Legacy of the Tyrant (TWS)

No one expected the Tyrant to be overthrown.

For decades she ruled over the once-kingdoms and principalities of the Tiers. Those who resisted her found their ways dismantled, their bloodlines extinguished, their greatest cities reduced to waste and ash. She marched with an army at her back-- an army of those she had conquered, of those who surrendered rather than be destroyed, of those who betrayed their people in exchange for what little freedom there was under her. In the place of the old rulers of the Tiers, she built a new order. Her empire was one of justice and control, of cruelty and fear to the beaten people she had conquered. As the years wore on and it became clear that her rule would not end, we became accustomed to her tyranny. She rebuilt the land so it would become productive and she could enjoy its bounty. She promulgated her authoritarian Edicts and built a new order. What was left of the old ways, the memories of a better time, became lost and forgotten as time inexorably went on. Even the memories of brief, ephemeral resistances were forgotten, until all we knew was a time under the Tyrant.

And then the Tyrant was killed.

A fellowship of heroes-- remnants of a lost age, as there was no place for heroes under the Tyrant-- destroyed her. The empire of fear she had built collapsed overnight. Her generals and lieutenants turned on one another, lost without her guidance and her power, and became nothing more than petty warlords and bandits. The heroes, satisfied that they had ended the threat of the Tyrant, disbanded and retired to their disparate realms, leaving the newly-free people of Tiers to rebuild on their own.

In another era, you'd have been nobody. Thanks to the Tyrant, you're the last scion of a dynasty that once ruled over the Tiers. With her armies now either dead, or retreating, or warring against one another, you've been thrust forward as the legitimate ruler of a long-dead kingdom-- never mind that you never knew your parents and it's been decades since your kingdom reigned, the blood of kings runs in your veins.

Whether you like it or not, you're an icon of the time before the Tyrant, and that means you now have a part in rebuilding the world.

Who are you?

Who were your people before the Tyrant?

What did the Tyrant take from your people?

You are Xiao Shui, the Prince of Water. Traditionally, you wouldn't technically be the sole king of the realm at all. Your rule should only cover Winter, followed by the Prince of Wood ruling during Spring, the Prince of Fire ruling during Summer, and the Prince of Metal ruling during Fall. The fact that you command the armies of the realm is similarly out of place. While each seasonal ruler did have their own forces, the Prince of Earth was the marshal of the land and overall commander in times of war. The Prince of Earth traditionally also oversaw the days in which power was transferred from one Prince to the next, but it was something of a holiday and not a period in which actual administration or legislation were expected to be altered. Their role was more martial, overall, and they were typically seen as the neutral arbitrator should the seasonal princes start to squabble.

The Metal family was the first to be destroyed by the Tyrant, with one promising noble betraying them all to ignominious defeat. The other clans were targeted one at a time, until all traces of the existing rulers were wiped out. You alone remained in hiding, a minor scion of a once great clan, but only one part of the true royalty of the kingdom. It was seen as a fortuitous sign that the Tyrant's fall coincided with the first day of Winter, and you were brought to the forefront and given the authority to rule by a welcoming populace. The timing does seem ideal, as you now have an entire season to seek out a Prince of Wood - or, perhaps, consolidate power for yourself.

Your people were considered scholarly among the Tiers, with knowledge of alchemy and medicine being particularly widespread. Doctors and healers came to your land to study, and under the Tyrant many of your people left to teach others across the land. Prior to the utilitarianism imposed by her rule, however, the most prestigious pursuit was not spreading the knowledge of medicine that was already known, but instead seeking out new discoveries. Most prestigious of all was the pursuit of immortality, and masters of medicine who managed to elongate the span of their lives and those of their royal patrons were showered with rewards for their work. Many of these Ancient Masters, as they were called, were considered the foremost mages of the realm. They were also known to be loyal to the old ways, and so they, too, were culled by the Tyrant when she conquered your land.

The greatest damage done by the Tyrant, however, was not simply the execution of the foremost mages. It was the destruction of the Ministry of the Way. An organization that served both as the religious heart of the kingdom and its greatest school of sorcery, it taught righteousness and power in equal measures. Students seeking to learn magical lore also had to learn humility, and the philosophy of applying the power they earned for the good of the people. The Ministers assisted the warriors of the five elements in fighting the Tyrant's armies, working with each clan in turn even as they failed to unify as one. For their dedication, they were utterly destroyed. Now, only the ascetics and wanderers remain of the land's once great spellcasters. While much of the other learning of your land remains, only the ministry taught the Way, and its teachings were expunged unless you can find old records in the ruins of their schools.

