Gather Your Banners : A Brief Respite from War
(And A Good Place to Start RPing, Hopefully)
(And A Good Place to Start RPing, Hopefully)
- What You Need To Know -
Seven years ago a man named Arcenios was declared the Emperor of Calradia by the Calradian Senate. In the years that would follow he would bring a fearful people besieged at all sides into prosperity, re-establish his borders, and restore the reputation of his Empire. His victories in Battania, Sturgia and Vlandia were celebrated without the torment of the vanquished. The folly of the previous Emperor was corrected and the lands taken were brought into the Empire rather than drained of their resources. Their cultures were permitted to persist rather than being smothered. Arencios was respected both at home and abroad for his decisive leadership and uncommon empathy, but it was his absolute opposition to corruption that brought him admiration.
He did what so very few Emperors ever do. At his strongest, after a long and terribly successful campaign and when global conquest seemed all but certain to succeed, he disbanded the Imperial Legions. There would be no further grand campaigns. There would be a most uncommon thing, peace. The Legions would return to their homes where their Archons would be responsible for their upkeep and the defense of their lands. Not all of the legionaries were happy about this, but the Empire as a whole was. Most of the continent was. He spent the next three and a half years traveling about The Empire, protected by his very own Vaegir Guardsman, working to solidify that hard-fought peace. Finally, he returned to the place of his birth.
Arcenios returned to the South of The Empire, to the great fortress of Lycaron, to rest. He had much to celebrate.
This week marks the halfway point of the Fourth Year of Peace in Calradia, a continent with a long history of war. It is also a celebration of the Fifteenth Birthday of the Princess Ira, only child of the Emperor and Empress.
From across the continent and beyond peoples once at war, some still with long simmering resentments, have come together for many reasons. From each nation they come to assess old enemies and to kindle those very same long burning resentments. They come to seek alliances. They come to make connections in far off lands that might benefit their trading caravans. They come to marry off their sons and daughters and strengthen their family name. They come to see this great Emperor and bring him their gifts, their requests, or their curses.
They come to fight in the great tournaments, for fortune, for fame, for booze, for women, or because they saw no other plausible way to improve their station. Some just came for the food. Perfectly valid reason.
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