Pentapolis

Pentapolis Fönfserstadtsbunt
Region of Hendalarsk
Bund der Fünf Freistädte
Pentapolitan flag Pentapolitan crest
Anthem: Die Wandarkhymne
Map of the Pentapolis
Country	Hendalarsk
Constituent City	Hukenen Jendaburg Miledaas Molinstadt Wrzeszcz-Kokoszki
Foundation of Hukenen	22 April 941
Vandarch League	11 October 1337
Foundation of Wrzeszcz-Kokoszki	26 March 1410
Pacification of Miledaas	11 December 1453
Pact of Jendaburg	20 September 1454
Treaty of Hukenen	July 19 1585
Grand Bargain	July 19 1921
Founded by	Erstbürger Hagon IV of Hukenen
Named for	The five constituent city-states of the federation
Government
• Type	Parliamentary-conciliar republic
• Body	Grand Council of the Five Free Cities
• Elsöbürger	Fischer Alexander
Population  (2015)
• Total	7,852,346
• Estimate  (2020)	8,050,000
Demonym(s)	Serstädter (m), Serstädtrin (f), Serstädtrö (n)
Ethnicity
• Pentapolitan Werdachren	37.1%
• Pentapolitan Uralics	32.6%
• Pentapolitan Hendalarskaren	17.9%
• Levantines	7.0%
• Non-Levantines	2.8%
• Pentapolitan Mountaineers	2.6%
Religion
• Hendalarskara Catholicism	40.3%
• Atheism, agnosticism and irreligion	35.2%
• Protestant denominations	9.6%
• Levantine Catholicism	6.4%
• Hendalarskara indigenous faith	4.1%
• Judaism	3.4%
• Cronan indigenous faiths	0.6%
• Others	0.4%
Time zone	UTC-1 (Pentapolitan Mean Time)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+0 (Pentapolitan Summer Time)
Website	www.pentapolis.pt.hdl

The Pentapolis (Hendalarskisch: Bund der Fünf Freistädte, Pentapolitan Argot: Fönfserstadtsbunt) is an autonomous federation of five city-states located in eastern Hendalarsk, encompassing both the extreme east of the Hendalarskara mainland and the western half of the Kestrel Isles. The Pentapolis is the direct successor of the Vandarch League, a confederation of the region's city-states and their merchants. Having submitted to Hendalarskara overlordship through the Treaty of Hukenen during the Maximilianic Unification, the federation was able to extract a wide array of concessions from the Hendalarskara government during the Hendalarskara Civil War, which it has retained down to the present day. As a consequence of these origins and concessions, the Pentapolis is by far the most economically liberalised region of Hendalarsk, with correspondingly disproportionate rates of both wealth and inequality when set against the national average.

Migration from all over Hendalarsk (and, indeed, further afield) has made the Pentapolis one of the country's great melting-pots, comparable only to - and arguably surpassing - the western metropolises of Frehmenwerth and Zalgisbeck. A wide array of both ethnic and religious diversity can be found among the cities' inhabitants, almost all of whom nevertheless share an understanding of the distinctive regional creole known as the Pentapolitan Argot. Standard Hendalarskisch is, by contrast, spoken natively by only a small minority of the cities' inhabitants, and holds no official status within the bounds of the Pentapolis. Hukenen is home to perhaps the largest Protestant community in Levantia, the descendants of refugees from the Great Confessional War, while other cities boast faith communities from all over the world.

In accordance with ancient Pentapolitan custom the Grand Council of the Five Free Cities, the region's legislative body, moves between the five cities on a five-yearly basis, and is currently located in Wrzeszcz-Kokoszki. Despite not being the region's largest city and only hosting the Grand Council as frequently as the other cities, Hukenen is nevertheless widely recognised as the region's unofficial capital. Many Pentapolitan institutions are devolved from their mainland Hendalarskara equivalents, to the extent that the Pentapolis maintains its own diplomatic corps - with consulates and trade missions in friendly cities across Levantia - and its own armed forces, notionally subordinate to the Hendalarskara monarchy and executive but operationally separate from all other Hendalarskara branches.

Economy

Whereas the mainland Hendalarskara economy is dominated by state and coöperative ownership, the Pentapolitan economy is far more deregulated and run on essentially laissez-faire lines. Although neither state nor coöperative enterprises are outright illegal - Hendalarskara law would not permit this even in a region as autonomous as the Pentapolis - they are strongly discouraged and liable to be bankrupted by privately-owned competitors whenever they emerge. Trade unions in the Pentapolis are also tightly bound in the actions they can lawfully undertake, with solidarity strikes and wildcat strikes both illegal and high turnout thresholds for ballots to be considered valid. Almost all facets of economic life in the Pentapolis are privatised, from public transport to pensions, with the conspicuous exception of education, which is managed by each Pentapolitan city and is supported even by the private sector for its value in generating a trained and skilled labour force.

