The First Empire of Arawn
Two words are nigh-inescapable when attempting to understand the history and people of Calengwag, these are 'Arawn' and 'Galtine', and in their intermingling does one come grasp much of the oddity of that strange world. For they refer to the first major empire of that world and its founder.
The name Arawn first appears in reference to a tribe of nomadic warriors which entered the warring states that surrounded the great inland sea of Torcayrne in northern Thule. Like many early tales of Calengwag, the motifs of this region feature extreme hardship, infighting and fear of the Ur-Beasts which haunted these fledgling states. These Arawn nomads are said to have begun as mercenaries, serving the rulers of these states in return for a son or daughter's hand being given to their chieftain, Galtine. The exact nature of Galtine of the Golden Dawn or 'Seeker-Like-Dawn' is often debated, with stories ranging from an upstart warlord to some sort of automaton if one understands the Didactic of the people of that planet. Tales tell of warriors with swords of shrieking white and strange madness, encased in moving steel and possessed of fae magic. Through service and alliance, these rulers quickly found their conflicts quelled through their bloodties to the seemingly undying and unconquerable Galtine until all which surrounded the Torcaryne found themselves bound as kin. Through strange lore and unimpeachable wisdom, Galtine taught these folk how to tame their vicious land and to prosper through the most unthinkable of means. This Galtine led their tribe to the great deathly ruins which encased the northwestern shore of the Torcaryne and returned with what it called 'it's dearest Treasures', technologies of the unremembered past which it taught the people to use. From this was born the many technologies that while still primitive to Imperial eyes, gave these people the means to begin the painful mastery of their land. It taught the people of administration, it taught them of the Voids and how they might be engaged and it taught them of war to defend themselves. And when all the people of the Torcaryne willingly took the name Arawn as their own, it divided its kinsmen and their students into the first Guilds so that they might seek more treasures and bring them back to the people. Even as it charged them to ward the people from the Treasures that lead the old ones to ruin. So for a time, this fledgling empire prospered in peace under its strange emperor
But it is said that with time, Galtine grew faded, or perhaps it had always been wounded as the stories say, until the day came when it vanished after placing its cloak around the shoulders of its eldest daughter and charging the Golden Guild to venture south and to slay a dead god.
Time however, proved that Galtine's sense of purpose left with it.
With the passing of years the Emperors and Empresses of Arawn began to use their strength to push farther and farther. Some did so to share their prosperity with their neighbors, others did so in hopes of finding their first emperor and many more did so because they could. State after state and land after land fell under the tread of the invincible war machine crafted by the Golden Dawn, even as the Emerald Guild delved farther and farther into every ruin it found to pull free yet more tools for their war.
The first prohibition to die as the empire ground on was the perilous use of Thorn-Visors, the necromantic devices which the First Emperor had decreed should only be used in extremis quickly became a matter of course. With this, heroes became a thing of undying and endlessly Green diligence. Through their sage council, the Empire remained coherent where it might have died, fixed on its endless goals of expansion, charity and finding its Founder. Every land they conquered, the Arawn instilled their customs and their obsession with traditions they themselves no longer fully recalled or understood under the increasingly mono-maniacal ethicacy of the Emerald-Like-Thorns Viziers and their perfectly forged rulers.
It is easy to speak of cruelty and the Arawn were cruel in large measure. But the darkest truth was that the machine set in motion by Galtine was nothing so simple as a tyrannical empire, its true evil was its fragility. It was powerful and successful because of a structure maniacally diligent and utterly fixated on its course, it ruled its lands well and it conquered brilliantly. But it was built on dead hands and by dead hands sustained. It needed conquest for it needed its ideal of finding its true emperor and it was understood that the moment that hope was truly vanquished then the empire would fall with it.
So the Arawn pushed, they slowly broke their prohibitions on Treasures even as the Emerald Guild was reduced to little more than a division in their grand army. It awoke Treasures it barely understood to keep its terrible momentum. It resorted to horrible rituals to keep the ranks of the Viziers even as their bloodlines grew too thin to continue the cycle of reanimation. It continued until over a third of the planet itself was their domain.
But it finally pushed too far and was shattered by the armies of mechanical Ogres it awoke. As these ogres shattered the roads between continents, nobles turned on each other, destroying the Viziers as they awaited new life or damaging them beyond sanity. Would-bw Galtine's emerged from every corner and demanded the allegiance of the Wolf-Legions who could no longer attack outward. The empire fell and shattered then, its provinces breaking apart and only surviving in haphazard successor states until only a shadow of the empire remained around the shores of Torcaryne.
Yet this was the thing of millennia, the First Empire of Arawn had already long burned its legacy into the world of Calengwag and through its successors its traditions, mannerisms and customs not only survived but prospered. For those it warred against remembered them just as well. And their maker is recalled too, for on its long journey to its final death in the City-Like-Woods it had founded many other Guilds as it escorted gods and felled devils on its way to this ancient tomb.
4066 - 4758
Type
Geopolitical, Empire
Alternative Names
The First Dawn, The First Empire
Successor Organizations
Demonym
Arawni
Leader Title
Location
Related Traditions
Related Ethnicities
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