• After the treacherous fall of Emperor Gvaedin, his brother took reign of the land. Thus began the ruling of Emperor Razwl.

    Unlike his predecessor, Emperor Razwl was fierce in thought and mind. He made war upon other lands and basked in the blood of his enemies. His enemies, though, were the enemies of him only, for none other had any qualms with the neighboring and now deceased King Eryn and Sovereign Zlandi. In fact, most enjoyed the relations between the nations that those rulers had possessed. Emperor Razwl thought differently. He wished for land, wealth and power and had no desire to rely upon treaties and agreements. As long as he would rule, his land had to be completely self-sufficient. As a result, King Eryn and Sovereign Zlandi were slaughtered in battle, and their bodies were hung outside Emperor Razwl’s castle alongside the pigeons.

    Not only did Emperor Razwl abuse his power outside his land, but he abused his own resources and the land itself. He struck the earth in places it should never have been struck, and crumbled the mountains that were once the pride of his land in his futile search for gold, diamonds, and jewels. When these disastrous searches would produce a result, he hoarded the prize and left his workers starving.

    The people were unhappy – they loathed him immensely, but they feared for their own lives and for the lives of those they loved too much to be willing to face the consequences of revolt. Less often they would be punished for crime and more often they would be killed for it. The theft of a loaf of bread from the grocers was weighted the same as a murder of another civilian. It was only when the criminal would attack a member of the royal house that they and their entire family would be put to death.

    Finally, the emperor, who had no faith in religion, no love for culture, nor any passions aside from increasing his personal wealth, died of old age. Although the occasion was meant to be a sad one, people rejoiced and celebrated for days. The emperor had been far too concerned with his life that he had not even considered his own death. To him, it seemed immortality was dictated through the amount of power one wielded. He had made no specifications to his burial, nor did he follow any faith that stated what should be done with his body. And so, because he was loved by none and despised by all, he was thrown into a hole in a remote area of his land, and was left forgotten.

    Three hundred years passed and the location of the emperor’s ‘tomb’ remained unknown. New rulers came to power, who stood and battled one another on the very ground that the emperor was buried, heedless of the emperor’s dust at their feet. Men were felled, and the blood of their death-wounds mixed with the emperor’s.

    Years became decades when the land turned fertile, and cows grazed upon it until they died and their dust merged with the dust of the emperor’s and the warriors’.

    And many more years later, peasants lived on the land and died, and slaves lived on the land and died, and ants lived on the land and died.

    And now you live on that land.