to rule a small area around the city and continued to call itself the Garrads Dynasty of the Sikshouph Empire until the city surrendered to Aiscwepheiph-based Gashoos Dynasty forces in 1811 NE. The city was given special status by the Gashoos Dynasty who made a propaganda point of restoring ancient rites and rituals to the city. The Gashoos subsequently lost control of the city to local lords in 1971 and the city was surrendered to the Tütobrüz Republic (the precursor of the modern Tütouzor Republic) in 1975 following a popular rebellion against the city's king. The ethnically Drusich leaders of the Tütouzor Republic have not maintained any special religious or ceremonial status from the city but did make it the capital of Sevoub State in deference to its history. In modern times, the city is a shipping and transit hub where cargo and travelers transition from river travel along the lower Kabrou River to road travel along the major improved road through the city, which is known as Rerubros Road to the north of the city and Upheleits Road to the south. It is also a major manufacturing center for traditional Derheizh glassware and decorative scrolls. The modern population is 704 thousand.

Etymology
The ancestral name of the city, Rerobrioos, derives from the Derheizh prefix re- ("city") and the word robrioos ("court/capital"), literally, "capital city" or "royal court city." The city was founded by the ancient Sevoob Kingdom as its capital and the name reflects this. There is some debate among scholars regarding whether the word robrioos actually meant capital before the city's founding, as the few known contemporary examples of the words usage are ambiguous whether they refer to a royal court or a royal capital city. Later sources use it for either term, but this may be due to the influence of Rerubros itself.

History
The ancient Sevoob Kingdom was a kingdom based along the Kabrou that conquered the regions of the Kabrou Valley that fall within the region currently known as the Seitdout in 304 BNE. To celebrate his conquests, King Gasoor Vatovre ordered the construction of a new capital city, which he named Rerobrioos, at a site directly across the Kabrou River from his prior capital of Rekrutz, which was subsequently abandoned once Rerobrioos was completed in 295 BNE. The original city consisted of a ring of rammed earth walls surrounded by ditches into which water from the Kabrou flowed to form a moat. The palace had an open-air courtyard where the kings would hold court beneath a wooden pavilion. The original city was only one and half ride wide and two rides long and had little room for anything other than the palace, a number of temples, and their respective keepers and servants within the walls. The city's garrison was housed in buildings outside the walls, and a considerable civilial town grew haphazardly outside of the walls as well.

A secondary ring wall was built around the garrison and the civilian town in 240 BNE, though it was considerably lower and lacked a moat. This is the oldest example of a double-ringed wall structure in the Beikabrou region, and the style subsequently became and still remains popular in the region. The second wall enclosed an area of just over twelve square rides, which is smaller than the area enclosed by the inner ring in the modern city. No parts of the ancient walls survive, though parts of the inner moat remain as canals within the modern city.

The Sevoob Kings in Rerubros attempted to create a religious cult around their dynasty and around Rerubros as well. The built an oracular temple within the inner wall in 257 BNE and it's commonly believed that the oracular priests were controlled by the court. The priests issued many proclamations asserting the divine right of the Gasoor Dynasty to rule and about the celestial and religious importance of the city. Religious decrees were issued forbidding the declaration of any lord or noble position within the kingdom outside of the city walls and a number of religious ceremonies that nobles and lords were required to attend in the city were instituted as well. This forced lesser lords to pass into the capital on a regular basis and submit to royal authority.

The last Gasoor king, Gasoor Vazipz, was usurped in a palace coup in 111 BNE by his nephew Gasok Vasirg. Likely under duress, the priests of the oracular temple affirmed this transition and declared that the Gasoor Dynasty had lost the mandate to lead, and that whoever possessed the throne of Rerubros had been chosen by the gods to lead the kingdom. This was the beginning of the Gasok Dynasty. While Gasok Vasirg succeeded in taking functional control of the capital and its government, the transition to a new house weakened the aura of divinity that the kings of Sevoub had sought to create for centuries. Faith in the kingdom was weakened and many lesser lords began to separate themselves from the kingdom with little consequence.

The Gasok Dynasty continued into the second century NE but lost functional control over the kingdom during the first century BNE. The kings retained some of their religious significance during this era and the tradition of other lords being officially initiated in Rerubros by the Sevoub King continued and lent the kings of Rerubros some limited clout as moderators and statesmen. In practice, the kings were often coerced into initiating other kings into their positions for appearances.

The nearby city of Shrakiovzar became a functionally independent kingdom in the first century BNE and its rulers began to call themselves kings in 53 BNE. For over a century, these kings, like others in the Seitdout, went to Rerubros to make their ascension to the throne official. During a dispute in 135 NE, however, one claimant to the throne entered Rerubros with a small force and forced the Sevoub King to proclaim him rightful king of Shrakiovzar. His brother, another claimant with a stronger legal claim and greater control over Shrakiovzar's forces, grew furious and invaded and sacked Rerubros. He executed the Gasok family and his brother as well.

Stripped of its kings, Rerubros became a minor city notable mostly for its temples after its sacking. It was restored somewhat in status by the Gakrit Dynasty, which seized control of the Kabrou Valley Seitdout Region in 217 NE. The Gakrit Kings divided their territory into smaller states, and created a Sevoob State based around Rerubros. They restored some of the city's rituals and made a ceremonial point of restoring its temples to their former glory.

The Gakrit Dynasty lost control of the region in 483 NE and Rerubros became part of kingdom that called itself New Sevoob. The kingdom based itself in the larger city of Shrakiovzar, but it considered its control of the ancient Sevoob capital a central part of its claim to legitimacy and restored many of the city's ancient traditions. New Sevoob re-dredged the moat canals and built a short, ceremonial wall to mark the boundary of the ancient city. Ascensions and other important ceremonies were performed in the city's inner wall, as they had been in ancient times.

