[hider=Empire of Lynn-Naraksh][center][h2]Empire of Lynn-Naraksh[/h2] [h3]Inheritor of Lynnde, Bastion of the Old Gods, the Three Eyes[/h3] [img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/86ebe302-f4e9-4e87-8b05-4849f989f342.png [/img][/center] [h3]Government[/h3] Despite being nominally a monarchical state, Lynn-Naraksh resembles a feudal oligarchy (with strong theocratic undertones) more than a true imperial order. Its lands are divided into Demesnes, regions of roughly comparable size, each of which is under the rule of a member of the aristocracy, known as a Blood Lord. The Lords hold almost unlimited authority within their domains, being capable of creating and altering laws, issuing decrees and levying militias on a whim, as well as wielding immense power in individual fields of administration. They are free to command the imprisonment, execution and conscription of whomsoever they wish, as well as to pass judgment over any dispute, whether called to do so or not, levy armies and command the undertaking of grandiose projects such as building a castle or dam. All that is formally required of them is that they pledge their loyalty and obedience to the imperial throne, observe the tenets of the Order of the Divines, which are few and liberal, and bolster the armies of the suzerain with their own forces in the event of a war. In practice, however, all is not so simple. While the Emperor is indeed the highest authority over all matters temporal and spiritual, being, by virtue of position, the head of the Order, they rarely act directly or even pronounce themselves on any subject short of those affecting the entire nation. Instead, all necessities below this threshold are administered to by the Imperial Court, a gathering of the most disparate figures in the realm. Advisers, commanders, high cenobites, members of the imperial bloodline, envoys from the Kuraxxi bog-folk and the Vurogg tribes, executioners, kennel-masters, magisters of the militant orders, even some influential (and high-blooded) guild council members form complex but rigid hierarchies bound together by even more complex webs of codes and statutes. The Imperial Demesne, vastly larger than any other, is virtually a small empire within an empire, with various court dignitaries presiding over sections of it even as the Blood Lords do over their feuds. Knowing who of them can issue commands, who can give "advice" that is more or less worth heeding, and who can be disregarded altogether is vital for a Lord, lest they incur the displeasure of the Emperor or the scorn of their peers. Emperor and Lords alike generally come into their position by succession. As the Blood Lords' title indicates, for one to be admitted into the rank they must be of sufficiently "high" blood, that is, with strong enough traces of Primordial lineage. Prospective heirs are placed through gruelling ritual trials by priests of the Order, in the course of which their blood is sampled and their force of will, desire for power and mastery of the magical craft are put to the test. Should any of them fail, they are quietly done away with, and a suitable replacement is drawn from the ranks of the Deathless Guard. The procedure for heirs to the throne is similar, though the trials are harsher and carry heavier symbolic connotations. Candidates for substitution are numbered among the more prominent Lords, though to this day there are no records of it ever having been needed to call upon them. While, as far as most people in Naraksh are concerned, the power of the Blood Lords is absolute, there are nevertheless certain forces in the realm that are exempt from their rule and answer to the Emperor alone. The most notable of them is the Order of the Divines, the clergy of the state-mandated Primordial-worshipping religion, along with its affiliates, the Deathless Guard and the Scourge Knights. Tasked with upholding the old faith in the lands of the Empire and the minds of its subjects, the adherents of the Order can be spiritual guides, inquisitors and enforcers as the situation requires. The other parties not subordinate to the Lords are the Kuraxxi and the Vurogg, who exist as semi-independent polities within territories allotted to them by the imperial administration. Their only duty, aside from the universal pledge of obedience, are to offer a regular, yet not greatly onerous tribute to the throne. However, it is a tacit assumption that they are to support the Empire with force of arms should they be unofficially called to do it, and so far they have never disappointed. Internally, the two races are loosely organised into, respectively, a cult-like structure and a confederacy of minor tribes; owing to their small populations, such simple systems can exist in relative stability. [h3]Geography[/h3] [center][img]https://pre00.deviantart.net/2d26/th/pre/f/2013/009/b/a/invictus_by_tituslunter-d5qxkxb.jpg[/img] [i]"What usurpers of dirt can claim what is fit only for gods to rule?" - Krovris Naaher, Exarch of the Order[/i][/center] Even as its name is a dissonant amalgam of reverend speech from the east and the harsh accents