Kurathene Regional History
From The Seven Cities
“Lyandric the Great, like his ancestor Sidel the Builder, once defined the Kurathene Empire not as a collection of lands held together by lines on a map but as a set of beliefs bound together by an ideal. Not as the sum of her great stone monuments and castles, but as a sum of her people. The genius of our Empire is not her ability to rule, but her ability to endure. We stand as an heir to a tradition that can be traced to some of the greatest men in history, and yet also transcend them. The names change, the eras progress, but the ideal continues unabated.” –Emperor Lyandric VIII on his coronation
The Kurathene Region has a long, storied history dating back to the Age of Dawning. The earliest tribes of humans and dracon began settling in the Braccien Champaign within fifty years of creation. The fertile plains of Kurathene helped these settlers expand quickly, growing from a handful of farming communities to a network of villages and towns in the space of a few decades. Since this time, the Kurathene Region has been home to millennia of events that have helped shape the history of civilization on Avlis. The history of Kurathene is divided into eight distinct eras: the League Era, the Republican Era, the Kurasian Era, the Interregnum, the Fourth Imperium, the Fifth Imperium, the Sixth Imperium and the modern Seventh Imperium.
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League Era (500 P.O.D. – 200 P.O.D.)
“The brilliance of Tomil Kurath was not that he saw the possibilities of government. Others had come before him in that regard. What distinguished him from other early rulers was that he envisioned the limitations of government and planned accordingly.” –Prince Sayid Haphaean of Dobrekan
The earliest settlers in the Kurathene region were Romini tribes who made their way from the southern regions of Avlis. They came in search of fertile land, traveling past the wastes of the Mokhara Desert, the fertile but unpredictable banks of the Golden Scythe to the southern most edge of the Braccien Champaign. There they found beautiful fertile plains, densely populated with docile herd animals that were easily tamed and domesticated. With the wealth of the plains at their fingertips, the Romini tribes spread throughout the lands. Word spread among the Romini of the richness of these new lands, and more tribes came to settle from the Braccien Champaign to the northern Sorraine Expanse.
A century after the first settlers arrived, the Romini had spread to every corner of Kurathene, creating a network of ranching and farming settlements connected by simple roads. As their population boomed, a second race began expanding into the plains, having heard rumors of fertile plains quite different from the hostile climate of their native Toran Shaarda. After a brief period of mutual distrust, the two races came to see that each offered abilities that could compliment the other. The dracon, with their immense physical strength, dedication to duty and understanding of order fit well with the more versatile and creative but willful humans. Integrated communities were formed over the course of several decades.
By the end of the second century of settlement, the dracon and human communities had grown large and powerful. They had managed to fully integrate their cultures into a more cohesive whole, and were slowly experimenting with communities larger than farmsteads and villages. While this made them more prosperous, it also began to expose them to the risks associated with prosperity. The escalating tension between the fey races began to have more severe consequences as the population density increased. As the villages began to trade in goods and services, these traders found themselves at the mercy of numerous bandit groups that cropped up around profitable trade lanes.
The settlements came to realize they needed a more effective way of protecting themselves from both the fey and bandits. Tomil Kurath, a young rancher living on the western coast, proposed to his neighboring settlements that they each contribute twenty young men to create a force capable of defending the roads and farms from these threats. The coastal villages agreed, and Tomil Kurath was soon appointed the head of the League Militia. As tales of their competence spread eastward, more and more settlements joined the league. By the end of Tomil’s life, the league had grown to encompass half the settlements in the region, effectively ending the threat posed by bandit groups. This had the radical effect of dramatically increasing trade between the settlements. While the League itself did not directly establish a common identity among the villages, the increased interaction between villages that had once been isolated, began the process of creating more uniformity in culture, language and values.
Republican Era (197 P.O.D. – 15 O.D.)
“A republic is a form of government where we repeat, publically, ugly, libelous comments for the sake of reducing, pressure, upon, bloated, incompetent, cretins… ” –Callicus the Younger, Playwright and Poet, from an anonymous poem, early 1st century P.O.D.
Over the course of the following century, the League expanded into an organization that spanned the entire width of the plains. Thanks to the stability created by the League, the settlements had slowly coalesced into a more coherent identity, sharing a common currency, language and culture. Although there was no overarching secular authority, religious authority had slowly been consolidating into a set of central churches which coordinated the festivals honoring each god within the League. Even those settlements which refused to join the League began to emulate its practices, and by 200 P.O.D. several competing tribal confederations had appeared in the area.
