Radiant Empire

When Lord Enlu sealed his marriage to the queen of the demons, he gained the power to destroy the grip of the Dark Many over humanity, but at a terrible price. Though he was a just ruler during the golden age when humanity rebuilt the world, a string of tyrannical empresses descended from his demonic union.

The empire slowly became corrupted by the black magic upon which it had been founded. When it was overthrown by the Church, many of its nobility switched sides or were forced into hiding. Those who still serve the Fallen Empire bear the mark of Anathema, a corruption that wears away at the flesh. Though the dark empress's bloodline and her servants remain, the empire is a shadow on its former glory.

Ages of the Empire

• Rise - 976 through 1298 - Martial empresses consolidated power and grew the borders of the empire by defeating powerful monsters and building strongholds throughout the world. The class of nobility was established.
• Golden - 1298 through 1522 - The power of the empire grew rapidly, and genius empresses built great monuments to the power and research of sorcery. The empire flourished, while the nobility grew wealthy and became given to excess.
• Declension - 1522 through 1928 - In this period, the empire’s power waned. The untimely deaths of several strong empresses were followed by weaker successors. This instability weakened the nobility. The declension empresses were eventually beaten in the crusades of 1620-1631 and broken with the fall of the House of Night and Day in 1928.
• Exile - 1928 through Present - The remnants of the imperial family are no longer supported by nobility, and actively hunted by the church. They retain a few remote strongholds, while searching for ways to restore the waning power of their ancestral line.

Imperial Family

The Imperial family are the direct descendants of Carmine the Eternal. This supernatural bloodline passes on to the first daughter of each empress, who will eventually ascend the throne.

Each of the empresses is said to be the reincarnation of Carmine, and many have attested to hearing her voice and meeting her in dreams. As bearers of Carmine’s unique bloodline, each empress is effectively an elect of Sheligath, a status which confers nearly limitless access to the world’s sorcery and immunity to many forms of weapons and magic.

Ruled	Name and Title	Circumstances for losing the throne
976–998	Enlu the Invincible	Lost in Otherworld, unknown
998–1200	Carmine the Eternal	Lost in Otherworld, presumed alive
1200–1231	Ursula the Iron Queen	Abdicated, Old Age
1231–1252	Rowena the Guileless	Abdicated
1252–1269	Daphne the Merciful	Circumstances Unknown
1269–1298	Millicent the Just	Crushed
1298–1311	Hortense the Proud	Disease
1311–1322	Deidre the Marked	Exiled
1322–1342	Orphea the Sage	Abdicated
1342–1399	Penelope the Weary	Poisoned
1399–1437	Cassandra the Golden	Abdicated
1437–1463	Allune the True	Records Unclear
1463–1485	Eudora the Beast-slayer	Killed in Battle
1485–1501	Hattie the Grey	Disease
1501–1522	Marjoli the Astronomer	Lost in Otherworld
1522–1545	Juliette the Maker	Lost in Otherworld
1545–1572	Renata the False	Overthrown by Nobility
1572–1603	Shanoa the Explorer	Lost at Sea, presumed dead
1603–1631	Loretta the Fallen	Killed by Immortal Sethi in the Crusades
1631–1731	Yareli the Alchemist	Abdicated, Insanity
1731–1756	Meredith the Revered	Poisoned
1756–1784	Wilhelmina the Moon-Queen	Abdicated, Self-imposed Exile
1784–1800	Isolde the Bloody	Overthrown by Nobility
1800–1845	Carlotta the Grave	Abdicated, Old Age
1845–1868	Evangeline the White	Assassinated
1868–1869	Teodora the Heretic	Exiled
1869–1892	Valentina the Scholar	Killed in Battle
1892–1915	Hester the Beloved	Killed in Battle
1915–1928	D'Janette the Wicked	Killed in Battle
1928–1951	Rosalia the Wise	Lost in Otherworld, presumed dead
1951–1978	Cosette the Black	Abdicated, Old Age
1978–1984	Camilla the Elder	Abdicated, Scandal
1984–1992	Ivelyn the Younger	Obliterated
1992–2015	Philomena the Ambitious	Exiled by nobility
2015–	Arlyne the Quick

Conservatory

The Conservatory is one Order of the Empire.

The Conservatory is the imperial school of sorcery, located in Italy, near the House of Night and Day.

Students at the Conservatory are able to study alchemy, confinement, evocation, and invocation. Other classical arts such as military tactics, the arts, civil leadership, and history are also taught as part of the curriculum.

Conservatory professors are usually visiting nobles from across the world, or the extended family of nobles who have not yet been assigned dominions by the empress. Serving in the Conservatory is one way to get an invitation to the empress’s court, as well as to become well-connected with the current and future nobility of the empire.

Dreadguard

The Dreadguard is one Order of the Empire.

The Dreadguard are the elite knights of the empire. They serve the empress as bodyguards, and also fight as shock troops on the front lines of battle in times of war.

Blessed by the Empress herself, they are able to call and consume Sheligath’s Fire to transform their bodies temporarily. When using this power, they are permanently damaged. Thus, the lifespan of an active dreadguard is fairly short.

The ability gives them supernatural strength and speed for the span of a breath, which is often all the time it takes to sweep across the battlefield in this state. Overuse causes monstrification. This also means that they are able to reliably transform into monsters during battle. All of these feats make the Dreadguard particularly fearsome foes.

Nobility

The nobles of the empire are assigned dominions—areas of the world where they are responsible for civil and military leadership. These dominions may often overlaps, with Kings and Queens presiding over whole nations, Dukes and Duchesses over regions, Counts and Countesses over smaller areas, and Barons or Baronesses over local areas like towns.

All nobles are incentivized to increase the strategic and economic value of their holdings as a means of proving their worth to the empress. As most dominion assignments are for life, this is also the only way to grow their personal wealth and power.

The most prestigious of these posts will come with one of the great Castles of the empire, which can be moved to new strategic locations at the pleasure of the empress.

Each noble is also responsible for protecting the people of their region from monsters and rival factions. They must correspond quarterly with the headquarters of the empire to report their progress and pay tribute.

Before the fall of the empire, the church served as local supporters and enforcers of the nobility. After the fracturing of the empire, the nobility continue to carry out these duties in a tense truce with Sethi’s Church. Some have even left the nobility of the empire and been declared as Patricians within the church.