of the region, the lands of Lynn-Naraksh are a patchwork of stridently unnatural contrasts. From the north, covered in cold, barren tundra and icy hills rising, here and there, into strange isolated mountains capped with glaciers, long and narrow stripes of frozen ground stretch like talons to clash with dry, scorched barrens. In the south, the soil is dry and smothered in ash perpetually rising from innumerable calderas and pits of restless magma which irregularly surge up and withdraw with no apparent rhyme or reason. These fiery regions have their own mountains - monoliths of bare rock, rich in valuable ores, yet perilous and volcanically unstable. Deep beneath the earth are vast chambers, once the abode of a Primordial, and now little more than glorified catacombs. Only the inhuman Lords of the land, the fanatical Order of the Divines, and hardy and ferocious beasts willingly make their home at these two unforgiving extremes. However, many fertile patches of volcanic ash in the more temperate central regions are inhabited and cultivated, and most of the subjects of the southern Blood Lords have little choice but toil in the mines to make a living. The west is an anomaly all unto itself. There, swamps, marshes and damp moors intersect and mingle with perfectly flat salten wastes, pitted with bitter lakes and veined with torbid rivers. They are no more welcoming than the tundra: the swamps crawl with all manner of pestilential vermin and venomous foulness, the lakes are tainted with divine blood, and miasma chokes the skies, too heavy for any wind to disperse. In sparse and unlikely places, thickets and small forests of twisted trees rise from the white desert, and they are replete with perils of their own. None but Kuraxxi and Vurogg lives here, for the land is too wretched even for the Lords to scavenge; yet those monstrous beings seem to thrive here, festering in the traces of their fallen progenitor like the parasites to which they have a strange affinity. Of the four corners of Naraksh, the east is beyond a doubt the least harsh for mortals to inhabit. While it is, notwithstanding, far less welcoming than many a place in Askor, being shrouded in ashlands as the south, bursting cauldrons and treacherous crevices are far less common here, and the terrain is altogether more even. Of note are the small, yet thick forests of strange dark-wooded trees scattered at relatively brief intervals throughout the region, and the few yet imposing extinguished volcanoes that tower over them in places. Perhaps due to their past activity, the ash fields of the east are among the most fertile in the Empire, leading to most of its population gathering between the central wastes and the mountains that mark the border of Vlaanburg. Yet the common folk are not the only ones who reap the bounty of the land; given the ease of procuring the vast amounts of nutrition required by the imperial warbeasts, Kennels and Stables have been built among the fields in great quantity, flanked by the barracks of handlers and other soldiery. [h3]Culture[/h3] While Lynn-Naraksh's population has always been divided since the days of the Great Beasts and their hybrid spawn's cruel rule over the resentful masses of their subjects, the passing of centuries and the weakening of the Empire's rule have greatly aggravated this. The two formerly monolithic strata have fragmented into numerous splinters, sects and factions; while the dominant class remains mostly united by its enduring common cause (with the notable exception of the heresy of the Charnel Prophet), the larger populace has become divided by discordant faiths and causes. This separation notably only extends to the Empire's human population, since the Kuraxxi and Vurogg minorities have, as far as anyone can recall, always been cohesive not only internally and with the Lords, but, curiously, between themselves as well. Superior to all in the imperial hierarchy are the Blood Lords, direct descendants of the Primordials that once held sway over the lands of Naraksh. Their efforts to maintain their bloodlines as pure as possible have led to virtually all of them being related to some extent, and generations of inbreeding, along with the strength of their elder lineage, make many doubt whether they are truly human at all. None has ever seen a Lord's face; all of them invariably appear clad in more or less ornate suits of armour. This is as much a tool of intimidation as it is a natural consequence of their abilities: the invariably high magic potential of the Blood Lords allows them to exert particular mastery over metal, ash and magma, which they are adept at conjuring and manipulating for their purposes. This enables them to wear their armour as nothing short of a second skin, reshaping it at a whim and not suffering any apparent ill effects from remaining encased in it for most of their lives. Due to the impossibility of discerning what is beneath their helmets and their own silence on this matter, the terms "Lord" and "Emperor" carry no connotations of gender in Narakshi, a peculiarity which has gradually spread to include most