The First Emperor

Era of Man / First Age / ~30 thousand years ago
The legacy of the Lizardfolk campaigns across the central and western regions of Valdemar was armies. Before those many years of war humans did not have large armed forces, for the wood elves had protected them in ages past. Now, they found themselves with large forces of skilled warriors who had made combat their way of life. Naturally then, after the last lizardfolk campaign had been pushed back to their jungles the many human armies began to be used against one another. The various human nations contested for dominance and wealth, and borders changed many times over for countless years on a much larger scale than in ages past. And then, a brilliant prince was born to one of the moderately sized powerful nations. Perhaps it was not fate, as the young boy was schooled by only the very best; however, he would become one of the greatest generals in all of human history.

At the age of twenty, this young prince succeeded as king of his nation when his father was assassinated. So began the new king’s ambitions, and the civil war with their rival nation ended in only two years as revenge was had for the slaying of his father. Then, the campaigns expanded, and by the time the king was thirty he had conquered all of what would be called the Gold Coast today. This king’s ambitions seemed endless, and his many successes only sparked his desire for a united human empire. Over the next twenty years of his life, this great conqueror gained control of most of the human lands in the central region of Valdemar, and fringes of the northern and eastern regions.

By the age of fifty, this conqueror king named himself emperor and pressed his forces into the rebellious north and east. At this time however his empire had become vast and difficult to manage while the emperor was occupied continuing to directly oversee his wars. For the emperor was a great strategist and general, and his place was the battlefield. In an attempt to correct this, the emperor divided the lands into the five provinces of today - central Heart Vale, western Gold Coast, northern North Reach, southern Under Jungle, and the eastern Storm Coast. The emperor appointed new provincial governors to oversee these large swaths of land, but those he put his trust in became corrupt and divisive. Then the first emperor died, not from combat, but from disease on the battlefront. Without his unifying force, his great first empire crumbled in upon itself as the provinces splintered and civil war broke out across the continent.

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