Amaranthine Empress

The immortal, indestructible and inscrutable ruler of Arc Prasata, the Amaranthine Empress was the driving force behind the foundation of the empire, the formation of its culture, and its successful control over the continent of Barram for centuries.

## Birth and Early Life

Much of the Empress' early life is shrouded in a mixture of secrecy, legend and the beliefs of the cult of personality that sprang up around her. Ystera Ilhazmata rarely spoke of her own life, save as it touched on her empire, and dissuaded personal inquiries from even close friends and her family.

Popular legend holds that Ystera Ilhazmata was born on the night an eldritch green comet streaked through the sky, and that she did not cry as normal children did, but was born with her strange amber eyes open and a serene expression. Ystera was her mother's only child; her constant companion during her childhood was an elven servant/playmate named Aidilia. The Empress' affection for Aidilia is quite famous; she wrote three poems about her childhood friend, and comissioned two statues and one portrait of her. Aidilia is said to have sacrificed her life throwing herself between an assassin's arrow and Ystera when the half-elf was only fourteen, a moment which is believed to have been the origin of the Empress' later reticience and solitary nature.

She is known to have grown very quickly; by her ninth year she was a head taller than all her brothers, and her lithe strength was sufficient to bend her father's longbow by her twelfth.

In many ways, Ystera was uncanny, with a ferocious appetite for learning, and a distinctly competitive personality. She studied magic with elves and battle-tactics with her mother's wyrwood honor-guard; Ystera learned the way of the blade and the bow from her elven father, counted first amongst the mightiest warriors of the Vales, and she was schooled in alchemy by her mother, one of the most formidable members of the Sacred Root. By her tenth birthday, she had been the subject of sixteen marriage proposals from other Tharavads, but her parents held out for suitors that would make a good political match, particularly given the charisma and burgeoning gift for leadership.

It was quickly discovered that she recovered in mere moments from any injury, and sickness and poison made absolutely no impression upon her iron vitality. Assassination and kidnapping attempts (considered natural hazards for the children of a powerful Tharavad) proved fruitless. She was spoken of in whispers, speculated to be an avatar or a demon; but her magnetic dynamism, apparent invulnerability and fae beauty won her as many supporters as enemies.

Her powers grew until her seventeenth birthday, when she simply ceased to age. Speculation began then and has existed since about the Empress' true nature and parentage. Explanations have run from one of her parents being an outsider of some kind - either demonic or celestial, depending on how one felt about her - to her being the offspring of a god, a dragon in disguise, or some combination thereof. If Ystera herself knew why she was immortal and impervious to harm, she never gave an explanation to anyone else.

## Dreams of Conquest

Among the various myths and legends about the Empress, one particularly popular one regards "the young Empress and the map." When Ystera was only six years of age, she found herself standing on a huge map of the continent which decorated the floor of her tutor's study, and spread her arms out so that her shadow fell across Barram. She would always claim that this was the moment that she realized she would one day hold the entire continent in her hand.

It is easy to believe that her plans started very early in her life.

As was the tradition for nobility in the Vales, she took several spouses from other Tharavads, courting and winning each in a manner tailored to the individual with eerie precision. With each new husband or wife, she gained influence over the Tharavads; she also increased her wealth, which allowed her to be generous with the common people of the Vales. She was also willing to deal fairly and cleverly with the merchant caste, which most nobility in the Vales considered beneath them. By coming to several extremely successful merchants in the attitude of a willing and curious apprentice, she gained their support - after all, they believed they had influence over Ystera, and she did not treat them poorly. Meanwhile, her prodigious martial prowess won her admirers amongst the all-important military caste, and the prestige of serving as a retainer to a powerful and wealthy warrior meant that she could attract the service of a war-band with few rivals. By manipulating the caste system and the complex social hierarchy in the Vales, Ystera began knitting together an army that united the fiercely independent and competitive city-states.

When she was thirty, she finally gained the service of nine retainers whose battle experience, skill and courage matched her own. Calling them her "Brahdma," a Shevrandi word meaning "advisor," she made them the core  and generals of her new army in addition to serving as her personal honor-guard when she was not campaigning. With impassioned speeches and collected favors, she was able to lead a league of four city-states against each of the remaining five, and thereby subdued and united the entirety of the Vales. This marked the beginning of Ystera's march to conquest.