other titles and ranks in the Empire. The staunchest supporters of the Blood Lords' regime are the clerics of the Order of the Divines, recruited for the most part from offspring of the aristocracy not in line for succession and those portions of the people who, through either cultural inertia or misguided loyalty, remain genuinely faithful to the Old Gods and their descendants. Though politically united, the Order, as well as its militant offshoots, is doctrinally split into two main currents. The Successionists maintain that the demise of the Great Beasts is final and irrevocable, and that the sacred duty of Lynn-Naraksh is to produce worthy inheritors of their legacy, who will eventually become deities themselves. They are ideologically opposed by the Resurgentists who hold that the absence of their Primordial lords is only temporary, with them having disappeared to face threats unknowable to mortals and fated to rise again when the time shall come. While the latter sect is somewhat influenced by Tranquilist doctrine, the latter is clearly heavily distorted, as some of its core tenets - animism and personal closeness to the divine - are fundamentally incompatible with the centralised and rigidly hierarchical religion of the Three Eyes. It is worth noting that the two currents do not violently clash with each other, and several syncretic teachings exist. The colossus of the Empire's ruling faith is contrasted by the haphazard collection of what most of its subjects turn to for hope and support. While the worship of any entities, or even ideals, other than the Great Beasts is forbidden, the masters of Lynn-Naraksh have long since lost the power to effectively control the private lives of their citizens, and can only attempt to maintain appearances through terror and the occasional string of inquisitional trials. In the comparative safety of their homes, many revere the unnamed Primordials who struck down the Great Beasts and crippled the Empire's iron fist. For many, their number has been joined by the Prophetess, who is seen as a bringer of hope; tales of her being of humble origins are popular, as is the belief that the Silver Legion would have dethroned the Blood Lords, who scorned it, had it triumphed over the darkness in the east. Strangely, the Serene faith has failed to obtain much of a hold in Naraksh, despite having been at the roots of the rebellion against the masters of Lynnde. Its support of a strong aristocracy is regarded negatively by the land's inhabitants, who have long grown weary of the uncontested excesses of tyrannical rulers and firmly believe that power will corrupt any who holds it, regardless of any codes they might try and impose upon themselves. Nonetheless, those remains of the ancient bonfires of rebellion the Blood Lords failed to stamp out have not fully abandoned their erstwhile religion. Most of them have come to embrace Protestant Serenists doctrines, which continue to slowly gain support at somewhat irregular rates as their proponents conduct clandestine evangelism. Outside religious matters, life in the harsh environment of Naraksh, under the enfeebled but still vicious dominion of demigod-like figures who scorn them and treat them little better than slaves, has left many of its common folk hardened, if a little cynical. Though it will rarely find truly hostile manifestations, a distrustful, somewhat secretive and at times irreverent "us-against-them" mentality is a common sight among them, as are pragmatism and a strong attachment to family or small community ties. The Narakshi folk work hard when they must, rest when they can, preferably without being noticed, and celebrate quietly. Given the dismalness of the public order enforced by the Empire, the ability to find reasons for hidden joy in small things is valued and almost necessary. Far removed from most of this, the monstrous races of Naraksh are for the most part culturally insular. The [url=https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/270248331714756609/383662628008099840/cho-yonghee-white-knight.jpg]Kuraxxi[/url], creatures combining insectoid, reptilian and a number of other, not better identified traits are the less human-like of the two. Little is known about these hideous, agile beings, said to be the offspring of the Bogwraith, the Primordial of the west. They live in moderately large clades in some of the most perilous places of the swamps and gnarled woods, refusing to speak or even show themselves to anyone other than the Lords and the Order; anyone else attempting to discover more about them inevitably fails to return from their expeditions. Among the few things they are noted for are their skills with poisons, pestilential curses and the taming of many of Naraksh's terrifying beasts. The latter makes it so that they are often sought after as handlers for the imperial army. The [url=https://img00.deviantart.net/23e4/i/2011/204/2/4/koloss_by_jaspersandner-d41ezfy.jpg]Vurogg[/url] are believed to be descended from men touched by the vile blood that spilled from the Bogwraith when it fell. Large and strong beyond what most humans could