The outbreak of the First Fairy War in 198 P.O.D. caused significant problems for the League. It found its forces insufficient for the task of defending against massed battles between the fey armies, and the mechanisms available to the League made it incapable of expanding its army or acquiring better equipment. Tomil the Younger, a great grandson of the League's founder, assembled the elders of each settlement in the League in the First Kurathene Council to address the threat of the Fairy War. The Council proved to be a mixed success, dispersing after six months and failing to come to any decisions on the question of unifying the League's various settlements into a coherent whole.
Tomil Kuras, fed up with the inactivity of the elders of the First Council gave the people of the League an ultimatum. If the League did not assemble a new Council within twelve months to actively tackle the issues facing the settlements, he would disband the League Militia and allow each settlement to fend for itself. Despite opposition from entrenched members of tribal society, the people of the League answered forcefully, sending a full delegation of freshly chosen representatives to the Second Kurathene Council held in 195 O.D.
The very first act of the Second Kurathene Council was to ratify the draft charter presented by Tomil, forming the Kurathene Republic. The Republic originally consisted of sixteen settlements, which were each recognized as provinces, and would be governed by two representatives selected among the land-owning class. These representatives would then form the delegation to the Republican Council, who would oversee governance of the Republic as a whole. Tomil Kuras himself was elected by the Council to serve as the first military overseer of the Republic, retaining the title of “the Kurath” from the militia days.
The centralization of power had a dramatic effect upon the fortunes of the Republic. Within five years of its establishment, the Kurathene Republic had managed to pacify the fey in its territory and build the necessary infrastructure for true urban centers to develop. Cities such as Centerpoint, Brescant and Soreign were founded in this period as people found new, profitable ways of life outside of the farmstead. The strength of the Republic was such that it began to absorb the neighboring coalitions. Some joined the Republic through the softer touch of diplomacy, culture and economic cooperation, and others through the forceful arm of the Republican Guard. Within a hundred years of its founding, the Kurathene Republic had grown from its original sixteen provinces to over thirty provinces and eight protectorates, covering an area of nearly a million square miles.
The Kuras family slowly established itself as the hereditary holder of the office of Kurath, while the representatives of the Republican Council came to be occupied by a handful of wealthy families. These families came to be known as patricians, distinguished by their right to wear purple garments, and established their own society with a rigid set of norms and expectations. To cement their control over the Republic itself, they proposed reorganizing the Republic into nine administrative districts, each ruled by an elected member known as a Consul. Illian Kuras, who led the Republic at this time, agreed with the ease of governance that would come from this reorganization and pressed the Council to pass this new law.
The passage of the Consular Act of 175 turned the Kurathene Republic from its earliest roots as a tribal confederation, and later as a loosely organized Republic into a centrally administered government. With power focused in the hands of patricians and consuls, a distinctive caste system began to develop. Few people noticed at the time, as the Republic experienced a period of unprecedented growth starting, when the outbreak of the Great War turned attention away from the war between the fey races, to a theater several thousand miles away.
This increase in prosperity also led to the focus of wealth into the hands of several elite families. The Consuls in particular achieved greater power and influence, as the role of the military became secondary in the daily life of the Republic. Hints of tension between the Republican Council and the Kurath on one hand, with the Consuls and their local supporters on the other began to appear in the latter half of this period.
The isolation of the Kurathene Republic from the Great War came to an abrupt end in the middle of the 1st Century P.O.D., as the remnants of the orcish nation of Dobrekan came flooding into Western Negaria, with the army of T'Nanshi quickly behind. The fact that both the Dobrekanian Remnant and the Grand Alliance tried to pass through Republic territory without their consent caused a furor within the Republican Council. Public sentiment, though unsympathetic with the plight of the orcs, was outraged by the violation of Kurathene sovereignty by the pursuing elven armies.
Patricius Kuras, the military commander at the time, wished no part in the war. He felt that the Republic’s army was not sufficiently equipped to deal with either of the armies passing through his territory and that participating in the war would simply turn the wrath of those armies upon the population of Kurathene. This policy was met with anger within the Republican Council. As several Consuls began to raise their own militia legions to defend their territory from marauding bands of orcs and elves, the Republican Council voted to help fund these efforts. Patricius Kuras himself died under mysterious circumstances a few months later, passing of a heart attack after attending a performance of orcish opera in the city of Centerpoint.
