In the Amastud Hills, Tomber the Red found an orange colour lake, referred to by the native Ahqukh as the Lake of Rust. It was poisonous to drink, poor for crops, and difficult to reach up in the hills of Amastud. Yet Tomber celebrated. Why? Because he knew that the lake's colour could mean only one thing: iron, and lots of it. Enough to power his growing Redworks in Tombranajar, and maybe enough to conquer an Empire...
A small mining settlement was swiftly founded on the lake's darkward shore, roundwards of Tombranajar and lightwards of Destrapraj and Ujavangar. Tomber first enslaved the small native population of Ahqukh to work his mines for him, but they were low in number and unaccustomed to mining work, so he imported a large number of slaves from the Magnapuri Empire heartlands, especially dwarves and humans to act as miners and labourers. Tomber left the settlement, now named Bataur, to continue his conquests and later in the guise of the future Red Magnus attempt to claim the Empire for himself.
He delegated governorship to Harran Gilij, a fascinating figure in post imperial history. Gilij was a high elf, but not of especially noble stock, and was recognised by Tomber's more militant companions as an administrator and bookworm instead of a fighter - some of them derided his fussing over logistics as bean counting. Nevertheless, the Red Magnus considered Gilij a loyal and capable subordinate and friend, and one who he could entrust this new town. The two were once close, but differed over treatment of slaves. Even before the Burning of the Book of Names, Gilij favoured emancipation or at least easing of treatment of slaves. There are several possible explanations for this. The first was simply that his logical brain knew that the Empire was unstable, and a moment of weakness could easily lead to mass revolt. A second suggests that his lower birth than the nobility surrounding him made him realise that he was in truth nearer the slaves than he ever would be the Thakurs, Rajas and Magni. A third suggests that he had already met Madea, who would come to play a much larger role in his story.
Harran Gilij proved his worth as governor of Bataur, with the town being quick to grow, and several smaller settlements being founded in the land around it. Production was good, and need for Tomber's input was low - there were no revolts or rebellious nobles, as the population was largely made up of the slave races, who were kept pacified by Gilij's gentle treatment. Iron was coming into the Redworks at a healthy rate. Tomber and Gilij continued to exchange letters during this time, though they met rarely. When Tomber claimed the title of Magnus, it is said that Gilij is the only of his advisors to counsel against it - a letter surfaced many years later from him reading "There are at least a dozen I can name who would come before you in the line of succession, at least two (dozen) who could argue it semi convincingly, and a further three (dozen) who have a larger army to argue it for them. This course of action is madness. Emancipate the slaves, focus more locally and you could possess half of Luxiterra for yourself, rather than an empty title claimed by a dozen monsters and fools."
The Red Magnus was enraged by this letter, and its said that his rage turned the seizure of Carabai turned into a bloody sack despite the city practically leaving the doors open to him. His replies to Gilij from this point became more irregular, and significantly more terse, as in turn Gilij gave honest but brutal criticism of his strategy. When Tomber returned from his first failed invasion of Pundrapur, his mood grew sourer still, having been proven wrong by his once companion. He stopped replying to the letters that Gilij diligently sent, and worsened conditions for his slaves to further spite Gilij.
After Tomber's third failed invasion, the Ignic Theocracy called for the free powers of Luxiterra to unite to support the revolt in Destrapraj, and bring an end to the Red Magnus' tyranny. Gilij, despite continuing the iron shipments, was now de facto ruler of Bataur and the lands around it, with no input coming from his Magnus. He had grown tired of the continual invasions, the ill treatment of slaves, and the lack of heed paid to his advice. By this point, he had already met Madea. Madea was a human woman enslaved as one of the few servants in Gilij's manor. When he grew lonely, missing his old friend, he would talk to her of his woes, and of the wonders and horrors he had seen in his life. He would play his viol for her, and recite for her small extracts of the books he read. The pair fell in love, and Gilij rejected the advances of several potential noble suitors who he could have married with his newfound position and wealth. He chafed at the bit to declare emancipation and separate from Tombranajar, and the Theocracy had given him the perfect way to do it.
In return for emancipating the slaves, symbolically converting to Masculism, and providing military assistance in Destrapraj (and theoretically later in Carabai, though it was never actually required), Harran Gilij was named by the Ignitor Primus as the Raja of Bataur (though the region would later be known almost exclusively as the Gilij Rajdom), an independent ruler with no tithes or taxes to be paid. Harran and Madea married shortly afterwards, and ruled the newly free Rajdom with a mix of her fairness and kindness, and his logic and administrative skill. With the majority population being former slaves from the Magnapuri heartlands, the main language spoken was Low Magnapuri, and much of the population was Masculist, with a few large Ahqukh minorities following their ancestral culture. Bataur grew from a mining town into a centre of governance, and Gilij was celebrated greatly by his people. Him and his successors maintained a position of assisting the Masculist forces in reasonable wars, but being careful not to overextend their position - in the process they gained several choice lands from the Red Magnus.
In 1062YM, tragedy struck, and Madea passed away from old age. Harran, though still only middle aged for a high elf, was struck with grief and died scarcely two weeks later, with some rumours that he had drank the poisonous water of the Lake of Rust to be reunited with his wife. Their half elven son Fardu Gilij took his father's place as Raja, and the title has been held by the family every since. In 1181YM, Yaqid Gilij sits the throne as Rani, as shrewd as her late great grandfather, but with a more ambitious eye, potentially enough ambition to make the Gilij Rajdom a major power in the region.