hope to achieve, yet clumsy, feral and freakishly deformed, these brutish horrors are barely intelligent enough to congregate into tribal communities and follow the commands of the Blood Lords. Like the Kuraxxi, with whom they seem to understand each other quite well, much about them remains unclear, including how they reproduce - given that they are difficult to distinguish from each other in any way, and no one has ever seen anything that could be recognised as a Vurogg child. [h3]Military[/h3] [center][img]https://orig00.deviantart.net/670c/f/2012/191/1/9/frontline_warbeast_by_njoo-d56oo8d.jpg[/img][/center] The bulk of Narakshi forces in times of war is made up of troops, or more accurately militias, levied by individual Lords from their Demesnes. Their rank and file are far from an impressive force: they are sparsely armed, as each is required to assemble their own equipment and weapons (mostly consisting of pikes and the occasional crossbow), poorly trained, and their morale leaves much to be desired, seeing as they know full well they are fighting for interests far from their own and they will be fortunate to make it out of it alive at all. And yet, it would be dangerous to deny that the armies of the Empire are capable of tremendous destruction and bloodshed. The truth is that the strength of the hosts of Lynn-Naraksh does not reside in their bulk. The imperial armies are infamous for their use of monstrous beasts of war and of small units of individually tremendously potent combatants. Their tactics are invariably of the aggressive sort, regardless of their position; while this would be suicidal for a more conventional force, the sheer brute strength they can bring to bear is such that no obstacle seems too great. This might, however, comes at a price. Terrifying though the Narakshi forces might be in direct combat, many of them are unwieldy and difficult to control, and collateral damage tends to be significant whenever they take the field. At the core of the imperial hosts are horrifying creatures of the accursed lands of the Blood Lords, tamed and trained by the arts of the Kuraxxi. From the immense bonejaw terrorbeasts of the northern tundra and the cinderhide wurms of the south to the [url=https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ba/76/ca/ba76ca9a513f8c7af4e6a4eaef31c1fc.jpg]less describable[/url] [url=https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a4/a6/1f/a4a61faa206750be518c1f949df21211.jpg]monstrosities[/url] of the swamps, the most lethal and horrifying dwellers of Naraksh are fielded against the enemy, some even clad in plates of armour to add to their already fearsome resilience. Their handlers are often close by, with envenomed spears and plague-enchanted claws at the ready. Next into the fray are the troops proper. The Blood Lords themselves are seldom far from the heat of battle, either tirelessly marching on foot or, depending on how close their Demesne is to the tundra, charging astride monstrous armoured [url=https://art.ngfiles.com/images/159000/159961_kinase_arctic-war-beast.jpg?f1302417908]boars[/url] who have little to envy to the creatures unleashed by the Kuraxxi. Those without such a mount are typically accompanied by small, heavily armoured retinues, who, while they might lack the magical potency of their lieges, are for the most part well-trained and superbly equipped. Reinforcing them are the forces of the Order. For the most part, they are comprised of [url=https://pre00.deviantart.net/4578/th/pre/f/2016/076/d/3/legion_of_the_fallen___hound_knight_by_tsaber-d9vfvf2.jpg]Scourge Knights[/url], skilful and zealous warriors sworn to the Old Gods. Despite not having exceptional numbers of magic wielders among their ranks, the Knights are redoubtable foes, capable of combining hefty armaments with dangerous mobility on the field of battle. More rarely, they will be joined by [url=https://orig00.deviantart.net/74fd/f/2014/286/f/6/f6ea9d988dfc25e7495761efba9bc360-d82othm.jpg]Deathless Guards[/url]. This cryptic order, largely made up of Blood Lord offspring, is usually tasked with the defense of sacred sites in Naraksh; however, its members have been known to march to war when summoned by an Emperor. Completing the Narakshi ranks are Vurogg auxiliaries, poorly disciplined yet savagely effective if employed by a skilful commander. [h3]Heroes[/h3] [hider=Svorchok, Blade of the Empire] [center][img]https://pre00.deviantart.net/fb98/th/pre/f/2016/051/2/f/2fbcb5c08810c4a8dc9fc19fad3d54e1-d9shx6u.jpg[/img] [i]“Quiet, or the Iron Giant will come.”