Uthan was a city-state located in the Efil Pass, and is the precursor state to Teckitan. It was destroyed in the Blood War during the last days of the fighting.
History
The Efil Pass has always been a vital area, both economically and strategically. It's what separates the north and south of the continent, vital for dozens of trade routes and connections. Everything collides in this one area, and because of that the states that occupy the Efil Pass are some of the most powerful in the continent.
The first recorded group to take control of the Efil Pass would be the Efil Confederacy, a loose union of different petty kingdoms, city-states, and tribes that lived in or around the area of the Efil Pass. They would all come together despite years of warring with each other to be safeguarded against the threat of any outer incursion, seeing as a number of Empires and other kingdoms had continually attacked the Pass in an attempt to take control of it. This agreement solidified the Confederacy as a definite power in the region, bringing their full economical might against any that dared attack them.
However, this early nation was fated not to last, as after just twenty years of their founding, the Alammar Empire would begin their conquest of the continent at a dizzying pace, conquering the north in only a few years. Despite their mighty army and fortifications, the Confederacy stood little chance against the Alammar, and fell within only weeks of the initial Alammar advance.
During their time in the Alammar Empire, the province of Efil would become known throughout as a great economic center, the heart of the Empire. While Ajanha might have been the administrative capital were the Emperor controlled his vast nation, the city of Uthan in particular rivaled it in size, scale, and richness. It was said that every street in Uthan was paved in gold and diamonds, and that the walls were made of ivory and polished marble. While these were certainly embellishments and hyperboles, Uthan was extremely rich due to all the trade flowing through the region. It was even considered by the High King to move the capital to Uthan, though this proposal was turned down. In Uthan was were all the trade barons and wealthy landowners would live and meet, where coins flowed like water and the amount of goods and currency traded was more than that of people in the Empire. In fact, Efil and Uthan were so rich that it was considered to move the capital there, but established governors and noble houses disagreed with the idea, and it never came to fruition
However, things began to change with the ascension of Victor the Fourth to the throne of High King some several hundred years later. The Alammar Empire had been undergoing internal problems for a while now, and Victor only helped accentuate them. The economy, which Uthan's dominance was so reliant on began to suffer as coins were increasingly produced with worthless material, their value only upheld by the word of the increasingly decentralized government, causing rapid inflation and Uthan began to feel the sting. The trade barons that held large political connections began to get angry with the loss of revenue, and petition the crown to do something, but Victor only made the situation worse, causing the Efil province, one of the Empire's most valuable territories, to detach from the main government.
When secret planning for the Splintering began among the provinces, the Umvarin Conference held in the southwest commenced, the governor of Efil and the different influential trade barons that made up Uthan's unofficial oligarchy were invited. It is said that if they declined, then the conference never would have been called because of the sheer importance of the region. However, tensions between the crown and Efil had been growing for some time, and so the different leaders of Efil convened with the rest, giving their support for the future mass uprisings and heavily insisting that they remain a neutral and respected state in the post-Splintering wars to come. This proposal was accepted (though there were a few disputes over the exact borders and claims over the exact extent of their state).
Come Splintering, Efil granted their full support for the rebels, with a great number of their own population revolting. What was interesting about the Efilian revolts was that it was the sole province that had more support from the established political power in the province for the revolution than support from the average person. The Splintering was over in about two months, and with the chaos that came from that, Efil, now known as the City-State of Uthan immediately withdrew it's troops back to it's home state to deal with potential rebellions and popular figures attempting to form their own state.
Uthan was mostly stable, compared to the north and south which was plagued with unification wars, local governors and other notable actors seizing whatever towns they could grab, banditry, and other conflicts. Uthan was preserved due to the union of civilian governance, and the support of a coalition of notable land owners and trade barons that proved stable. The army, while powerful, was kept in check by the fact that a large part of the army was made up of mercenaries and personal soldiers of the ruling coalition, plus the fact that the government had explicitly set up a pro-civilian government general in charge of the army beforehand to make sure they didn't get any funny ideas. The biggest disturbance in the region was the Sisathi movement and the concurrent Siege of Teckitan.
The current civilian government was run by the old provincial governor and the old guard of his advisory council, who was increasingly suspicious of the trade coalition and their influence over Uthani politics. The trade coalition themselves were unhappy with the old guard because of their regulation of the trade coalition and relations between the two factions deteriorated. This only got worse when the pro-governor general of the Uthani army was replaced with one who was pro-coalition, causing a fiery political battle between the two sides. The situation culminated when the trade coalition used the army to lead a coup against the governor, which succeeded and appointed their own Mayor King, the extremely influential and powerful Munadra of the Shanasa family. Munadra would go on to enact laws beneficial to the trade coalition and other acts that would serve his own interests.
Uthan would go on to be exist in relative peace for a good while, coming under threat in the Age of Frost, but also prospering from it and the Period of Chaos as many intellectuals and other people fled to Uthan, adding to it's development and stability. Uthan would continue to be a bastion of safety, stability, and trade for quite a while, until the Primum Crisis in the 200's. The Mayor King of the Shanasa was beginning to shift policies more toward his and his family's benefit, alienating the different magnates of Uthan and super gluing them together into a second trade coalition, leading to a coup of the current Mayor King and the installation of the Senate and weakening of the Mayor King's power and influence.
The Senate was not democratic at all. None of the figures in the Senate were elected among the common folk. Instead, seats were promised to certain powerful families within Uthan, depending on their total influence throughout the city, basically making the Senate a proxy battleground for the rest of Uthan, and breeding corruption throughout the government leaving holes and gaps for The Blood Mages to seep through.
Throughout many long decades, the Blood Mages infiltrated the City-State's government and political factions, installing advisors and servants and other positions from which to manipulate the small country to doing what it asked. Come late 600s and early 700s, the entirety of the Senate plus the Mayor King were under the sway of the Blood Mages, plus nearly the entirety of the army's high command. Planning for what would become the Blood War began as early as 673 with the Arbiter proclaiming a plan for a "holy crusade" against the rest of the continent, hinging on the Adalfun Plan, the name for the strategy to poison the world's water supply and blame it on Ravenna.
This failed and resulted in the Blood War, which was a decisive defeat for Uthan and the Blood Mages, ending in the Razing of Uthan, the devastation of the Efil Pass, and the founding of the City State of Teckitan, leading to the destruction of many of the old trade families, leaving a large power vacuum and the near annihilation of the Blood Mages leaving much political instability in the new state.