The northern Seitdout Kingdom of Sikshouph invaded the lower Kabrou Valley in 627 NE and the New Sevoob Kingdom sent much of its forces to Rerubros to hold the city, fearing a loss of legitimacy if the city were taken by the growing Sikshouph Kingdom. New Sevoob was decisively defeated at the Battle of Rerubros that year, leading to the kingdom's collapse and the razing of Shrakiovzar. Sikshouph left Rerubros intact but raided many artifacts with religious significance from the city, returning them to the Sikshouph capital of Ritbach.

Rerubros grew considerably in size due to refugees from Shrakiovzar but remained largely insignificant for the remainder of the divided kingdoms period but the Sikshouph Empire sought to restore the prestige of the city and some of its customs once they had unified control of the region. They built a new set of walls along roughly their modern footprint, this time in stone, and built the city up as a major secondary administrative center for the southern half of the Seitdout region. They also considerably enlarged and improved the city's river port facilities, using it as the primary port for their new fleet of animal-powered river vessels in the Kabrou River. The completed the major improved road to the city, Rerubros Road, in 782 NE. Rerubros Road provided quick, overland access to Ritbach, and a considerable tonnage of goods moved on and off of boats in the city passing in both directions between Ritbach and the sea.

The Sikshouph imperial court was forced to abandon Ritbach in 1472 NE under threats from Drusich Raiders coming from the north, and the emperor and his attendants moved to Rerubros that year. The move was intended to be temporary, but the threat persisted and Ritbach was sacked in 1475 NE. The empire had not been able to move much of the vast machinery of the government and the empire fell largely into disarray following the sack of Ritbach. Most historians consider the sack to be the end of the Sikshouph Empire, but the court persisted in Rerubros and continued to use the Sikshouph name for centuries.

Inter-kingdom warfare consumed the Seitdout region following the collapse of Sikshouph imperial central authority and the Rerubros based kingdom became one of many warring states. The region's population entered a period of decline that lasted for over three centuries, but the population of Rerubros was relatively stable at over 400 thousand during this period as the city's secure fortifications were attractive to refugees from the surrounding war-torn region.

The Aiscweipheiph based Gashoos Dynasty invaded the Kabrou Valley in the early 19th century and sacked and looted the major city of Bebitreik in 1808 NE. The invaders seized control of the Rerubros Road at the modern site of Touzor in 1809, cutting Rerubros off from overland from the north. Gashoos forces enveloped the city the following year and the final king of the Garrads Dynasty, Garrads Varor fled the city in secret with his family in 1811, effectively surrendering the city to Gashoos control.

The Gashoos Dynasty moved their court to Ritbach in 1819 NE and attempted to restore many Sikhouph customs, including the observation of important rituals in Rerubros each year. The Gashoos-era governors of Sevoub State were known for their corruption, however, and demanded bribes from other lords in exchange for favor from the city's priests and oracles. Little of the resulting wealth went into improving the city, which continued to languish in general disrepair.

The Gashoos Dynasty collapsed in the second half of the twentieth century, and the capital was moved from Ridbach to Tuizoubs in 1956 and from there to Uphileits in 1970. The court was nearly bankrupt and largely lost control of most of its remaining states in the late sixties and early seventies. After the court moved to Uphileits, Rerubros was essentially abandoned and left in the hands of the Sevoub Governor. The northern Tütobrüz Republic, which already controlled the northern half of the Seitdout, was already encroaching on Sevoub territory by this time, having seized the crossings at the modern site of Touzor in 1966. The Rerubros court attempted to marshall its own forces to counter the Tütobrüz, but a popular rebellion that included many of the newly conscripted forces broke out in favor of ousting the existing government in favor of the Tütobrüz in 1975. The leaders of this force successfully surrendered the city to the Tütobrüz that year.

As the Tütobrüz Republic secured control of the region, they began to rebuilt its institutions in the model of their republic. Sevoub was reconstituted as a voting state of the republic, with an elected state assembly seated in Rerubros. The ethnically Drusich leaders of the republic had relatively little interest in Derheizh cultural traditions, however, and few of the city's traditional religious and ceremonial duties were officially recognized by the new state. Many of the local rituals are still held, however, and ethnically Derheizh peoples, who still make up the vast majority of the Seitdout's population, still consider the city holy and frequently make pilgrimages to its sites.

The Tütobrüz Republic underwent a major reorganization in the early twenty-first century that included the creation of a new capital city. Rerubros was placed on the list of finalists for the capital city due to its central location, good access to transport, and historical significance. The selection committee appointed by the central assembly recommended against it, however, citing two major issues. The first was the city's large size and large number of culturally significant sites, which would make significant reconstruction and repopulation of the city a challange. The second was the city's traditional association with monarchy. The city's symbolic importance as a center of Derheizh culture and civilization was not cited but likely played a role in the committee's decision to reject Rerubros, as the planning committees made a number of choices during the reorganization that were clearly intended to ensure that the reorganized state remained led by its Drusich minority.

Modern Rerubros has flourished economically during the republican period as both a major transit hub and manufacturing center. The city's river port remains busy and is frequently used as a transfer point to and from the road system despite the construction of canals that allow some traffic to continue upriver as far as Touzor. The city also continues to have a thriving hospitality industry driven by pilgrims to its religions sites. Additionally, several manufacturing industries have been built up that take advantage of the city's large working population and easy access to shipping. This includes traditional Derheizh etched glassware and silk clothing, which are the Seitdouts top two international export products, and decorative scrolls, which are nominally produced and blessed by the city's temples. The modern city has a population of 704 thousand, which makes it one of the ten largest cities on Opelyx.