Raesene Andu

Prince Raesene Andu was the eldest son of the Lord of the first house of the Andu, the greatest tribe that is known in modern times as the Anuireans. He should, by all rights, have become king after his father. It was not to be, Prince Raesene was born out of wedlock, his mother dying bare hours after his birth. The King took another consort from amongst the powerful of the Deretha, one of the strongest tribes of the Andu people and made her his bride.
The King scorned his firstborn despite Prince Raesene?s obvious superiority over his weak brothers. Prince Raesene, a dutiful son sought to please his aloof father by teaching his half-brothers Haelyn and, in time, Roele the arts of horsemanship, war and leadership. When his father?s obvious favoritism became too much to bear, Prince Raesene and struck out on his own in a self imposed exile to prove his worth to his father.
Prince Raesene spent several years battling bandits, goblins, and worse beasts, becoming known as a superb leader and a matchless warrior. When his beloved wife was slain by gnolls shortly after their marriage, Prince Raesene showed his true mettle by hastening to his father's realm to defend it against bandits despite his grief.
Despite his long loyalty and obvious worth Prince Raesene was spurned by his father. His father denied him his rightful title of ?prince? at the connivance of the brothers who envied his strength and passion and continued to refuse to name him as heir. The mockery of Haelyn and Roele gave Prince Raesene the name ?the black prince? for his armor, burnt on the field of battle and kept blackened in memory of his dead wife.
As time passed Raesene came to see that the only way to ensure that the increasingly weak Andu were not swept away by their enemies was to rouse them to overthrow the complacent nobility and forge a newer fresher realm. Aided by Azrai the beautiful, Raesene gathered a great host from the Andu, and led it against the greedy nobles who served his brothers.
At the battle of Mount Deismaar Raesene annihilated the craven Masetian people who had long preyed upon the Andu, crushed the Rjuven Vikings as they landed to the east and mauled the Basarji as they sought to sweep across the lands of the Andu and claim them for their own. The greatest portion of his righteous fury however, he reserved for his prideful brothers. So great was Raesene?s might that he drove the legions of Roele back from the heart of the battle to the very shores of the oceans and so it was that when the gods died Raesene, greatest of all the champions of Azrai, remained to guide us while Belinik and Kriesha ascended to godhood in his stead as they struggled to defend themselves against the forces of Anduiras and Ruornil the weaver at the very center of the battlefield.
After the battle Raesene found he was shunned by the Andu, most of his troops died on the battlefield as they sought to aid the wounded who had been abandoned by their fellows when the land bridge collapsed into the ocean. For many years Raesene wandered the land of Cerilia seeking those in need of his aid, in time Raesene found his skin growing rigid and his face graven. He left the lands of man and traveled to the land of Aduria, abiding there a great while as the descendants of his brothers forged an empire in his absence.
At length, hearing the tales of the corrupt rule of the Anuirean empire, Prince Raesene returned in glory to the shores of Cerilia leading a great host of Andu that he had saved from the beast-men of Aduria and others who had come to revere him. The Black Prince led his troops to the heart of the empire, near the borders of Anuire, Rjurik, Brecht and the Khinasi and defeated the dragon Raizhadik. Prince Raesene claimed the fell beast's lair as his own and after defeating the goblin kings that claimed the lands around, he built the great castle of Kal-Saitharak as his palace. The Emperors of Anuire, as foolish as their forebears, failed to thank him for ridding their empire of the fell dragon and pacifying the goblins. Instead they named him the Gorgon and shunned his counsel, to this day the cowering nobles refuse to recognise Prince Raesene's majesty and squabble amongst themselves incessantly as a result.
Being a true and accurate account of the early life of His Imperial Majesty Raesene Andu by Brother Raenwe of the Church of Azrai, 1073 HC.

Category: Glossary | Observations