You're known as the Archmage, but that title doesn't hold the grandeur it would have once. The Tyrant slaughtered most of the truly powerful mages; you're just the best among whoever's left.

Although, if the blood-readers are correct, you have the potential to be greater. The most potent mages in history came from your line. They even suggest it's your destiny to regain the power your ancestors once commanded. Of course, you can't help but wonder if they're just trying to get a convenient puppet on the throne.

Speaking of the throne, that's about all you have. When the mages ruled this land, they gathered a wide array of powerful artifacts, but the Tyrant seized them all. Many were destroyed outright. Rumor has it the heroes claimed a few in their quest to dethrone her. Others were likely taken by the Tyrant's more cowardly soldiers as they fled in the wake of her defeat. Whatever the case, one of your tasks is to reclaim any of them that are still intact - not just for the sake of the resurrected kingdom, but for the danger they could pose in untrained hands.

Who are you?

underhanded gay scheemer who is actually not yet ready for being a monarch, that was like, at least fourteen steps away

Who were your people before the Tyrant?

the uchiha clan from naruto before they were wiped out basically so cops lol

What did the Tyrant take from your people?

the tome with all of the contingencies and plans that your people had made for proper batman style authority dealings

You're J.R. Lemons Yulder, descended from a notorious line of mercenaries-turned-usurpers. You are recognized as a ruler not because your ancestors were great or even decent, but because the better royal families are extinct. The people do have some faith in you, but it's not as a good ruler- they are simply relieved to have a lesser evil than the Tyrant. Under the Tyrant they were forced to work the fields and mines of your homeland without rest, frequently to death; under her the precious metals of the mines were quickly depleted and shipped abroad, and the once fertile farmlands have turned to desert.

SpoilerShow

For clarification, you don't have to be a royal, it's just that you've got some vague claim of legitimacy-- you might be a member of a prominent merchant family, or have been named as a chosen one, or whatever else. Don't feel limited by the prompt I set up.

If you have setting questions-- about the Tyrant, her empire, the heroes responsible for killing her, whatever else-- feel free to ask them, although your answers probably won't be omniscient-narrator levels of reliable.

You are the Missing Number, known only for the mysterious brand on the back of your neck that somehow looks like every digit at once, depending on how you look at it. Legend has it that the Missing Number would one day rise and unite the kingdom, just as their forebears had done. Your people, according to the stories, were driven entirely by numbers and mathematics - using their logical thinking and skills in every aspect of day-to-day life, from farming to mercantilism to the arts.

That is until the Tyrant struck them of numbers, robbing them of the ability to even count.

That's where you, the Missing Number, come in.

Hey Sanzh tell us more about the heroes

Who are you?

Thalia, Banner-Lord of the Ashguard and Adjudicator of Kings; the Chosen-Ascendant of the Thrice-Dead God. To be honest, you don't really know what the heck anything that came after your name actually entails, but it's kind of hard to shake the feeling that it's probably something important when it comes to you via creepy prophetic dream-angel and you wake up with liquid fire in your veins and the ghosts of Tyrant-deposed kings seeking you out to make demands about the future prospects of their heirs/people/lands/customs.

Who were your people before the Tyrant?

The Ashguard. Part knight, part priest, and depending on the story, their role could be that of a guardian, mediator, or vigilante. They were servants of the Twice-Dead God, who ruled or guarded land(s?), or maybe the walls, of the dead. You think it's probably the same god, despite the slight change of title.

What did the Tyrant take from your people?

Their reputation, their relics, and their holdings.

The Ashguard's seat of power was one of the first to fall to the Tyrant, and it's rumored that in that battle they were quick to announce their surrender, though this may be a revision to history considering the extent the Tyrant used employed capabilities thought to be within the Ashguard's nebulous jurisdiction, such as her unnatural span of years.

You're Agatha Skiff-Millicent. You are an accredited baker, your main contract being catering for the Fourth-and-Ninth Orphanarium, largest in the region. You rescue as many children as you can manage, which isn't a lot at any given time with your own meagre quarters, but are the proud mother to over a dozen bakers, charcutiers, and other hardworking individuals in the region's food services.

You've no connections to your alleged inheritance - House Cecropia, the Resonant Line. All you know is what you've been told in scattershot, less-than-comprehensive snippets of a whole - an alliance of artisans, bearing lucrative enough goods to fund formidable armies. They called the Spires, a mountainous cloud-forest region replete with plateaus home - banking on neutrality, hard-to-navigate terrain, and the value in scarcity of their esoteric crafts to spare them the Empire's advances.

