URUK

"URUK, first and greatest of cities, once lay at the heart of an empire that spanned all realms. The people of URUK received tribute from across the known world, growing rich beyond measure, and gathered sages and warriors of the highest repute, turning their wisdom and might to the service of the Great City. And things were good, for a time. But the peerless splendour of URUK drew the ire of jealous gods, who sent a cataclysm that toppled its spires and drowned its people in their thousands. The ground itself split open, and would have swallowed all that remained, but the guardian spirits of the city awoke, and bore the survivors away to safety. And so, URUK endures...”

- A parochial account of the familiar foundational story of Uruk, taken from a mosaic uncovered on Ochre Tor. Modern scholars have refuted most of the points made here.

What is it?
The people of Uruk call it a city - indeed, the city, for they recognise no other - but in truth it is an empire. Uruk is a thousand crumbling cities, scattered across a vast area of land, moving forever slowly onward, and from these titanic fortresses it exerts its control over countless outposts, plantations, mines, towns, villages, kingdoms, and nations.

Each district of Uruk is drawn by, built upon, or burrowed into one of more of the great living statues known collectively as lamassu. Regarded as the city's guardian spirits, these sacred statues vary greatly in scale, in form, and in prestige: collectively, however, they are the very bedrock of civilization.

Lamassu
There are many Lamassu in the convoy that makes up the larger city of Uruk. Some are not large enough to be habitable or house only a small community (for example, see 'Gothgarotte' - the snow crab). Others are colossal and carry districts containing hundreds of people. See List of Lamassu.

Government & Society
According to the Stonecutters, who carve and interpret the histories, the original inhabitants of Uruk were Dwarven. The vast majority of Stonecutters – and most of those in comparable positions of power throughout the city – are dwarves themselves, so this notion finds wide acceptance. While the city has seen countless waves of immigration, admitting significant populations of every people worth mentioning (and several others besides), Dwarven culture remains the most influential in nearly all districts. Indeed, the language known as 'Base' or 'Low' Dwarfish has been adopted as a common tongue across Uruk (and beyond).

The Dwarven people have always (according to the histories) prized skill, ingenuity, and hard work above all other virtues. These tenets lie at the heart of Dwarven culture, and accordingly Urukian society as a whole. Uruk prides itself on being a meritocracy, where the most talented and capable individuals of every profession can rise to the top of their respective guilds, ensuring that the power of such positions remains in the hands most suited to wield it.

Guilds
That the prestige and influence of the innumerable guilds of Uruk varies wildly is not seen to contradict this view of things. After all, not all professions are equally important, difficult, or prestigious.

First among equals are certainly the Stonecutters (formally the Urban Confraternity of Masons, Engravers, Carvers, and Lapidists), who count among their many diverse duties the maintenance and propitiation of the lamassu themselves. By extension, then, the work of the Stonecutters is essential to upholding the foundations of civilization, and so their primacy over all other guilds is entirely right and proper.

Most other guilds are less prestigious – indeed, few are truly city-wide, but instead face rival guilds in at least some districts. There are even 'guilds' (though scarcely worth the name) that compete to establish themselves as the primary organisation for a certain trade or practice within a single, peripheral district. While such sub-Urban groups are rightly scorned, it is generally agreed that the people and the guilds themselves can only benefit from this atmosphere of general competition (with the obvious exception of the Stonecutters, who brook no interference in their work and anyway don't need the help).

The Mapper Guild or Cartographer's function is to roam from Uruk and make contact with the current surrounding populace. As a guild serving society they have a number of functions including mapping and tracking resources and communities for trade in the path of the the Great Movers, acting as diplomats, negotiators and spies sourcing information and bringing it back to the city. They also act in a historical capacity - storing and maintaining all maps in a chronological account and history and movements of Uruk.