Imperial history
Introduction
History is a rich seam for potential ideas for plot. The Empire is as powerful as any empire the world has ever seen, but there are things from the past that the Empire cannot currently reproduce - such as the portal at Anvil. History is especially important in Empire, since the players are able to use past-life visions to gain direct experience of things that took place in the past.
Imperial History
The Empire has existed for nearly four hundred years. The history of the Empire is relatively well documented on the Empire wiki. Any events that take place during this time need to fit with the existing timeline and version of events - historical revisionism is fine in the real world but only undermines campaign credibility in a LRP game. It is possible to add new details to the timeline, provided it is credible that such events were originally overlooked in the official history.
Pre-imperial History
Hundreds of years before the Empire was formed, the most powerful human kingdom was called Terunael. The kingdom was destroyed by a magical disaster that unleashed the vallorn on the world, the Navarr and the Urizen are the only survivors of that time. Orcs prospered in the years that followed and much of the land that is now the Empire fell under their control, the humans who lived there were enslaved, killed or fled. In the centuries that followed, waves of human settlers came to the continent and formed their own kingdoms which warred with the the orcs. Finally these human kingdoms politically united to form the Empire.
There is some additional material for the time predating Terunael buried on the plot wiki. We are deliberately keeping this campaign material on a need to know basis to try to preserve the mystique for as long as possible. If you are desperately keen to write plot involving ancient history, then talk to Andy Raff about it.
Further Reading
- Organization
- Writing
- Skirmish