Teluna Empire

## History

### Pre-Founding

Tarekles I Teluna was a giant of a man in stature and in deed, rising to power from a simple slave-soldier at 13 to a legate at the age of 27. Within the lands of his birth, Tarekles I was known as the First Dragonrider, a mortal who had conquered the will of a creature greater in evil than demons themselves and bent it to his own. Using his newfound status he brought great riches and glory to the republic he served and rose through the ranks in quick succession.

The Republic of those times was a bloated mass of bureaucracy, serving the whims of its senate and major officials far more than the people. Even having conquered the majority of the eastern and southern lands in Irida, the republic was failing quickly. With the great influx of commerce and naked wealth brought in by their greatest legate, the leaders of the Republic saw themselves falling further into corruption and decadence than ever before.

Tarekles I used his position of influence to garner support for an entire flight of dragonriders, raising a century of nearly a hundred men and drakes. Through their legate’s lessons these dragonriders became the fiercest fighting force in the known world. Conquering the remainder of Irida with his new force in combination with his existing legions, Tarekles I Teluna became a household name and was deeply beloved by the plebeian class. With his kindness, strict sense of discipline in his troops, and a detailed understanding of logistics and engineering, he became the true heart of the republic in the peoples’ eyes.

### Founding of the Empire

With his position secure in the hearts of the people, his legions’ loyalty to him absolute, and as the wealthiest man in the three continents, Tarekles I Teluna marched on his nation’s capital. With naught but local garrisons of town guards standing between him and his ultimate goal, Tarekles I saw nothing but victory before him. Entire provinces surrendered to the First Dragonrider without ever seeing his troops, and his legions only grew as town garrisons joined under his banner. By the time his legions reached the capital, his forces had grown by half. It was a simple matter for those within the senate to surrender the city, and the republic itself, to their new ruler. Tarekles Teluna, First of His Name, became the Emperor of the newly founded Teluna Empire at the age of 49.

Even as the First Dragonrider’s forces continued conquering surrounding nations in his name, the young man set up court and began to institute sweeping changes through-out his new empire. Declaring an absolute monarchy, the powers of the senate were drastically reduced to little more than a legislative body, reinforced by members chosen by the emperor. The final authority within the nation was within the hands of the emperor, who could bypass all governmental procedures at a whim and take personal control of every military unit of the empire. Within years of his ascension to the throne, Tarekles I had done precisely what he’d promised – Removed the corruption in government, revitalize the commercial aspects of the nation, and brought new lands and resources to his people.

By the end of his reign, through various trade embargoes and military action, Tarekles I Teluna had seen his empire expand across the entirety of the continent of Irida, and along the inner coasts of Drashe and Naran. Several dozen islands within the Godwave Sea, some minor tribes of the Tyraig Peninsula, and some few Corsair Kings had also allied or joined directly with the empire as well. With his death at the age of 71, Tarekles I Teluna held over one hundred once-sovereign nations under his rule.

### Early Centuries

#### Tarekles II

With his own children having fallen in battle or taken by disease, Tarekles I's grandson Tarekles II inherited the throne, and the expansion of the empire’s borders slowed for the first time since its founding. Tarekles II focused more heavily on diplomacy, trade, and internal administration, enhancing the lives of his people and through their eased burdens bringing the culture of his empire to new heights.

Teluna art and style spread to every corner of Vireth, with the Imperial name passing the lips of even the greatest of lords and kings of distant lands. Dining halls as far as the borders of Venastor and the tallest spires in Cra’awrios held Teluna styled works of fashion, paint, and sculpture. Under the grandson of the empire’s founder, the empire expanded further in mind than in body, but in this way, it expanded to nearly every corner of the known world.