His son Harrik Kuras who succeeded him took a much more openly belligerent stance against both sides of the Great War. Harrik encouraged the Consuls to arm and equip their own armies, while he himself strengthened the Republican Guard to levels matching the combatants on both sides. Properly equipped, Harrik Kuras began a campaign to systematically drive both Dobrekanic and Nanshin armies from his territory, an effort which would occupy the remainder of his reign.
The Kurasian Era (15 – 1815)
“He was a man without equal both in dedication and in ego. He represented both the possibilities and the limitations of power on a mortal level. Under his guidance the Emperor maintained hegemony over Negaria for nearly two thousand years. Yet for all his ability and zeal, he allowed obvious problems to fester, not because he was ignorant, but because he felt he would be there forever…” –Alexandrus Kincaid
When Harrik Kuras was killed during a skirmish with an elven raiding force in 13 P.O.D., his son Joral was selected by the Republican Council to succeed him. It was a controversial choice at the time, as Joral was a young man of only 17 years, and his rival for the Kurathship, his uncle, Jonas Kuras was an experienced general with several campaigns under his belt. Joral quickly silenced his critics by completing the task of expelling the orcish and elven armies from Republic lands. He then proceeded to take his armies and complete the process of assimilating neighboring cities under the Kurathene banner. With his own flanks secured, Joral began assembling an army to bring the Great War to an end by pacifying both the Grand Alliance and Dobrekanic Remnant.
This plan was cut short in the Year of Orcish Destruction. The Arcane Fire burnt across Negaria hit Kurathene particularly hard because of the sheer density of its population. When the smoke had cleared, several of the largest cities in Kurathene had burned to the ground. Joral Kuras himself had borne the brunt of the evocation, having sought to contain it with his army and lay badly wounded in Centerpoint. The Republican Council had suffered as well, with nearly two-thirds of its members killed, among them prominent supporters of Joral Kuras such as Methran Arvanos, Tomil Crullath and Lucien Barre.
The surviving Consuls and provincial governors took advantage of this power vacuum to declare their independence. Joral took five years to fully recover from his injuries, and pledged to reunite the shattered Republic. He and his closest advisors took the Oath of Swords in the year 5 O.D., declaring that Toran would be the patron god of his nation, rather than Mikon who had failed to prevent the greatest calamity in history from occurring. This rallied the dracon to his cause, reinforcing his meager possessions around Centerpoint.
Joral Kuras spent the next decade fighting for control of Kurathene with the Hyribian League to the north and the Kingdom of Korfael to the south. At the end of the bloody war for unification, Joral Kuras urged the reformation of the Republic as a more centralized and powerful state. The newly reformed Kurathene Council responded by passing the first Imperial Constitution, crowning Joral Kuras as Emperor Joral I of the Imperial Republic. The power of the Consuls remained intact, but was gradually removed as Joral Kuras continued to centralize power over the next several centuries.
Joral undertook an ambitious set of reforms within Kurathene, seeking to turn it into a model of progress and civilization. He refused attempts of the population to worship him, instead telling them to turn their faith to Toran. In return Toran granted Joral immortality. Joral came to be known simply as the Emperor, and under his hand the Imperial Republic rebuilt quickly from the damage done during the Great War and its aftermath. Feeling that the Consuls were still too independent, Joral pressured them into signing the Second Imperial Constitution after he returned from a victorious war in Tyedu. By outlawing Consuls from raising their own militias, Joral succeeded in centralizing power in himself, ending the transition from Republic to Empire and founding the Second Imperium.
Under its Immortal Emperor, the Kurathene Empire flourished, quickly establishing itself as the dominant cultural, economic and military power in Negaria. It faced little competition over the next eighteen hundred years, with sporadic challenges to its hegemony coming only from Dubunat under The'ton. The presence of the powerful Kurathene Empire brought a measure of stability to Negaria itself, as its overwhelming superiority kept other nations in line.
Joral was careful to keep his nation out of conflicts when possible, and this dedication to maintaining order on Negaria was tacitly accepted by the Nine. Joral Kuras himself began to serve as a caretaker for dangerous magical artifacts on Avlis, as his dedication to Toran was unquestioned. When the artifact Godslayer came into his possession, the Nine felt it was safer to allow Joral to hold it, than to attempt to make an attempt on it themselves.
