The DARK EMPIRE
From the writings of the famed Pedantius, scholar of the church of law
In the ages before man was civilized by the revelation of THE LAW, he still toiled away upon great works and sought to understand the world, albeit in the way possibly more similar to a clever animal than the modern civilized man who has a deeper understanding of his place in the world.
Those were the ages of the heathen DARK EMPIRE, whose ruins to this day still blight the secluded corners of the realms of man. Some scholars will argue that the term is inaccurate, claiming many multiple polities existed then as now. Atlantis, Acheron, Mu, and of course Grand Tartaria whose petty rump states still threaten the holy cities of the Middle West.
In some ways man’s foibles still linger, for as much as we are all supposed to be united under the holy church it is true there are conflicts between noble houses, even kings wage war upon each other. But regardless of which king and which dynasty reigns we are still ruled by kings who swear to uphold THE LAW. A new kingdom may arise, but it will be founded by one who achieved enough power to build a stronghold and ensure it is free from interference in one or more hextares in all six cardinal directions. The kings and kingdoms may change but the system itself remains. Such is the benefit of THE LAW.
It is in those terms to think about the Dark Empire, while different tyrants and despots claimed different cities and dungeons they were all part of the same general system. They were all plagued by the same problems and all ultimately fell before the advances of the lawful realms of man for the same reason. No one would fight for them.
In the time of the Dark Empire man was little more than clever beasts. Oh we had writing, and customs, and performed rituals at pagan temples but they lacked the meaning derived from following the law. The heathens toiled endlessly for unknown epochs, as they did not keep accurate time records of their history, hand waiving away such things as distractions. Lacking the guidance of the law, which specifies the natural order of a Distinguished Master leading groups of Peasant Commoners. While we call them an Empire, many of their cities sought to distribute power as dysfunctional polities known as democracies and republics where their citizenry voted for a leader, similar to the quasi-pagan Kingmoots of the Northlands but in which every peasant and beggar could vote.
This caused immeasurable scheming as the populace would bicker amongst themselves about ensuring checks and balances on the power of their leader, to ensure that everyone shared control over their civilization’s grand narrative. As if it was a thing you could choose to construct instead of an emergent property of a properly run civilization.
Why this seemed like a suitable idea to early man is because without THE LAW they did not seem to understand the importance of a class structure. This led to decadence where most people seemed to dabble as User of Magic but almost none would function as a Fighting Man. This led to a wealthy but decadent society where none were willing to stand on the front lines to protect their cities from any real danger. The power of their sorcery would deter most, but once a determined enemy breached their walls they were helpless. Many loved the wealth and comfort the Dark Empire provided, few were willing to die to defend it. In time the various Magistrates who administered the individual cities broke away from the central governments when they realized the difficulty the capitals would have in assembling an army willing to die to conquer a far off region. Slowly and without fanfare, the Dark Empire began splintering into largely autonomous city states.
*Man is a natural problem solver however, and so many varied attempts to bolster the Dark Empire's armies were made. *
Some cities attempt the most straightforward approach of enslaving people to fight. These cities were among the first to fall to the approach of THE LAW as their slave soldiers often opened the gates and burned the supplies of their oppressors.
Mercenaries were commonly hired, but without THE LAW setting rules for what is and is not a reasonable task to ask of a hireling and what rates of pay are standard, too few took up the mantle. St. Gax was able to bring many cities under the sway of the LAW by codifying these rates to hire their own mercenary defenders from underneath them.
It was in this final era of the Dark Empire that necromancy reached its zenith as a dark art. Legions of the undead marched upon the nascent forces of Law and its Fighting Men were hard pressed to resist. This is when the divine revelation of the Clerical class occurred. With their support, the forces of Undead were scattered into the dark corners of the world and their master’s cities were ransacked.
Some of the vilest city-states made pacts with the forces of CHAOS and used demons and devils to protect themselves. They managed to repel the forces of Law for many years, until after St. Gax left the Church. It was the Holy Mother who banished the demons, despite the claims of heretics that she failed to truly stop them as she did not know their true names, allowing them to simply relabel themselves and continue to prey upon mortals.
The remaining rump states have taken the blasphemous approach of creating new races of beings. Beastmen, Orcs, and other Abominations were bred in great numbers to throw against the realms of man. These monsters rarely remain in the control of their creators for long and have sacked most of the remaining heathen city states. The problem remains that their numbers are so vast that entire crusades have been unable to even reach the remaining city states before being exhausted in battles with roaming bands of such monsters. It is the great task of our era to finally crush these dark forces and close the final page on the last vestiges of the DARK EMPIRE.