The Age of Reclamation was a period of great prosperity. The tis after the Last Calamity represented the greatest period of opportunity that the wider populace would be granted for all ti, ostensibly. Bolstered by lack of competition, solidarity after suffering, advances in healing arts, and exceptional governnt, the diminished population exploded toward previous levels.
By the end of this age, the general consensus is that the population had recovered from its losses—an astounding fact, though sowhat marred by the knowledge that much of this population were yet to reach the age of majority. The imperial court incentivized forming families, offering not only tax exemptions but subsidies and land settlent priority for those with children.
These policies, in tandem with the countless other benefits offered by the age, created a thriving generation of young n and won with intense national pride, many of whom reached their adulthood in 25AC or so few years before it. These children had grown up seeing the constant efforts of the governnt to erect a civilization from the dirt, alongside trendous support for their parents in all their endeavors. The soil of the age was incredibly plentiful, and advances in farming made laborious fieldwork less necessary than ever. This freed these young n and won to pursue other lines of work.
Many n ended up joining the imperial army, holding trendous loyalty toward the Blackgard Union, the emperor and empress, and the soil upon which they stood. As much was encouraged by the zeitgeist of the age. Galamon deed won more important for the growth of the country than n, and thus restricted their enlistnt outside of spellcasting roles. They were, however, increasingly welcod to beco skilled laborers or civil servants. The prominence of figures such as the empress or the pri minister eroded many biases of the previous age. Indeed, the civil service likely had more won than n at this point.
I describe this scene to the reader to set the stage for the beginning of the Age of Fury. Hot-blooded youths with pride in their hearts and love for their country far outnumbered those with scars from the calamity. Part of this had been deliberately fostered by the imperial court for the sake of stability, but much of it was the natural results of the magnificence of the Age of Reclamation.
Thus, the ti that ca to be known the Age of Fury unfolded.
Age of Fury, 26-37AC
The seed that sprouted into the inciting incident that would spark the Age of Fury had arguably been sown before the Last Calamity had ended. Argrave’s coup of the Great Chu led to its emperor being reestablished with little power. The majority of that power was turned over to him as its military commander—the Grand Commandant. Upon his departure from the Great Chu, the role of Grand Commandant had been turned over to his father-in-law, Patriarch Dras.
After the Last Calamity, the Veidin under Dras’ command were less damaged than the fighting forces of the Great Chu. It’s a hotly contested point whether or not Dras deliberately sacrificed human lives to preserve Veidin. Regardless, the military force of the Great Chu was effectively wiped out, and much of its martial tradition necessary to raise new armies ceased to exist. This enabled Dras and his Veidin to cent highly-effective control over the nation.
It could easily be claid that Patriarch Dras was more effective than the Blackgard Union at uniting the land. Order was restored incredibly quickly. Emperor Ji ng remained the nominal emperor, and Dras maintained his position as Grand Commandant. With that as pretext, the survivors of the Great Chu were quickly reunited. Indeed, it was as though the nation had never broken at all.
It could not be claid, however, that Dras established as effective a governnt.
Dras saw the rit of the robust imperial bureaucracy and the thriving network of canals connecting the cities. He endeavored to rebuild these institutions and infrastructures. Rather than employing the citizens of the Great Chu who were already well-accustod to such apparatuses of the state, he elected to prioritize Veidin for what was being built.
To this point, Garm has comntary.
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The notion behind what he was doing was simple. The imperial bureaucracy had already shown entirely capable of subverting an emperor. Even a strong ruler like Ji ng had been effectively puppeteered by their machinations. Dras hoped to avoid such a mistake by establishing loyalists to take the place of what had been.
The favoritism, however, was quite glaring. To have both the troops guarding your cities and the people administering your lives be Veidin? The snow elves were a fair people, certainly. They took to the intricacies of the system very well, likely because their now-dead god, Veid, so strongly promoted values such as honor, fairness, and legalism.
