Official Time Line

Little today is known of the age of many kingdoms, before the founding of the empire, when all the lands where ruled by lots of little warlords who fancied themselves kings. Some of the most powerful of these would survive to become high born families.

Menbar Unam was a great and wise king of the what would today be a handful of the Imperial Lands, a small amount of the precincts directly under the control of the currently imperial family that contain mostly desert. He came to power in his mid forties having inherited the position from his mother, Bec Unam, a woman legend has it was a great historian and scholar, her works are now sadly lost. He was the founder of the order of the silent chanters, the first to have the skybarges raised under his command. He gained land and won many battles, over decades with his new floating fortress. However on leading a Kalab cavalry charge against the armies of Emore Sythe he fell in Battle.

Menbar’s son inherited the throne and proved to be far less skilled in leadership than his father. He retreated after his fathers defeat and attempted to trade land for peace, losing much of what his father had gained. Seeing that the new king would drive the kingdom into the dirt with his vices and ineptitude his fathers former advisor Ronka Seadar challenged the king to a duel of honour, the duel was held in private as is the duelists right, defeating him Seadar ceased power.

Rexar Seadar, was a wise and charismatic leader, he increased the number of silent chanters, and the number of skybarges, he led armies that increased in size with every victory and there were many of those. His reign was bloody, its start particularly so, as he came to power killing the former emperor in a duel he then went about having every other member of the Unam family murdered to make sure he would escape those who would seek revenges wrath. Everyone loyal to Unam was executed as being guilty of being part of the former ruinous and decedent regime. Precinct after precinct fell to his might. Those who gave up without a fight were shown great generosity, given some autonomy over their regions and becoming the high born families. Those that resisted where crushed and their names erased from the earth and the records. It was thirty years into his reign that he officially founded the empire, two contents that still today make up the empire of Miradorium had been subjugated from coast to coast, as of yet the other realms where not part of the empire but the rest of the land was under Seadar control. This is consider the start of the Empire of Miradorium.

He married Shalan Church in his seventy first year and conceived a child Selan Seadar, upon his death from natural causes and old age, at the tender age of twelve she inherted the Empire.

Coming to power at the age of twelve does not mean that she did not rule. She created the Inner and Outer Court of Songborne and invited the first Ambassadors from the High Born Families to attend it and advisor. She was strong willed but also wise enough to take their council on occasion. She gave several large precincts formerly belonging to the other families over to the Church family, she installed the first official High Mother in the Church and made the position one that her predecessors would get to appoint. She was not satisfied with ruling just the lands but declared that the other realms must be brought under the wise embrace of the Empire and their citizens converted to the worship of the great goddess Zera. With the use of skybarges and legions of Ember singers the Prangels of the realm of the canopy where the first to submit to her might. Their world in the branches of the giant trees, the Magna Arbour was just too vulnerable to her flames. The Prangels knowing no chants themselves were easy to subdue and convince that this new religion was indeed the true one. They over threw their leaders and converted on mass. The regime that arose after this rebellion quickly surrendered and brought the first of the realms under the control of the empire. Having conquered the Canopy Selan turned her navy of skybarges on the Realms of the High Peaks, there the Balphonets were quickly defeated by aerial bombardments of their city and Selan Sedar brought their leader to the Hall of Signing to sign a treaty that would make the Realm part of the empire. Having conquered two new realms within her boarders Selan had the wisdom to distribute the wealth created from their tribute to the high born families cementing their loyalty. Selan now turned her attention to the Realm of the Undercroft. Marching her armies below ground and getting use to the need for entirely different tactics in subterranean warfare, losses were heavy as she tried to invade the tunnels of massive chambers belonging to the Reka. In retaliation the underground Reka would spring up and perform small surprise attacks on different parts of the empire, this was to create an atmosphere of fear and paranoia that is still strongly felt by many land dwellers today. Selan might not have been victorious had it not been for the fact that the Reka’s underground rivals used this moment to attack them using it to their advantage to gain large amounts of underground territory. When the Reka were defeated the Meekoffs signed a treaty with the empress that saw them being allowed to keep the territory stolen from the Reka in exchange for their submission to the empire and their allegiance to the goddess Zera. Only one Realm remained out of the reach of the empire, the one about which little was known, the Realm of the Underbrine. Selan began to make plans for an invasion of the deeps but passed away at eighty six while sleeping peacefully in her chambers.

Selan did not have any children so on her death her throne went to her twenty one year old nephew Merin Seadar. Two months after he was declared Emperor, the Helm brought representatives of the Underbrine to the imperial court for the first time in the history of the Empire. The Egark had heard of the might of Selan but not that she had died. They did however sign a deal with the new emperor that officially brought the Underbrine into the Empire and claimed that its inhabitants had converted to the worship of the goddess. The Emperor also learnt the chant that would allow breath underwater from the Ergak ambassador a secret that has never been shared with the high born families. This treaty and expansion of the empire along with the new tribute paid by the underbrine and the trade it opened up along with the victories gained by his former emperor his aunt created a period of great prosperity in the land. Part of the treaty meant that the Helm would take control of coastal land formerly belonging to the family of the Sythe in order to have complete control of trade with the underbrine. This was originally agreed to and signed into the treaty by the head of the family Olanga Sythe but when the time came for the hand over of power he instead attacked the Helm slaughtering several of their legions in the surprise. The young emperor did not take kindly to Olanga going back on their deal and he personally led an army to defeat him. Once he surrendered Merin had his hand, the one that signed the treaty cut off and placed in the hall of signing as a warning to all future treaty signers as to what happens when you go back on your word. Having put down this mini rebellion there was no rest for Merin, a week after he returned from the front lines he got news that Wen warships had landed on the western shores of the empire and several cities had been sacked and were now under Wen control. The next two decades saw these two might empires clash. Casualties were high on both sides. Finally after twenty two years of bloodshed a treaty was signed that essentially went back to the prewar boarders of both empires. Many saw the long drawn out conflict as futile given the outcome but Merin wrote a script in which he convincingly argues that the war was inevitable and has created a lasting peace without each side needing or seeing the point of renewing hostilities.

Merin had three daughters the eldest Whencal, then Misanka and finally the youngest Rendeera. As was custom Whencal succeeded her father. What happened next is a matter disagreed upon by historians. It appears that shortly after becoming Empress Whencal’s madness began to manifest itself. It is said she was heard screaming and wailing at night. Then a little more than three months into her reign she vanished, never to be seen or heard of again. Was she murdered? Did the family try to cover up the great sin of her suicide? Or did she leave in a skybarge having made a deal with enemies of the empire to deliver them the technology in exchange for a life of peace. All have been proposed which if any of them are correct is not known.

With her oldest sister seemingly dead before the next in line seems to have succumbed to a madness testified to by members of the Inner and Outer Court. It seems X was making wild claims and accusations against numerous members of high born families and even members of the imperial forces. She was taken to the medical section of the Torturers Tower but they could not do anything for her and her condition and delusions worsened. The Courts both voted to give the crown to the third and youngest sister Rendeera. There are many historians are suspicious and see it as too convenient that two daughters inline to the thrown above her both exited the stage to leave the path to power open for her. But her older sisters madness seems to have been genuine. If she found a way to cause it no one now knows how such a thing could be achieved.

However she got the throne once she got it she did not let it go for over sixty years. Her reign was marked by two separate wars with wars with the Empire of Grenmak. The first was sparked by a dispute about the ownership of the island of Kalo. Undoubtedly closer to Grenmak but it had been inhabited by merchants from the empire and the independent precincts to the west for centuries. Or at least they had the largest population in a mixed culture and society that had ruled itself until the two powers took an interest.