The Regnum Caelorum, the official state religion of the Teluna Empire, was founded by the second emperor. Seeking guidance and protection for his peoples’ spirit, and by his own words “In accordance with the purpose of this Empire,” Tarekles II brought together hundreds of religious scholars, advisors, priests, and kings, from both within his empire and without. Beginning as a simple academic pursuit, it expanded into an advisory committee for countless nations, and eventually into the most powerful religious institution in the known world. For his part in its foundation, Tarekles II is revered as a patron saint of the church itself.

#### Verinas I

When Tarekles II died childless of a riding accident at the age of 37, his cousin Verinas I was crowned emperor after a fierce debate within the Imperial Senate. After a short succession war fought between Verinas’ forces and those of his elder brother Vinicianus, the newly crowned emperor set about relighting the fires of expansion and conquest. Within only a few short years, the Imperial Legions began marching across distant lands, and under Verinas’ guidance the empire won its first victories against a non-human species. Several elven cities on the continent of Naran fell to the armies of the Teluna Empire, and it was only after months of negotiations that a truce was signed, ending the war. With the truce the elven royal family became vassals to the comparatively newborn Teluna Imperial Family, and ceded nearly all elven lands to the east of the Orientis Mountains. Utilizing the vast magical knowledge of the elves and the resources of their lands, Verinas I began the conquest of the dwarven strongholds through the Orientis and Allarian mountains, annexing large swathes of their territory and paving the way for future invasions into the continent of Drashe and the Ariquean Peninsula.

It was also under Verinas I that the dragonriders were lost. As the years passed, the dragonriders had lost many of their number, and with the death of Tarekles I, the First Dragonrider, the knowledge of their training was lost even to the riders themselves. The last effort of the dragonriders was an expedition into the Orientis Mountains to a lost resting place of the dragons. The dragonriders were not heard of again and the empire, though mourning the loss of their famed champions, moved on.

#### Verinas II

When Verinas I died at the hands of an elven assassin at the age of 78, a regency was declared until his son Verinas II violently claimed power at the age of thirteen and enacted harsh penalties on the entire elven species. All crimes committed by elven hands were punished through slavery, and within decades half of all elves within Vireth were enslaved under the Teluna Empire. The elves fought bravely against the enslavement of their kind, but with the vast military and trading power of the empire at Verinas II’s disposal the emperor's will was inevitable. Before the end of the young emperor’s adolescence, every elf on the continent of Irida was enslaved, and by the age of 35 he had seen all but the royal and noble houses of the elves on the continent of Naran enslaved as well.

Verinas II was quickly seen as a far harsher and ruthless ruler than his forebears, and the reputation did not end with his mistreatment of the elves. Most of the military expansions and conquests of the empire’s history occurred at the young emperor’s whim, beginning a long period of death at the hands of the empire. Verinas II’s first goal was the conquest of the western continent Drashe, and he set about his goal with a cold and calculated hunger. The empire’s armies broke through the Allarian Mountains in the west, and sailed south across the Godwave Sea, striking in a dozen places at once. With the vast military spread across the borders of Drashe, Verinas II relied upon an offensive wall against any counterattacks. Despite a slave uprising in Naran that eventually threatened the capital itself, the aggressive conquests in the west were largely a success and Verinas II became the first Teluna emperor to dethrone another claimant to that title with his defeat of Das Reich.

With most dwarven nations under his rule, Verinas II ordered a new city to be raised in the center Irida, great highways of stone built connecting the far corners of his empire, and the vast networks of rivers that flowed through the three continents to be redirected into a system of massive canals. Though Verinas II did not live to see the completion of these monumental wonders, his name and image are chiseled into many of the stones themselves, with the foundation stone of the Imperial Estate bearing his likeness to the present day.

#### Camilia I

As Verinas II campaigned in the agriculturally rich nations of the Plodnan Valley in Drashe, his daughter remained at home. With the emperor away on military matters he had left a regent in charge, considering his daughter incompetent. This was soon corrected, however, as communication to and from the capital of Tareklena was cut off, throwing the very structure of command into chaos. Believing Tareklena to be under attack, Emperor Verinas II broke off the campaign, organized what scattered forces he could, and marched on the capital.