The Kurathene Empire was the wonder of its time, boasting the greatest mages, artisans, scholars and merchants. Over its eighteen centuries of existence, the Empire expanded the frontiers of knowledge and possibility. Joral Kuras encouraged the Empire's growth by example rather than by conquest and funded several remarkable public projects. These included creating a self-maintaining road system, an expansive set of canals with wind patterns altered for ease of transportation, planting a forest specifically for his navy, and the excavation of man-made lakes surpassing those found in nature. The reign of Joral Kuras literally remade the landscape, and for many in the Kurathene Empire it seemed that it might last forever…
The Interregnum (1816 – 2200)
“The death of Joral Kuras was a test for the Kurathene people. Did we believe in our ideals of service, justice and honour because we had the Emperor looking over our shoulders, or were they a more fundamental part of our identity? The interregnum posed this question to all leaders and people of the Empire. In the process, we lost some of our territory, but regained much of our soul…” –Lord Marcus va'Calverton, Marquess of Ravenspire and tutor to Emperor Sidel I
The Golden Age of the Kurathene Empire came to an abrupt end in the year 1815 with the death of Joral Kuras when Nemeril, a wild mage from the Outer Planes sought to claim Joral's scepter Godslayer and rule over Negaria himself. Slaying the Immortal Emperor after a fierce battle, Nemeril claimed the scepter and crown for himself. While Nemeril himself was eventually slain, the destruction of the Imperial Palace and the death of several of Joral’s key advisors left a great power vacuum within the Kurathene Empire.
This vacuum was made worse by the fact that Joral Kuras had started the process of reorganizing the nobility of the Empire. The old nobility had resisted these efforts tooth and claw, and with the death of the Emperor they acquired room to maneuver. The Consuls as the oldest established families in Kurathene claimed they had the most legitimate claim to the Crown, and several rival factions formed as ambitious nobles sought to back the next emperor of the Kurathene Empire. Some of the more ambitious of the new nobility sought to displace the old nobles by virtue of their wealth, and this sparked a round of civil wars between consuls and their subordinate nobles as the remaining bureaucracy attempted to reassert control of the Empire itself. The eastern half of the Empire, long-accustomed to dealing with their issues independent of the central government was one of the earliest to declare independence.
As the Empire descended into a state of civil war and dissolution, contenders for power fell into three major camps. The first camp advocated the reestablishment of a central Imperial government, backed by a Constitution. They were not particularly concerned with who the next Emperor would be, so long as he was of noble birth and supported the traditional structures that made the Empire under Kuras successful. A second camp sought to remake the Empire in their own image, creating a government centered on the policies set forth by the Emperor rather than by his advisors. The last camp believed that the empire itself was outdated and turned to creating independent kingdoms and principalities that stressed regional identities over the notion of a Kurathene identity.
Over the next four centuries, these three camps came to represent the potential future of the Kurathene Empire. The first camp, led by loyalists from Bracentia and Trenium formed the Third Imperial Constitution, the second camp divided itself between the Crullath family and the Calizens, while the last camp found most of its supporters in the mountain ranges of eastern Kurathene. Attempts to reach a negotiated consensus failed early in the process, and a series of bloody civil wars began in the late 19th century. The scale of these wars is evident in the population figures of the Kurathene Empire. At the height of the Second Empire, Kurathene had approximately 120 million people. This had shrunk to a little less than 80 million four hundred years later as a result of repeated Civil Wars.
The last of these wars was the War of Thorns fought in the late 22nd and early 23rd centuries. Pitting the Third Imperium against the Crullathians and their orcish allies, the war quickly escalated to encompass the remaining territories of Kurathene. The war ended without a decisive victory for either side, but permanently divided the Crullathians from the rest of the Kurathene Empire, both in identity and territory.
Fourth Empire (2215 – 2587)
“The Fourth Empire was a rebirth and synthesis for the ideals formed by previous Kurathene governments. It combined the idealism of Joral Kuras with the pessimism of the Republic. Through Lyandric the First and Sidel the Builder, the architects of the Fourth Imperium appealed to the mortal’s better nature, while recognizing his potential for failure…” –Lyandric VIII, explaining his rationale for using the Fourth Imperium as his inspiration
For those who sought to rebuild the Kurathene Empire the task for the following the War of Thorns was not to reclaim all of the Second Empire's territory, but to rebuild the sense of Kurathene identity. Although they had lost many of their eastern territories to the Crullathians at the end of the War of Thorns, the loyalists had managed for the first time in generations to create a contiguous state which stretched from the western half of Kurathene to the southern tip of the Sorraine Expanse.
