Khulan I

Khulan I, (born 66a.Au, crowned 85a.Au, recrowned 90a.Au, died 139a.Au) known as Queen Khulan the Great, was the second child and firstborn daughter to Marcellus I and his wife Hoelun Gonji. Queen Khulan would be crowned by her aunt Lilian ahead of her younger brother Kaidu following the death of their father, an event which would trigger the Woman's War in 85a.Au that ended in Khulan being crowned the very first Queen of Orbis. Khulan's reign would be characterised with far reaching laws that would change the character of the nation of Orbis forevermore. She is remembered as a liberator and a conqueror, as well as a conciliator.

Khulan was born during the reign of her father and was his second child. In 81a.Au, her older brother Gelegian would abscond from Orbis, returning to the lands of their maternal grandfather and going on to become an infamous warlord in the far west of the world. When it became clear that Gelegian would not be returning to Orbis, King Marcellus declared his third child and second son, Kaidu, to be the heir apparent.

There were some who objected to this sequence of events, primary amongst them being the king's half-sister and royal archmage Lilian. Lilian believed that Khulan should be named the heir apparent due to being Kaidu's elder, arguing that male-based inheritance was a tradition of the Terranian Empire that Markus Aurum had fought to liberate Orbis from and that the Aurum Empire should do away with the shackles of the past. Lilian's public pronouncements were much maligned by the king's wife, and an enmity grew between the two during the waning years of King Marcellus' reign.

Khulan's father would die in 85a.Au during a magical experiment going wrong. Queen Hoelun thought this suspicious and argued that Lilian had purposefully caused the downfall of the king for the sake of fighting for Khulan's claim. With Lilian essentially being accused of regicide and fratricide, she left Argentum with Khulan and headed to Kenkoa, where she declared the young princess the rightful Queen of Orbis.

What followed next is a conflict referred to by historians as the Woman's War, which took place from 85a.Au to 89a.Au, starting when Khulan was 19. Though Khulan's coronation was a small affair, soon forces would flock to her banners. Her foremost supporter was her half uncle and Lilian's brother Sogan Aurum, a seasoned battle commander who had earnt his spurs during the Second Terranian Incursion. Khulan would also gain a large backer in Duchess Florentia Zakariya of Kibuthan, a distant cousin whose family had practised female primogeniture for centuries.

During the war, Khulan would become betrothed three times, though each of her would-be suitors ended up dying in the conflict. Khulan had a magical weapon commissioned in the City of Brass at the start of the conflict and from 86a.Au would join the battle herself wielding Gloomfall, having spent a year learning sword under the tutelage of Duchess Florentia. A close encounter in 87a.Au would leave a scar across her face and her retreat from frontline combat. Instead, she founded a knightly order of women, (who had previously not been allowed to be named knights,) which became known as the Order of the Witch Blade. They would primarily assist in policing roads and dealing in skirmishes, though would also augment the queen's forces in armed struggle as well.

In 89a.Au, the tide of the battle had turned in favour of Khulan's claim. Her younger brother, the pretender king Kaidu, had gotten married during the war effort to Sarella Rimgar and the two had a son, Markus. However, fearing that the cause was lost and wishing to find clemency for siding with the wrong forces, Sarella's own brother Peef slew Kaidu to end the war prematurely, taking his forces north to augment the armies of Khulan.

The war continued for four months after this betrayal, but the trajectory of defeat had been started in earnest with that action. Queen Regent Hoelun delegitimised the two year old Prince Markus' claim of inheritance, instead crowning her younger son Naqu as king. Eventually they would all be defeated and captured, and the Woman's War officially came to an end in the autumn of 89a.Au.

The year 90a.Au would see the recoronation of Queen Khulan, this time in Argentum and with all the lords and ladies of the realm there to see. Curiously, by Khulan's side was the former Queen Sarella, who had been wife to her brother the pretender-king. Queen Khulan's first years as reigning monarch would see radical change to Orbis. Her first act was to call for the execution of Peef Rimgar for the murder of her brother and his king. The Rimgar lands were gifted to Sarella and her offspring in perpetuity.