[/i] - Rare warning to disobedient children in Naraksh[/center] Iron Giant, High Executioner, Blade of the Empire, Stillborn God, Landbreaker. Having little in the way of a name of its own, Svorchok collects titles and sobriquets almost as a matter of pride, seemingly unconcerned by whether they might be marks of commendation or brands of infamy. And perhaps it is right to do so, for the terror and awe it inspires are such that any appellations given to it are, for good or ill, charged with a force nowadays found only in legend, and would seem a laughable exaggeration if they rested on the shoulders of any but the colossal warrior. Nor is its origin any less surrounded by threads of myth. Forty years ago, the Successionist priests of the Order, not content of waiting for their gods to return as preached by their doctrinal opponents, set about to devising schemes to bring new divine terrors into the world to lead the reconquest of Lynnde. Before even some of them turned their gaze to the northward lands and began to whisper in the Emperor’s ear, others delved into the tombs of the Great Beasts, seeking the divine essence that had granted the dead Primordials their incredible power. Whatever they might have found, it was something they were pleased with, for they did not return empty-handed. Through secret alchemical processes, mixing rare and fabled ingredients and using open caldera as furnaces and ice from the highest northern glaciers to preserve their concoctions, the clerics refined their discoveries into an amalgamation the likes of which are remembered in the inscriptions of the tombs of the eldest Blood Lords. Rumour has it they even had recourse to the obscure and forgotten art of blood-weaving, though how this would have happened is unclear. When the elixir, if such it was, was believed to be ready, the Order selected a magister of the Deathless Guard, said to have been second in line to the throne, to be infused with it. In a manner, the ritual that should have elevated the chosen one to godhood succeeded. What emerged from it was a fearsome being whose steps shook the earth, whose strength was unrivalled in all Naraksh and perhaps beyond, and whose mastery over the mystical disciplines of the elder blood reached peaks unheard of since the end of the Age of Legends. Yet, for all its stupendous might, it was clearly not a Primordial. Worse yet, its mind had been irreparably damaged, transforming what had once been a brilliant, in some respects, scholar and tactician into little more than a dull golem with an exceptional head for combat and alchemical formulae. Nevertheless, it was deemed fit that its talents should not go to waste, and Svorchok – all that remained of the creature’s former name – was placed under the Emperor’s own tutelage. There, it did not hesitate to make itself renowned in what simple ways it knew. While at first its position of High Executioner was mostly honorary, its brutal skill and ability to make its work into an effective public spectacle quickly gained it the favour of the court and the dread of the populace. Its notoriety further grow after the disorders that followed the upheavals in Matathran, when it was dispatched to suppress uprisings over the Empire and did so with ruthless efficiency. Tales persist to this day of Svorchok cleaving hills in twain with a blow of its sword, and routing a host of insurgents merely by walking over them; how exaggerated they truly are remains a matter of doubt. Despite its reputation as a bogeyman across the land and its terrible mien, Svorchok has remained the simple being it was reborn as. Its appalling cruelty stems from no more than placid indifference, the, all things considered, clear depths of which would amaze many a seeker of inner tranquillity. It has no aspirations other than a slight vainglory, and no great ambitions to trouble it. The one oddity about its character is its closeness to the Emperor. Were even the voices about its prior life true, Blood Lords usually care little about the bonds of fraternity. It might be this favour is invoked by reverence for Svorchok’s semidivine nature, or the usefulness of its abilities; or perhaps by mere sympathy for the stunted, yet blindly loyal giant. [/hider] [hider=The Charnel Prophet] [center][img]https://pre00.deviantart.net/55ed/th/pre/i/2016/210/f/1/heretic_by_morkardfc-dabsigj.jpg[/img] [i]”The law of blood is about not what you have, but what you take.”[/i] - The Charnel Prophet on Blood Lord tradition[/center] The Charnel Prophet is, embarrassingly enough for the Order of the Divines, both a bloody stain on its records and one of its greatest assets. While he has been formally excommunicated and branded as a heresiarch and dispenser of false teachings, both the Order’s prelates and the Blood Lords recognise that his unique skills and knowledge would be too great a price to pay for putting a stop to the comparatively minor nuisance that he currently represents, and a tacit understanding exists that he is to be left to his own devices for as long as he does not become an overt threat. Whether and when this will happen remains as yet uncomfortably uncertain. For someone so infamous, remarkably little is actually known about the Prophet’s person. Most of his notoriety arises from the clandestine sect that has gathered around him, drawn by the divine revelations he claims to possess. This Sanguine Brotherhood, as it names itself, professes that the world was created by a not better defined omnipotent entity, identified only as the “Sanguinary One”, for no other purpose than its own cruel amusement. As such, all beings, mortal and Primordial alike, have as their only true goal