Regardless, Dras continued to press the issue. Veidin n were encouraged to take additional spouses of Great Chu won, while Veidin won were strongly discouraged from seeking Great Chu grooms. Veidin were practically exempt from castration as a punishnt, while every single imperial eunuch was human. Veidin further received unspoken priority in the distribution of land, and consequently, reaped much of the opportunity that all enjoyed in the Blackgard Union.
Nothing was law, but it was undoubtedly terribly unfair. Year after year, it bred resentnt like water slowly boiling. The Veidin population expanded near as massively as the Blackgard Union had. Great Chu natives were able to ignore this for a ti because they weren’t actively impeded… but as both populations grew, conflict took root.
This point greatly concerned both my mother and father. They sent inquiries to Dras—polite protests, reminding him that what he was doing could have dire consequences. These requests did have so impact, curbing certain practices, but it was clear that greater action would need to be taken to fix things before they erupted. Already, violent incidents were sparking across the Great Chu.
To that end, my brother Enrico eagerly suggested that he be allowed to head a diplomatic mission to the Great Chu to help rein in the excesses of Dras’ regi. He considered himself perfect for the role, possessing our father’s dark hair, our mother’s amber eyes, and subtly elven ears—the very picture of a man half-human, half-Veidin. ‘The very picture of unity,’ as he often said in attempts to persuade the court.
In the end, our parents relented. Enrico was appointed head diplomat, assigned a large guard of Knights of the Sun, and given leave to head overseas to help resolve the situation in the Great Chu before it turned into a civil war. He was welcod with open arms into the imperial palace, where he was greeted by a banquet celebrating the eve of the twenty-sixth year after the end of the calamity hosted by Emperor Ji ng and Dras. The rest is too painful for to recount, so I shall leave to my colleague to cover.
By surviving eyewitness account, the banquet went quite well. Patriarch Dras admitted so excesses on the aspects of his rule. The burgeoning violence worried him—though his people had prospered greatly, they were still greatly outnumbered and knew this terrain less than many of its natives. He claid it to be “…entirely unreasonable to assu that [Veidin] could continue on as [they] have.”
Regardless, this event was cut short by an ambush. Patriarch Dras’ head allegedly exploded into gore as he raised a toast to cooperation between man and elf. From there, ard assailants supported by spellcasters stord the imperial palace. It turned into a massacre in monts. Survivors claim every single Knight of the Sun perished in defense of Enrico. The entire diplomatic mission was wiped out entirely.
The young Prince Enrico, nineteen years of age and yet a B-rank spellcaster, defended himself as best he could. He escaped the banquet hall, yet a foul poison concocted to turn the black blood in his veins against him eventually took his life. He was later found in the imperial gardens sitting by the roots of a tree, his fingers clutching a necklace that his mother had personally crafted for him.
To this day, the identities of the assailants isn’t public knowledge. Whether the imperial court kept that private, or whether they themselves don’t know, there are many speculations.
So suggest that Patriarch Dras was the architect behind the incident. Most disbelieve this in light of his death, but others say it was common knowledge he wished the Blackgard Union to inherit his domain. Moreover, his Veidin-centric policies alongside simultaneous cooperation with the Blackgard Union strike many as contradictory, implying a deeper motive. They suggest he wished to give the Blackgard Union no choice but to involve themselves in the affairs of the Great Chu.
Others point to Emperor Ji ng. As an S-rank spellcaster, he was one of the few able to escape from the banquet alive, even if injured. He had the most to gain from the overthrow of the Veidin yoke, and may have carried a grudge against Argrave for his role in his diminishing power. Opponents to this theory argue that Ji ng had grown highly-accustod to his powerless role, spending far more ti with his family.
Regardless, emperor and empress soon received the news of their child’s death. And in the Great Chu, organized opposition rose up, headed by soone who was to beco the crux of the Age of Fury. This person was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be unrelated to the assassins, but nevertheless carried on their ideas. ṛÀɴ𝘖𐌱Ёș
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