What Verinas II discovered was not an external force slaughtering his people but his own daughter, Camilia, standing on the gates of his city with the head of the regent in hand, geared in the very armor of her grandfather Verinas I. Hours later the emperor learned from his daughter of the regent's coup funded by Das Reich, and aided by traitorous nobles and aristocrats within the city. His daughter had discovered the regent’s plans but was too late to outmaneuver the man, instead joining him in the attempt. As the city fell to the regent’s manipulations, Camilia built up a base of loyalist forces and when the time was right, threw a coup of her own. Before the emperor had even begun his march on the capital, Camilia had executed the regent, imprisoned many of the traitorous noble families, and reconsolidated power within the city in the name of the Teluna Empire. It was only shortly before the emperor arrived that she had sent out messengers to the various military forces that order had been restored at home.

Emperor Verinas II stayed only a few short days in the capital before crowning his daughter as his rightful heir, entrusting her with the security of home, and marching once more on campaign. When the emperor died at sea only months later, Emperor Camilia I Teluna took the throne. Enacting quick diplomatic and administrative reforms, Camilia I reorganized the empire and ended the vicious conquests to the west in victory over Das Reich. Though she claimed her rule would be one of peace with only friendly relations towards foreign nations, Camilia I never entertained the idea of ceding back the lands her father or his father had taken. Indeed, under Camilia I’s rule the borders continued to expand, this time by diplomatic niceties, influence, and veiled threats, rather than brutal military power.

Under Camilia I’s rule the construction of the capital city of Iriden was completed and the Imperial Court was moved to the Imperial Estate within. With a new, centralized city designed from the ground up as a seat of power over the entire landmass, Camilia I’s influence expanded ever more rapidly. The trading power of the empire grew by orders of magnitude, and the first true trade agreements with nations of Venastor and Cra'awrios were signed. Embassies were built housing the envoys of other nations and powerful organizations, greatly speeding up the various diplomatic negotiations that were intrinsic to Camilia I's reign. An academy of magical study and science was founded on the emperor' orders, the first of its kind founded by the empire, and the power of the arcane and scientific understanding in the empire grew unimpeded.

Camilia I’s personal life was one of great speculation, especially as the first woman to rule the empire. Joining in a political marriage with the High King Hraerekr of Rethiln in northern Drashe, the couple remained far from each other and had only two, sickly children by the time Hraerekr was lost on an expedition to the northern islands. The children did not outlast their mother and by time Camilia I, first female Emperor of the newly dubbed Virethi Empire, passed from an illness just shy of 150-years-old, the line of succession was in dangerous upheaval.

### Middle Years

#### War of the Oathbreakers

With the death of Camilia I her cousins Heriax Teluna, Angelus Nemesius, and Volcatia Teluna, along with her nephew Palaestrio Teluna, and her aunt Caesetia Speratus, all laid claim to the throne of the Virethi Empire. Each claimant held strong legal ties to the throne and the influence to see it through, and so within months of Camilia I’s passing the empire was in a state of civil war.

With her longstanding political agreements, experience, and past military service, Caesetia Speratus was the first to gain the approval of the capital’s magistrate, regency, and populace at large. Caesetia took up residence within the Imperial Estate and, in all but title, became the first non-Teluna to sit upon the Imperial Throne.

Enraged by the blatant message Caesetia was sending by taking up residence within the estate, the other claimants increased their efforts. Armies of the claimants clashed against one another, skirmishes taking place across the great empire and the fortifications standing since the reforms of Tarekles II were turned to rubble by the empire’s own forces. Lasting twenty-five years through the death of three of the five claimants, including Caesetia herself, the succession war was a long and bloody reminder of the power afforded to even the least of the Imperial line.