House Cecropia supposedly commanded a valley, coaxing silk from barely-domesticated stygian beasts and working closely with sister houses to produce instruments, fine bows, and luxurious textiles. While government was conducted with representatives from all Houses, and the Warmaster and the Wordsmith (the military and diplomatic heads of the combined Houses, respectively) positions were rotated via election between Houses, Cecropia's favoured position among a range of Houses earnt it a lot of time in the spotlight of leadership.

The original forest might only survive in the most isolated valleys, but Cecropia's lifeblood - starling-spiders, are still alive. Perhaps not in the capacity envisioned by your ancestors, but alive in the industrial centres of the Tyrant's empire.

Who are you?

You are Sativa Sylvanblooded. You are human, but people have a hard time finding that true. Flowers grow and die as you walk. Wild animals follow you as if hypnotized with a reverence of a goodly queen. Unseen winds follow you behind, carrying a pleasant scent and sounds of a forest.

You are a drifter, a shapeshifter, and the last true Acolyte of the Silver Claw in this pitiful realm.

Who were your people before the Tyrant?

The Circle of the Silver Claw is one of the most prominent druidic organizations in the world whose nebulous, fey-touched origins predate even the Tyranny of Tiers. Scornful of the organized bureaucracy of more brick-paved kingdoms, the Circle was loosely led by those elderly enough to evade youthful upstarts or skillful enough to hold the ephemeral admiration of their fellow druids.

What they lack in organization, they made up in sheer magical power – mass-surging plants for harvest, calling in wild-animals for labor, and moulding their bodies into more primal, fearsome forms for needed battles.

What did the Tyrant take from your people?

The Circle of the Silver Claw fought to the bitter end, but in the end the Tyrant won this battle. She stole away many things – their land, their artifacts, but worse of all, she took away their respect for druidism – by extension, nature.

Under the threat of cold-iron, she forced the Silver Claws to industrial-levels of farming, apply unnatural vigor to her soldiers, and mould the battlefield to her liking. Her dismal rule was long enough that it wore on the Silver Claw druids – wore on enough that the remaining druids saw nature as something to be molded like clay, not something sacred.

The consequences were slow but inevitable. The land could only handle so much harvesting and even druidism has their limits. The limits of nature finally broke when the Tyrant fell. Production collapsed, famine and starvation were rampant, and disease spread like the once-existing wildfires. But finally, you are free. And as for the dusty plateaus and ruins, that is okay, nature – and the true Circle of the Silver Claw – will rise again.

Who are you?

You are the Prince of Rags, a mendicant royal who has wandered since the days of the Tyrant engulfed your kingdom - the great Mountain Principality of Riesen.

Who were your people before the Tyrant?

Your kingdom was small, microscopic by the standards of the world. But you were nestled in between the ends of two mountain ranges, on top of rich mines and the only route across the continental divide.

What did the Tyrant take from your people?

The Tyrant saw in this an opportunity.

Systematically, your people were robbed, swindled and exterminated. Your aristocracy of merchant princes evaporated overnight as they ran for their lives, and the crown treasury evaporated with them. Penniless, powerless and peopleless, you were forced to cede your kingdom to the Tyrant's clutches. Her armies marched through your roads, opening up the until-then sheltered western kingdoms to her conquest.

It's not just about what she took from you. It's about what your surrender meant for the millions who died. It's about finding your cowardly runaway aristocrats and their fortunes, and about repaying what you owe.

Who are you: You only have one name; Jacobi, and you had no title before today. You were orphaned by the tyrant, and have no knowledge of your parentage, save for a single necklace with a unique symbol on it. Now, they call you the Guardian of Grunsberg (the slum of the Tyrant's capital city), as they lift you up and carry you through the city. You never had any desire for fame or glory, but with the heroes gone you had to do something to stand up against the lieutenants, and inadvertently had some success in defending your neighborhood.

What did the Tyrant do to your people: You grew up among the low-tiers of the Tyrant's capital city, starving and begging for food. You witnessed the mass slaughters among your class as the Tyrant wiped out thousands during the food riots, years prior. You and the others would know to hide any time her convoys came through your part of the city, lest she kill you on the spot for being an eyesore. Honestly though, the worst of it came from those who worked under her, the oppression and corruption was unbearable, watching your people treated as worse than slaves.

What did the tyrant take from your people: The low-tiers never had much of anything, even before the tyrant, but as as the surviving elders have told you, life was bearable then. The tyrant took everything from you and your people, your parents, your dignity, your childhood... your hope, and you are just one among many. But she's gone now, and you've had a taste of freedom for you and the low-tiers, and you aren't ever going back.

SpoilerShow

I found the Tyrant's theme song