Adamai Yrsif

Emperor Adamai Yrsif (a.k.a. The First Emperor)

The First Emperor, Adamai Yrsif founded the nation that would become the Holy Qhaganate of Zalja. After escaping from imprisonment in a deep dungeon, held by an unnamed enemy, he and his confederates rebelled against the ancient Kingdom of Yena and unified the warring tribes of the Ikhans and the Uurs, now the chief population of the Holy Qhaganate.
Emperor Adamai is sometimes said to have been born half Yenese and half Zaljan, but in truth such distinctions would have been largely meaningless in the Imperial Age. The term "Zaljan" would not even exist until the reign of Adamai's granddaughter Zalja, for whom the Holy Qhaganate would take its name. More serious scholars allege Yrsif may have been half Ikhan and half Uur, suggesting that one of his parents may well have been a spoil of war.
Some legends paint Adamai as humble in birth, but it is far likelier he was one of the maliqs that ruled over the reaches between the Questing and the Great Bariad Rivers. Modern Yenese scholars call him a fearsome warlord and rabble rouser who singlehandedly incited rebellion by traveling to the various towns and encampments, but serious historians from the Qhaganate generally agree that he was only the most powerful and influential of a coterie of maliqs standing against the Kingdom to the west. Some have even suggested he was no more than a figurehead, manipulated into a position of popularity in order to unite various armies.