#### Tarekles III

It was at the Battle of Saicoa, when the armies of the last two claimants fought for the final time, that Tarekles III led a force of two hundred and fifty men against the armies of two thousand each and won. According to legend, Tarekles himself took the life of both claimants, causing their armies to route even as the unknown claimant and his forces bit at their heels. Rising from anonymity, Tarekles III rode to the gates of Iriden, marched through the great streets of the city, through the halls of the Imperial Estate, and sat upon the Imperial Throne.

It was soon revealed by Tarekles III and the companions that led his army that Tarekles III was the last child of Camilia I, who gave birth on her death bed at the old age of 150. Thought to be the son of a celestial who had blessed Camilia I with a child only weeks before her death, thus naming the mysterious illness that had killed her, Tarekles III was named Emperor of the Virethi Empire.

Working immediately to consolidate his power, smoke out the remaining forces of the dead claimants, and repair the damage the war had caused, Tarekles III seemed tireless. The newly crowned emperor was quickly immortalized in song and legend as a hero who led an army of angels across the field of battle to cast down false kings and reclaim his rightful place as emperor. Tarekles III used the myth and legend that surrounded him to begin the formation of the Pantheon that would become standard for centuries after his death.

Tarekles III was an emperor known for his religious and administrative reforms, but was also a remarkable military leader. Defending his empire against the scavengers that sought to pick at the wounds that the succession war had left, Tarekles III proved himself entirely capable of holding his power. The military structures that had remained relatively stagnant since the days of his great grand uncle, Tarekles II, were reformed into a defensive force as the first indication of Tarekles III’s non-expansionist policies. With almost the entirety of the Virethi landmass under the empire’s rule, the young emperor saw no need for a standing offensive army.

Tarekles III oversaw the end of the War of the Oathbreakers, the Tyraig Rebellion, the Imperial Ban on Arcane Magic, a restructuring of the Imperial Senate, the formal annexation of the Corsair Kingdoms, and the full legal incorporation of the last remnants of non-Teluna land in Vireth. The emperor was a military genius and a near-demigod, often winning conflicts by personally battling enemy commanders. His reforms of the military would last until the collapse of the empire, and his writings on war, tactics, and strategy still influence military decisions to the present day.

Outliving even his mother’s respectable 150 years, Tarekles III passed at the age of 187. Leaving a host of children, a solid line of succession, and a clear set of laws for the possible eventuality that the Teluna family line would fail, Tarekles III was laid to rest beneath the first Pantheonic Temple of Iriden, and his eldest son Casitus I Teluna was crowned.

#### Silent Emperors

Casitus I was the first in the line of the Silent Emperors, those rulers of the Virethi Empire that focused solely on administration, reformation, and internal rule. Despite the name, the Silent Emperors era was an era of foreign outreach and imperial strength. Vast movements in diplomacy and foreign affairs took place within the empire from the rule of Casitus I to the end of his grandchild’s husband Lydus VIII Aventius’s rule, and several alliances, trade agreements, and magical breakthroughs were the result. The era of the Silent Emperors was perhaps the golden age of the empire, and its people held the Teluna family as saints.

#### Ending Days

With the end of the Silent Emperors era at the resignation of Lydus VIII Aventius, his son Verinas IV Teluna rose to power, the twelfth ruler of the Teluna Empire since Tarekles I in the year 325 PC. Emperor Verinas IV Teluna is infamous as the Last Emperor of Vireth, for his hand in its downfall through manipulation and horrific experimentation through magic and forbidden sciences. With the death of Verinas IV, the Virethi Empire collapsed and historians in the present day declare the date of his death to be the official end date of the Empire.

#### Verinas IV Teluna, Last of His Name

Verinas IV’s mother Volcatia I was a greatly loved and deeply religious ruler. Through-out her entire 32-year-rule, Volcatia I solidified the power of the Regnum Caelorum, granting tremendous legislative influence on the heads of the church. The Regnum Caelorum’s various temples began raising hundreds of knightly orders, monasteries, and standing armies, with the Pantheum in Iriden holding a standing army within the capital city itself. When Volcatia I passed away at the age of 110, her husband Lydus VIII Aventius, son to the royal governor of the Coxani Archipelago, acted as emperor until their young son came of age.

