Legacy of the Tyrant (TWS)
04-11-2016, 05:30 AM
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?
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?