to cause as much destruction and bloodshed as possible, and will be rewarded after death proportionally to how much their ravages entertained their creator. While there are clear Serene influences in this canon, they have largely been twisted far beyond their original intent, transfiguring the peaceful eastern religion into a savage nihilistic cult whose adepts practice nefarious rites of cannibalism and blood sacrifice. The central figure of this bloodthirsty circle, despite being shrouded by a mystique largely of his own making, is widely known to have some exceptional traits, though this knowledge is often distorted and exaggerated by rumour. Most famously, the Prophet is a powerful practitioner of blood-weaving, a mystical discipline believed to have been lost since the Era of Legends. While the true extent of his abilities is unclear, it has been reported that he once killed someone merely by looking at them, and that he is capable of conjuring living creatures made of nothing but blood to do his bidding. Aside from this, he is renowned for being knowledgeable enough about the Great Beasts to rival some of the Order’s foremost authorities on the subject, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, for his martial skill; both elements that lend credence to the theory that he is a rogue member of the Deathless Guard. Yet, for all this, theories are all there is about the Prophet’s past. None can even truly say how long he has been alive; or perhaps none will. [/hider] [hider=Nugrark] [center][img] https://pre00.deviantart.net/c8fc/th/pre/i/2013/346/7/b/ogre_by_cloudminedesign-d6xokp8.jpg[/img] [i]”Fear what lives in the dark, and fear what isn’t afraid of leaving it more."[/i] - Narakshi proverb[/center] While Svorchok was the first and best-known attempt to forge a successor to the Great Beasts out of their remains, it was certainly not the last. Since its birth over a century ago, multiple other experiments have been performed to that purpose by the Successionist cabals. Due both to the failure of the Stillborn God and a number of other, mostly occult reasons, far greater caution and parsimony of resources was exercised on successive occasions, with several trials being performed on expendable subjects before a ritual was fully enacted; yet, in spite of this, most of the preliminary attempts were failures, resulting in either the death or unintended transformations of the victims. As such, a second perfected incantation was not achieved for years. Since the few records that exist of these experiments are hidden deep in the Order’s vaults, it is difficult to identify the moment when the Western Peoples were made part of them. It could not have been later than fifty years ago, for that was when the creature known as Nugrark was first sighted, but the span between its appearance and that of the Iron Giant remains a mystery. Whatever might have happened then, though, the former event is proof enough that the pestilent arts of the Kuraxxi and the blighted blood of the Vurogg bore fruit under the Order’s guidance, albeit one as stunted as Svorchok, if not more. The being which, it is universally agreed, could have arisen only from under the Successionists’ spells and scalpels, is somewhat similar to a Vurogg, and was most likely one in the past. Now, however, it towers over even the greatest of that race, and is immeasurably stronger. Even more peculiar than its abnormal bulk is the armour of stone-like chitinous plates that covers its body, resembling the shells of some of the western swamps’ more dangerous monsters. Despite its carapace being seemingly intact, Nugrark wields a blade obtained from the same material, itself a testament to a dexterity beyond all but the deftest of its kin. Yet all these traits, however redoubtable, are often forgotten in favour of the mimetic ability and uncharacteristic cunning that has made the roving beast into a household bogeyman almost rivalling the Iron Giant itself. Nugrark, it is said, can be anywhere and accomplish anything it wants, and only the Emperor’s binding command and its own primitive mind prevent it from rampaging through all of Naraksh and beyond. [/hider] [hider=The Emperor of Lynn-Naraksh] [center][img]https://pre00.deviantart.net/63f8/th/pre/f/2016/005/2/8/287379396bd6d958078c6fad2acc87c2-d9mv2f5.jpg[/img] [i]”Let yourself be carried by the river of my blood.”