"Tendrils of The Tarnished" is an historical account which details the rise of a fledgling Empire of Bastile. It was written by an unknown author during the Fourth Age, and was later collected by Seraphis into Unknown.
"There was a time when the Empire was but a whisper among the reeds, a dream caught in the mire of an unyielding marshland. Our ancestors were not emperors or knights then; they were scavengers, clinging to life on the fringes of a world that had abandoned them. Disease flowed like the stagnant waters they called home, fetid and unmerciful. The sun, their only ally, gave no warmth, only a pale light that unveiled their squalor. They were a forgotten people, wretched and weak, but the seeds of something greater stirred in the muck."
"It began not with glory, but desperation. The first leaders were no kings but warriors who refused to die, who turned their fear into steel and their suffering into resolve. They burned their marshes and drained the pestilent waters, carving roads of stone where the bogs once drowned them. Each mile was won not with triumph, but with sacrifice—the bodies of the dead paving the path for the living."
"Then came the first conquest, born of hunger and necessity. They looked to the fertile lands beyond the marshes, where lords feasted in comfort and mocked the empire that was yet to be. Those lords had castles, but they did not have the fire that burned in the eyes of a people who had nothing to lose. We rose from the mire as a kraken to the surface, devouring everything in our path. For every village burned, a banner was raised. For every throne toppled, a new city was forged. Blood ran in rivers to cleanse the shame of our birth."
"It was not honor that built the empire, but audacity. When the first Emperor dawned the Iron Crown, he wore it not only as a symbol of power, but also as a reminder of the chains that once bound our people. ‘No more,’ he declared from the ruins of a conquered kingdom, his voice carried across a sea of kneeling enemies. And so, the Bastilian Empire was born—not from divine right, but from the ashes of despair, its foundation laid upon the unyielding bones of its forebears."
"And yet, as I recount this history, I am left to wonder: At what cost did we rise? The lands we claimed are vast, their riches unmatched, but the echoes of the dying still linger in our halls. The gods we invoked for victory now sit silent, watching a people who have become too proud to pray. Ours is an empire built on conquest, yet its soul was forged in suffering. Do we remember the marshlands, the sickness, the hunger that gave us strength? Or have we traded our humility for ambition, our unity for power?"
"The empire stands tall now, its banners unfurled from every mountaintop, but the ghosts of the mire remain. They whisper to us, reminding us that greatness is not eternal, that the wheel of fate turns even for those who command it. We rose as wolves, but will we fall as prey? Only time will tell if our conquests have made us strong—or if they have merely delayed the inevitable return to the mud from whence we came."
- Author Unknown