Rather than continue a policy of military expansion, the nobles of the Third Imperium chose instead to attempt to fully unify the territories under their control. They believed this would eventually lure the remaining fiefs to reintegrate into the Empire based on their own self-interest. To this end, they focused upon rebuilding the infrastructure of their newly acquired lands, while encouraging a fundamental belief in the Kurathene ideal. The Fourth Imperial Constitution reflected this idealism tempered with the lessons of the Interregnum. The Emperor was to be elected, while a clear process of succession was laid down to be followed.
The coronation of Emperor Lyandric I in 2215 started the Fourth Imperium with a flourish. Despite his youth when taking office, Lyandric refused to stand for a second term as emperor as his thirty-year reign drew to a close. This began the tradition of placing the interests of the Empire over the interests of the Emperor. His successors Joral II and Sidel I, helped solidify this tradition, while expanding the influence of the Empire.
Steadily expanding its influence economically, the Fourth Imperium was a time of prosperity and renewed confidence for the Kurathene people. During the sixty years of Sidel I's reign as Emperor, the Fourth Imperium rebuilt many of the public works that had been allowed to deteriorate after the death of Joral Kuras. For his contributions and initiative in rebuilding much of the lost glory of the Kurathene Empire, Sidel was known to later generations as Sidel the Builder.
His example led to a succession of emperors who vied to match his exploits as a ruler. It became a matter of pride for emperors to construct at least one great monument during their reign. This era helped to create large, permanent urban centers in the Kurathene Empire, and further helped to cement the idea of a Kurathene national identity, as people came to associate the Empire more with its structures and ideas than with the individual Emperors.
Fifth Empire (2587 – 2932)
“Joral Kuras showed us the limits of what an immortal man could do in fifty lifetimes. I wish to see what a mortal man can do in a single one…” –Emperor Lyandric III
It was at the height of the Fourth Imperium's power that Lyandric III came to power. He was the great grand son of Sidel I, youthful, ambitious and intelligent. His coronation came at a time when the Kurathene Empire was seeking to expand its influence back to the realms it had controlled during the Golden Age of Joral Kuras. Despite the success of the Empire in economic and cultural spheres, it had made little territorial progress in reclaiming the old territory. Further mounting tensions between the Fourth Imperium, the Republic of Soreign and the eastern kingdoms created a perfect opportunity for a military solution.
Vowing to reunite the territories of the Kurathene Empire under his crown, Lyandric III began a two-decade long campaign, first with his war against the Republic of Soreign. He combined his talent for warfare with a shrewd use of diplomacy, bringing the eastern kingdoms under his control without the use of force. By 2587 he had reunited nearly all of the Empire's former territory with the exception of Crullathian territory, and expanded his influence beyond into Tyedu.
A grateful public bestowed upon him the appellation Lyandric the Great, and ratified a new Constitution to allow him to serve as emperor for the remainder of his life. Lyandric accepted this offer, though cautiously making certain to keep most of the structures of the Fourth Imperium intact. As his reign progressed, Lyandric found ruling over as vast a territory as his reconstructed Empire could not rely simply on national identity to keep it unified. Much of the loyalty to the Empire was based not on identification with the Kurathene ideal, but upon a focus on his personal charisma.
When selecting his successor, Lyandric elected to divide his Empire along what he saw as cultural lines. He created three administrative districts, and within each district he attempted to create a regional copy of the Imperial government. This effort met mixed results, and after Lyandric's death in 2633, the Kurathene Empire was officially partitioned into the Western, Eastern and Northern Empires, each with its own emperor.
Of these three institutions, only the Western Empire survived in the form envisioned by Lyandric. The Northern Empire included territory that once been part of Tyedu, and the influence of the barbarian tribes in its military led to its steady dissolution as a nation. In the east, the traditions of strong, unitary monarchs remained strong and the parliamentary institutions of the Eastern Empire were gradually abandoned in favor of a stronger monarchy. In 2715 the Eastern Empire elected to divide itself into the Pylatean League of Electors, while the Northern Empire would survive in a weakened form until 3072 when its remaining lands were divided between the Sixth Imperium and the Pylatean League.
Sixth Empire (2932 – 3271)
“None of us wants to admit we are inferior to our forefathers. If this vanity is my sin, so be it, but I shall not rob my sons of the opportunity to surpass their predecessors.” –Emperor Lyandric V, on issuance of the Sixth Imperial Constitution
The Western Empire, which had held most of Kurathene's wealth, remained intact for the reigns of Lyandric III’s successors. However, Lyandric III had been careful to pattern the Fifth Imperial Constitution upon the Fourth Constitution. Many of the expansions to the powers of the Emperor were only for the duration of his reign. This meant that his successors were unable to take actions to secure territory from the Northern or Eastern Empires as they went through political transformation.