Queen Khulan arranged the marriage of her brother Naqu, the Four Month King, to Ranavalona Zakariya, a younger sister to Duchess Florentia, safe in the knowledge that the cultural norms of the Zakariya Clan to accept female primogeniture would mean Naqu would be unable to rise against his sister in future if ever he felt the urge. Khulan's mother, the former queen regent Hoelun, was sent with her son to Little Orbis to live out the rest of her days under house arrest. Khulan's youngest brother, Quitai, was given over to the priesthood. Khulan's younger sister Oghul married Sogan's son Arthus; his second wife.

During the war, Lilian had founded a magical guild in Quintys which she had named the Coven of Emancipation, a female-only order of wizards whose credos was to gain and to protect the rights of women. Queen Khulan requested that Lilian oversee them rather than return to her role of archmage. This meant the Coven could be properly established in post-war Orbis, whose mission statement from then on was to ensure that the laws implemented by Queen Khulan were never reversed. It also meant that Lilian, the main agitator for the war, was away from court. This was a much needed concession that allowed for the opposing lords to more easily accept defeat and the rulership of Queen Khulan.

Khulan's subsequent reign would be defined by radical law reforms. The most pressing of which was the removal of male primogeniture and its replacement with absolute primogeniture, meaning that the firstborn child would inherit regardless of gender. Although Queen Khulan had been betrothed thrice during the war, she would never take a husband and in 91a.Au declared that Prince Markus, the son of her deceased brother Kaidu whom she had fostered alongside the child's mother Sarella, would be the heir apparent to the throne. The early years of her reign would see many rebellions from lesser lords unhappy with these changes, but Khulan's hegemony was unshakeable.

It would be the first day of spring in the year 100a.Au, when the realm had gathered together in Argentum to celebrate the centenary of the Covenant of Foundation, that Queen Khulan would see the beginning of the Third Terranian Incursion, at the age of 34. The attack had been timed specifically to catch Orbis unawares, too busy in its own revelry. However, the Terranian Empire has miscalculated. Attacking the country at a time of celebration simply enraged a populace that might otherwise had been content to let their queen struggle in a war. Queen Khulan, now cemented in her power, fought back against the Empire and threw them from Orben shores.

Her conflict did not stop there.

Queen Khulan visited the City of Brass and negotiated a grand loan from the Caliph, which granted her hundreds of ships that had been built in the Realm of Depthless Waters. With it, she sailed her armies across the Linos Sea and launched war against the Terranian Empire on their own land, sacking a dozen cities. Aurum rule was cemented on the eastern coast of the continent, and the riches acquired from the cities were used to settle the debt with the City of Brass. Queen Khulan let all of her lords and ladies know that any subsequent plunder would go entirely towards their own coffers - no royal levy - and granted the title of Lord Paramount of the Western Reaches to her uncle Sogan.

Queen Khulan returned to Orbis, but many of her forces remained in Terrus to seek as much plunder and land as they could acquire. This was particularly popular amongst second born sons, who had seen their birthright taken away from them by the queen's new laws but could make themselves lords in a new land instead. This had the added benefit of removing from mainland Orbis many of the potential rebellious lordlings that were always stewing under the surface. Though it was not given the name at this time, those western reaches would become West Orbis, and saw the establishment of the Aurum Empire as an imperial force which takes land from opposing nations, rather than simply shielding itself from external conflict.

Queen Khulan would reign for another forty years, eventually succumbing to old age in 139a.Au at the age of 73. Her brother's wife, Queen Sarella, was by her bedside as she perished. Queen Khulan died as the first Queen of Orbis, the longest serving monarch, and the first royal to take and settle land across the sea. Her throne was inherited by her nephew and fostered son Markus II, who became king at age 52.