[/i] - Inscription in the Ashen Crypt[/center] For most of Lynn-Naraksh’s subjects, the position of Emperor is an identity in its own right. Besides being shrouded by the same law that forbids any of lesser lineage to lay eyes upon the visage of a Blood Lord, those that sit upon the Throne of the Ashlands may have no name, personal or of Demesne, of their own, being known instead by their titles alone. Heirs to it are born and raised in shadow, in places known only to the high cenobites of the Order, and death and succession are likewise kept hidden from all but the closest of courtiers. These secretive practices, along with the rarity of public appearances by the regnants and the deliberately nondescript nature of their armour, makes it so that very few know where the life of one Emperor ends and that of the next one begins, both in terms of life and habits. As far as the general populace, and indeed most of the blood nobility, is concerned, an Emperor is a faceless figure defined solely by its role. The truth is, of course, never quite so simple. Though often little is known of any given ruler’s character even among the higher circles of the Empire – whatever the trials of their youth might be, they tend, as a rule, to breed reclusiveness – words of favour or censure are not rare to filter through, and are often a reliable indication to what machinations, if any, they are engaged in. Naturally, the mere fact that such machinations exist at all, subtle or private though they might be, is enough to show that an Emperor is, after all, not a mere hollow suit and mouthpiece. While the current holder of the throne is little less cryptic than his predecessors, he is likewise no exception to the sounding of indirect knowledge. Words of his ambitions stretching beyond the consolidation of internal dominion to which most past Emperors limited themselves, and that the fabled designs of the reconquest of Lynnde might, after all, have ceased being a never-embodied myth under his rule are not uncommon in the halls of the Throne. Somewhat more substantial is the general opinion than, in spite of the traditional neutrality of his rank, he favours the Successionist side of the Order’s doctrinal debate. Some tentatively attribute this to his supposed relation with what became Svorchok. If true, this would place his age at well beyond a century at the least, a point where even a Blood Lord would begin to show signs of age. It is then either the case that this supposition is false, or that the imperial bloodline runs still far purer than any other, for the Emperor’s eye is as bright and his martial prowess as renowned as ever. [/hider] [h3]History[/h3] In the long-gone Age of Legends, Naraksh was part of the sprawling Lynnde Empire that covered most of eastern Askor. It might have been one of many unremarkable provinces, had it not been for its vicinity to the Empire of Huayuan, which time and again repelled the invading armies from the north. Perhaps curious about the force that could withstand the advance of the mightiest dominion in the known world, or perhaps simply drawn by the smell of battle and bloodshed, three of the Primordials that ruled Lynnde, known as the Great Beasts, came to join the fray in person. They are remembered as the Ashen God, the Bogwraith and the Iron Maw, their names either lost to the ages or never having existed. The Great Beasts reshaped Naraksh to suit their unfathomable tastes, and begat monstrous spawn to serve as their lieutenants. At their command, legions were marched off to the south every day, accompanied by unnatural creatures of magic and ferocity, yet still they could not overcome Huayuan's defences. The war dragged on, amid the torments and vexations with which the Primordials prodded their more reluctant subjects, until rebellion struck. Over all of Lynnde, mortals rose up against their divine masters, seeking to break their brutal rule, and so it was in Naraksh. Yet the Narakshi rebels did not possess the secrets that allowed their fellows in the east to overthrow the Emperor, and the blood-spawn of the Beasts, loyal to their progenitors, stood against them with their own forces. The uprising would have been crushed had it not been for the unexpected intervention of five other Primordial beings. Of those, much less is remembered than of the masters of Lynn-Naraksh; only their number remains in myth and chronicle, and it is said that they came from the sea. The five fought and slew the Great Beasts, supposedly due to taking pity on the plight of their thralls. They did not, however, take up arms against the Blood Lords, either deeming it dishonourable to battle such badly outmatched foes or hoping that even they might be brought to embrace freedom, and withdrew, leaving nary a trace of their passage. From that point, the tide of the war had turned in favour of the rebellion. The Blood Lords of old were said to wield each the might of an army, but they were few, and their enemies were many. But, once again, a force from outside Naraksh stepped in to alter the course of the conflict. The Empire of Huayuan would have rather aided its old foes than seen the Serene faith triumph, and so it happened. With its support, the Blood Lords were able to rally and soundly defeat the rebels, shattering the resistance, it seemed, once and for all, and bringing Naraksh under their sway once more. After the Huayuan withdrew into its borders, they spent years consolidating their rule and stamping out the last vestiges of the rebellion. Though the Empire of Lynn-Naraksh is but a shadow of its former self, the ambition of its rulers has not changed over the generations, and, now that war and chaos are stirring through Askor once more, they prepare to reclaim what is rightfully theirs. [h3]Relations[/h3] [To be added at a later stage.] [h3]Characters[/h3] [Idem.] [/hider]