Lydus VIII’s rule and his son Verinas IV’s young life were smothered by the continuous growth of the Church's power. Wherever Lydus VIII attempted to enact reform under his own command, the Church would step in and use its own influence, heightened by the man’s own wife, to counteract the regent’s will and use the momentum to enact their own reforms in the name of their temples, citing Lydus VIII’s regency as cause. Despite the sitting regent's protests, political and diplomatic ties, and his best efforts, the Church continued to grow both in size and power with many of the strongest military factions taken over by religious knightly orders. By time Verinas IV was old enough to take the throne the Empire was barely short of a theocracy, and his rule was threatened by the very organization his mother had helped raise to power.

As Verinas IV was crowned his first order was the execution of his father, under charges of conspiracy to assassinate the emperor. Instead of showing his hand and taking the offensive against the church, he worked with them to take out the man who had struggled the hardest against their rise, and accused his father of poisoning his own wife and the mother of his child. Regardless of Lydus VIII’s sparse declarations of innocence the man was put to death and hanged by the Regnum Caelorum’s forces. Verinas IV was hailed as the rightful emperor, triumphant over a traitorous father, and the royal Aventius line was dethroned, disinherited, and dismissed, with all its estates, lands, and assets seized by the Imperial line. This added nearly another third of the emperor’s already considerable holdings to the Teluna family, but what Verinas IV valued most was the political connections.

With the entire Aventius family disinherited, Verinas IV, as emperor, inherited all debts owed to them, as well as all treaties, trade agreements, and all standing military forces. Situated among the central and largest islands of the Coxani Archipelago, the Aventius royal family had held the most powerful trading force in the empire. Under Verinas IV’s personal attentions the economic power of the Imperial estates grew by orders of magnitude unseen since the early days of the empire. The Regnum Caelorum, the religious heart of the empire, now had to contend with the material. However sure the leaders of the Regnum Caelorum were of Verinas IV’s loyalty to the church a shiver of fear would run through their hearts as the people of the empire looked to material gain before their religious duties.

With the empire’s treasury filled to bursting, Verinas IV began investing in endless projects across the empire, from arcane research, to infrastructure, to rebuilding the empire’s own military forces, even incorporating many of the Church’s works into his own. One of the most infamous of these works was the creation of the races known as the gnolls, hobgoblins, and the Forged. It was the discovery of these creations, and the endless horrid experiments that wrought them, that saw Emperor Verinas IV Teluna declared a heretic by the Regnum Caelorum, creating a schism between church and state that caused the empire to erupt in civil war for the final time.

#### War of False Gods

As the Regnum Caelorum declared heresy upon the name of the emperor, the various knightly orders under control of the Church went to war with the knightly and military orders under control of the emperor. With the shattering of the ties between church and state, the various royal and noble families joined sides, or declared independence, and the empire fell into chaos. Still holding large swathes of land in the central continent of Irida, maintaining the loyalty of many noble families, and fielding the monstrous creatures he had helped create, Verinas IV stood his ground and waged a terrible war with the Regnum Caelorum. Due to his disinheriting of the Aventius royal family, most of the remaining royal families either joined the Church or broke away from the conflict entirely, declaring their ancestral kingdoms as sovereign nations once more.

The Regnum Caelorum, for all their influence and righteous indignation, were little more than a figurehead in the war. The Church held only as much power as the noble families and landowners granted it, and the knightly orders were loyal to their gods and country before the leaders of the Church. Despite this, the Church rallied a considerable amount of support and matched the emperor in force and zeal.