The Pentapolis' present-day prosperity is derived from its function as an economic linkage between the relatively autarkic Hendalarskara economy and the wider world, with competitive advantages in both directions. Farming is almost non-existent on the islands, partly due to their oceanic climate but mainly due to the influx of enormous quantities of cheap Hendalarskara agricultural produce, although much of Hendalarsk's blue-water fishing industry - such as Nagy István Vandarhalászatok - is headquartered in the archipelago. Lighter regulations make the Pentapolis a more competitive export market than most of the wider Hendalarskara economy, although goods produced for consumption on the Hendalarskara mainland must abide by Hendalarsk's far more stringent regulations; this inconsistency has lain at the heart of many commercial disputes between the Pentapolis and the metropole. The five cities are home to a small but specialised manufacturing base, with a particular emphasis on both military and civilian shipbuilding and shipbreaking; Pentapolitan vessels are considered (at least by Pentapolitans themselves) to be the finest on the Vandarch, with the Great Shipyard of Jendaburg one of the largest and oldest anywhere in the region.

Beyond this signature industry, the Pentapolitan economy is largely service-driven. The Pentapolitan Stock Exchange in Hukenen is an order of magnitude larger than its counterpart in Frehmenwerth, with many Hendalarskara businesses - including even the nation's sovereign wealth fund - represented on the Exchange as a means of increasing liquidity and soliciting foreign investment. The Pentapolis, via a windfall tax levied since the Great Bargain, is also a key source of foreign currency for the Hendalarskara state, a resource pool swelled by the role of the ever-growing Pentapolitan tourism sector (and its close cousin the gambling industry). Gambling in Hendalarsk proper is extremely tightly controlled, with a low absolute limit on the total monthly stakes any individual can place. These limitations do not exist in the Pentapolis, with Miledaas in particular (in)famous for its casinos and the near-omnipresence of betting terminals even in relatively sedate settings such as cafés and gyms. Tourists therefore come from far and wide to gamble in Miledaas; the Captain's Casino in the city centre is one of the largest in Levantia, with an annual revenue in the billions. Online gambling firms headquartered in Miledaas enjoy almost no regulatory oversight, which is a source of both increasing concern in Hendalarsk proper and abroad and enormous wealth. All five Pentapolitan cities market themselves as luxury tourist destinations, with their ports able to accommodate even the largest cruise liners for refits and archipelagic excursions, although Miledaas has also acquired a reputation as a regional hub for nightlife, party tourism and - more controversially - sex tourism, the latter of which has drawn the ire of mainland politicians such as Judka Haller and even some groups in the Pentapolis itself.

Culture

Sports

As in Hendalarsk proper, association football is the most popular sport in the Pentapolis. The Pentapolis, however, is not part of the wider Hendalarskara football pyramid, with the sport instead governed by the Pentapolitan Football Association, the FFB (Argot Fönferstadscher Fösbal-Bunt). This separation extends to international football, where the Pentapolis is represented by its own national side, which has enjoyed considerably less success than its mainland counterpart. Domestic football in the Pentapolis is likewise less globally prominent than the Hendalarskaras Bundesliga, although this has begun to change in recent years with the advent of the Fönferstadscher Ensliga; exorbitant commercial licensing and TV rights deals have seen clubs in the Ensliga offering far higher wages than are available at any club in the Bundesliga, prompting fears of a "foot drain" out of Hendalarsk proper.

In addition to football, baseball is popular across the Pentapolis, with a proportionally far greater following than on the mainland. This has been bolstered by the Pentapolis' barely-regulated sports gambling industry, and a consequent influx of baseball fans from other countries in Levantia where the sport is likewise popular but gambling on it is far more restricted. The Pentapolitan Baseball League is not a major player in a continental sense, but enjoys large matchday attendances and some international cultural recognition; this is particularly true of the Hukener Kestrels, the richest, most popular and most successful team in the archipelago.

Beyond terrestrial team sports, sailing is (appropriately for a maritime polity) popular across the Pentapolis, with even relatively déclassé Pentapolitan families often making a point of renting a space in the great anchorages of the archipelago's many natural harbours. Pentapolitan sailors have a long track record of participation (and success) at the Istroyan Games, where they compete under the Hendalarskara banner due to IIGC regulations, and maintain a friendly and almost entirely one-sided rivalry with their Burgoignesc counterparts. Rowing as a sport, however, is not widely practised, as it retains a pronounced cultural stigma due to the role played by, and low status of, oarsmen on galleys during the Pentapolis' early-modern rise to power. This stigma has had little impact on the popularity of martial arts based on ritualised knife-fighting, as they are instead mostly associated with above-decks derring-do. The Pentapolis has also given rise to several prominent fencers such as Nadía Sígelman, although fencing's popularity is mostly limited to the old merchant families of the Pentapolis and their nouvelles-riches counterparts.