Anuirean Empire

The Anuirean Empire was founded shortly after the Battle of Mount Deismaar by Roele Andu. Roele unified the various tribes of the Andu forming the nation of Anuire and driving out the large numbers of beast-men and Vos left in the lands of the Andu after Deismaar. He then looked to the other tribes of man and saw that they were fragmented and in disarray, the blooded scions returning from Deismaar were rapidly over-turning the established social order throughout Cerilia as minor nobles used the power of regency to sway folk to their cause and raise once minor houses to great prominence.


The Sidhe had retreated to the forests but the goblins seized the chance to regain their lands in the chaos while Vos from Vosgaard and Aduria sought to win land in the bountiful lands of Brechtur and Khinasi. Some say it was this chaos which led Roele to found the empire, others say it was a command from his brother Haelyn now God of the Andu, others suggest simple ambition, greed, or simply a love of war, whatever before Roele died he had forged an empire that stretched the length and breadth of Cerilia.


The Anuirean empire covered virtually all of Cerilia at its height, even those realms such as the eastern Khinasi lands that were nominally independent generally traded heavily with the empire. The Empire was so successful primarily because it generally ruled with a light hand, permitting all citizens to worship their owns gods and retain local customs - by allowing natives a degree of control over their own affairs and equality at least nominally in the law the Empire avoided provoking rebellion after rebellion. The empire waxed and waned with the skill of its Emperors from the legendary Roele himself, to the brutal Alandalae Roele who crushed dissent wherever he found it and so provoked the great rebellion of the Basarji led by El-Arrasi which was his downfall.


The Empire also stretched into Aduria, although only Mieres remains of the Adurian colonies, it briefly touched on Thaele, although only the hardy Rjurik remain of the short-lived colonies of the Empire which were founded in that desolate icy continent. The Empire also reached the lands far to the west, where it is said that the Anuireans were worshipped as gods and many took on strange forms to prove their divinity.


The last emperor was the tragic Michael Roele, a great rebellion by the ambitious Duke of Boeruine led to the death of Michael's father and a major civil war when Michael was but a boy reducing Anuire to chaos. Michael won the civil war against all expectations by a mixture of strategic genius, diplomatic skill and a willingness to dare the Shadow World to move his armies vast distances in only a few brief hours, so great were Michael's achievements that many Anuireans looked to Michael and said that Roele himself had come again to forge anew the nation and empire of Anuire.


It was not to be, by some vile sorcery the Gorgon corrupted the firstborn child of the emperor and in its birth the monstrosity slew the empress. Maddened by grief Michael led a vast army against the Gorgon to seek vengeance and prevent the brute from ever again working his plots against the empire. Michael left a trail of destruction through Markazor that is remembered even today in the legends of the goblins and drove the Gorgon's legions back to the dire fortress of Kal-Saitharak itself and burnt the great city of the Gorgon to the ground.


However while Michael's strategic skill and the massed might of the armies of Anuire could crush the Gorgon's legions, the beast himself was indomitable; when Michael's armies breached the walls of Kal-Saitharak the Gorgon unleashed some dread terror from beneath his palace which destroyed or drove back all those who would have fought beside Michael against the Gorgon. Michael, blinded by his fury, did not retreat but instead faced his kinsman alone. A hundred sagas sung by Anuirean bards talk of how the pair fought on the parapets of Kal-Saitharak listing every blow and step before telling of how the Gorgon slew Michael, so ending the thousand year empire.


In Michael's death however the Gorgon was dealt a terrible blow, the city that had surrounded Kal-Saitharak built over centuries was laid waste, while more than half the population of the Gorgon's Crown was slain in the brief but brutally intense war. Few of the humans who had followed the Gorgon survived and his realm became dominated by goblins and orogs with only the dregs of humanity remaining to serve the Black Prince. The Gorgon himself was changed after the battle becoming yet more monstrous in form, but oddly prone to long periods of contemplation where he seemed to take little interest in the doings of his realm. Some say that after Michael's death the Gorgon became weakened when he traveled far from Kal-Saitharak, others that Michael's bloodline was vested in the land awaiting some descendant to prove themselves worthy as his heir.