The Emperor of Nothing

Discovery

I am the true emperor of Marmori; I am Stavros the Scarred, Gaze upon the wonders of my works, ye manlings, and despair! Nowhere else are their hills as emerald as these, Nowhere else can one look upon the splendor of our palaces of marble and granite, Know well that the enemies of Marmori will fall before my unrelenting might, And let the land before serve as a reminder to my greatness

- Excerpt from the poem Stavros by Antonis Asher

In the salted lands of Marmori there is a massive granite statue that stands five stories in height. The monument is that of a man dressed in fine robes with an antiquated helmet and a spear clutched in his hand. Solemn, the soot-stained marble man overlooks a wasteland with dust kicking up into small cyclones amidst puddles of mud and gray water. In the visible distance are the jagged remains of a great palace. Time was cruel to Marmori and so to was the man who once represented this great edifice to folly. The first explorers from the High Plains discovered this statue, fearing that it may become animate and crush them. It was no giant, however, and was merely a memorial to what stood before; before the wastes.

Speculation

Many explorers and historians wager that the people of Marmori were significantly larger than humans and this gargantuan statue (which is nearly impossible to create even now) is a testament to the size of the Marmorians. This statue is only one example of their size as each and every one of the remaining edifices seemed to stand well over two stories in height. A famous writer, Antonis Asher, has named the statue Stavros and created a poem about the irony of the statue's existence.