With the official dissolution of the Eastern Empire, and the Northern Empire in a state of civil war, Emperor Lyandric V felt it was once again time to renew the Imperial Constitution. He argued that with the collapse of the Eastern Empire and the imminent loss of the Northern Empire, the Fifth Constitution had failed to protect the integrity of the Kurathene Empire. His proposal for a Constitution called upon greater centralization of power in the emperor similar to Joral Kuras and the Second Empire. Lyandric V couched his rhetoric in nationalist terms, claiming a time of crisis for the Kurathene creed, and though passing only narrowly he was able to have the Sixth Imperial Constitution passed in 2932.
The Sixth Imperial Constitution substantially reduced the power of the Imperial Parliament and gave the emperor greater control of regional governance. It also changed the title of emperor from an elected title to a hereditary title. This allowed the emperor to exercise a greater degree of power, and the Sixth Imperium was a more militaristic and aggressive power than the Fourth or Western Empires had been, annexing much of the Northern Empire and waging several wars to capture territory to the east.
Territorial expansion and the integrity of the Empire's territory became the main concern of the government, and as a consequence the attention paid to trade decreased significantly. This led to several periods of economic decline and famine. With the position of emperor now a hereditary title, the parliament was unable to take actions to remedy bad leadership, and during the Sixth Imperium, Kurathene squandered much of its power and influence abroad.
Modern Era (3271 – Present)
“In our history, we have had two types of leaders. Those who asked ‘What can the Empire do for my legacy’ and those who asked ‘What will my legacy be for the Empire.’ Today my brothers, we formalize that only those who ask the latter question will be given the crown of the Kurathene Empire. For in our last six attempts we have learned the painful lesson: vanity following service ends in chaos. I am not so arrogant to think this will be our final try, but at the very least, let us set a good example for our successors, so they know where it is we failed, and where it is we hoped to succeed…” –Emperor Lyandric VIII, at the ratification of the Seventh Imperial Constitution
When Emperor Joral IX died in 3253 without neither a Proclamation of Succession nor an heir in his immediate family, the Kurathene Empire once again faced a period of uncertainty. The Empire itself was plunged into a Civil War between four competing successors, each with a legitimate claim to the Crown. This was made worse by attempts by both the Golden Crown and the Pylatean League to incite secession and revolt in territories acquired through conquest.
The Imperial War of Succession raged for 15 years with no side gaining a clear upper hand. In 3268, a fifth competitor appeared in the form a young man claiming to be descended from the Tochi'larian dynasty of Lyandric I, Sidel I and Lyandric III. Named Lyandric Sidel Tochi'larian, he bore the heirloom sword Eagle's Talon which had been lost since the reign of Lyandric III. He was supported by a group of nobles who sought to restore the Imperial government to the form taken under the Fourth Imperium, and was accompanied by a brilliant but reclusive strategist simply known as “the father.”
With a combination of diplomacy and military superiority, Lyandric forced all four competing successors to the table to create a new Imperial Constitution. He offered to create the families of the four claimants as Imperial bloodlines, eligible to run for the Crown every thirty years. Two of the claimants, Sidel the Duke of Sargone and Harlan the Earl of Kalion accepted this offer, while the remaining two were exiled and replaced by their more malleable heirs. Lyandric himself was crowned Lyandric VIII of the Kurathene Empire, and instituted a modified form of the Fourth Imperial Constitution as the Seventh Imperial Constitution.
Like his ancestor Sidel the Builder, Lyandric VIII focused the efforts of the Empire upon building its wealth and prosperity. He focused upon expanding the Empire's trade, being the first emperor since Sidel I to send a mission to Khanjar Kuro, and reconstituting the Kurathene-Andarr Company. He served two 30-year reigns, before abdicating, and was succeeded by Sidel VII, grand-son of Sidel the Duke of Sargone.
In sharp contrast to the Sixth Imperium, the Seventh Imperium has focused much of its efforts upon acquiring territory and trade beyond its traditional borders. The Empire controls a large stretch of the Equalorian Peninsula, as well as having several large trading colonies located on islands near the Khanjari mainland. It has taken several generations to rebuild the general level of wealth and prosperity lost during the Sixth Imperium, and territorially the Seventh Imperium is actually smaller, despite having a larger population.