With the power of the Church at the back of Verinas IV’s enemies, the emperor turned to deific power himself. Beseeching a myriad of gods for aid, Verinas IV’s armies were granted the blessing of numerous gods within the pantheon. Realizing their own gods were playing both sides of the conflict, the Church’s power waned as the nobles relied less on the false security of the Church and more on their own force of arms. As their own power fell out from under them, the Regnum Caelorum collapsed, and the War of False Gods became little more than the dying gasps of an already shattered empire.

Verinas IV was believed mad in the closing days of his reign. Tearing apart long standing infrastructure to repair minor village walls and watchtowers, destroying ancient fortifications to repair highways and aqueducts, and scattering entire legions to minor and strategically unimportant hamlets or temples. In the final battle that ended his life he stood alone, his closest ally weeks away and his ranks entirely unfortified on an open field. He died fighting, crownless and bleeding, atop a mountain of corpses equal parts his own men and his enemy's.

#### Final Days

With the death of the emperor the war became nothing more than petty skirmishes between neighboring nations, newly freed of the once unifying force of the Teluna Empire. The collapse of the empire lasted for another century, with the Teluna family line hunted down man, woman, and child, until the last child to bear the Teluna name was smothered in a crib as his mother lie dead in an adjacent room, both mere hours from boarding a ship towards an eastern island chain into exile.

Little of the political power that was the empire continued after its collapse. Hundreds of sovereign kingdoms declared independence, with many more smaller duchies and lordships declaring the same. Iriden stood under the rule of the Aldricsen monarchy after the Bloodguard Aldric took power and became a powerful nation of its own. No empire rose from the ashes of the last, only smaller kingdoms with hunger for independence and personal power.

#### Legacy

The Teluna Empire lasted for 735 years from its founding by Tarekles I Teluna, to its fall at the death of Verinas IV Teluna. Long enough to see the three continents of Irida, Drashe, and Naran consolidated under its power, to form the singular landmass empire of Vireth. United as a singular power, the people of Vireth grew to astounding heights of military, economic, and diplomatic strength, and unparalleled in education of the sciences, arcane study, and its infrastructure.

The Teluna family itself was a wonder, claiming the first dragonrider since the Primordial War, celestial heritage as of Tarekles III in its sixth generation, and though it was one cause of its own downfall, the creation of entirely new species. Unmatched in personal strength and ability, any member of the Teluna family line was a force to be reckoned with in either the political sphere or on the battlefield.

The empire itself left its mark on every corner of the three continents, with its culture reaching even the far shores of Venastor and Cra’awrios, as well as countless other lands and nations. The culture of the empire was rich and beautiful, with works of art and architecture to rival the celestial planes themselves. Incorporating every race of Vireth and every class from richest to poorest, the empire’s ghost haunts the present and will surely haunt the future for centuries to come.

## Geography and Demography

The Teluna Empire was the largest in history, with its territories expanding across the entirety of Vireth. The Regnum Caelorum, the official state temple of the empire, granted unlimited jurisdiction to the emperors through their representation of Valeos, Enforcer of the Triumvirate. In addition to annexing every territory of their known world, the Teluna Empire also altered its geography through deforestation and quarrying. The course of entire rivers and the clearing of whole mountains was achieved through the course of the empire's expansions.

Expansion was mostly achieved during the first half of the empire, and ceased following Emperor Casitus I's reconquest of Kalnordt in 826 A.C. reaching the extent of desirable land in Vireth. This extent of the Teluna Empire would be maintained, barring rebellion and dissent, until the death of Verinas IV and the empire's collapse in 1060 A.C.

The administration of the Teluna Empire held a focus on geography and meticulous written records, in the interests of legitimizing cost and income. Regional rulers were kept in check through the empire's extensive records of surveyance and prior agreements, delegitimizing most common dissension. Under order of Tarekles III Teluna a map of the known world, including the landmasses of Venastor and Cra'Awrios, was posted in the public forum of each provincial capital, allowing the average citizen a glimpse into the reality in which they lived. This tradition was upheld by each subsequent emperor, and many later non-imperial rulers.