Zannoz

**Zannoz Sarmelonizo** was one of the final emperors of the Sarmelonid Empire.

## Appearance

Zannoz was a Vozonid man with crimson skin, curly black hair, and green eyes.

## Personality

Zannoz was a kind monarch, wanting to help his people get out of the poverty caused by his father's overspending.

He is known for his love of cats.

## History

On his twelfth birthday, the dukes of the Vozonid Empire's heartland gave various gifts to him. Of all the gifts, he chose a cat, and it became his pet. He also adopted another cat from the streets.

As he grew older, he was surrounded by a circle of priests, officers, and generals, who wanted to prepare him to succeed his father. He helped the people by funding schools, hospitals, and workplaces at the early age of fourteen, and because he listened to them and spent his vast wealth to improve the impoverished people of the capital Bawornortar, he became more popular than his father. Groups of activists formed and plotted to aid him to overthrow his father, but most of them hid from the authorities.

Eventually, his moment arrived when Ratirminoz was too unstable, unable to rule the empire any longer. His son, Zannoz, was very sad and disappointed that he refused to listen to his warnings, so when Ratirminoz went into a fit and smashed the furniture, the imperial guards restrained him and locked him in a cage. They, along with the officials, all approached Zannoz and brought him to his father. Against the warnings of his peers, Zannoz considered letting his father sit with him for a talk. When Zannoz tried to free his father, the emperor started attacking his son, so the officials and guards had to put him back: Zannoz told them not to lock his father in a cage like an animal, but to let him live in a simple prison cell.

He then brought his father to the crowds of the capital, and asked them whether do they still want him to rule. The whole city resounded with a huge, echoing NO, for they called upon Zannoz to take his place. When the crown prince decided that he will become Emperor, the boos and angry curses turned to cheers. The crown prince spent three days undoing many of the wasteful policies of his father, visiting him to speak with him; he was afterwards coronated as Emperor.

One of his first policies was to share the elixir to every inhabitant of the capital, but only 3,459 people accepted the elixir. To serve them, they were allowed to live around a small facility, complete with shops, a school, and a hospital. However, all the other doses of the elixir were brought by the Army to their angry fellow citizens, who burned piles of the elixir and cursed Ratirminoz. Zannoz took part in some of the burnings by taking more boxes of tubes filled with the elixir, as he also hated the elixir for being the cause of his empire's ruin.

### Later life

Emperor Zannoz sent gifts to congratulate Zio Yaau, the second emperor of the breakaway state of Siangwaan. Although his officials plotted to invade and retake it, Zannoz refused their requests. One of them tried to murder him, but was shot dead.

During his reign, he oversaw the reconstruction of his realm from the Kyrvotin invasions as it became more arid with the destruction of the Himajut Mountains, while the rest of the world descends into chaos.

He also banned various cruel forms of entertainment that the Konjors and Malendors promoted in his realm, and sent many clones to live in their own territory or be sent to Luril, where many of them were slain in a local purge.

On the 60th year of his reign, he launched a purge against his nobles for wasting the imperial economy. They fled to Luril, where they set up their own realms and declared themselves as "Emperors", but were later defeated by the emperor of another nation, Sorilon of the emerging power of Bujan. Other nobles revolted in the west and sought to overthrow him, possibly with ties to establish a Terran regime. These western malcontents and traitors were defeated by a combined force made of angry locals and former colonials, who rebuilt the western lands under a single economic bloc within the boundaries of Vozolaz. Some of those settlements either called upon Emperor Zannoz to intervene and reintegrate them into Vozolaz proper, while others called upon the post-Vozonid states to keep them as protectorates.

When he passed away at the age of 92, he was cremated at the rebuilt tomb of Sarmelon I, and (by his personal request) his remains were scattered into the Dunomin Sea to the east of Mount Mandil. Nonetheless, a tomb was set up as a memorial for him along a mountain near present-say Milotar to the south.

## Trivia

* Zannoz and his fondness for felines were inspired by Capper Dapperpaws.