Scepter of Sovereignty
The story of the Scepter of Sovereignty, also called the Rod of Sovereignty or Sovereignty’s End depending on the translation, is a story based in real history, though the specifics have been heavily romanticized over the thousands of years since the events took place.
It follows the mysterious former Monk of the Metal Paths turned Emperor, Jianguo. The first of several potent magic users who would use their magic to seize power.
The scepter itself is said to have commanded the legendary Bronze Legion, also an invention of Jianguo, which was used by the man to subjugate the many petty kings of the land. The scepter was lost after his eventual death, but the Bronze Warriors have been discovered among older ruins across the eastern continent. Their existence strongly suggests the scepter may have truly existed as well.
Summary
The story goes that Jianguo was orphaned in a war between petty kings and was taken in by the Order of Metal Paths. Raised among the monks on Mount Heixue, Jianguo learned the arts of magic and metallurgy and became a highly competent wizard in his own right. Then one day he left to journey around the continent and offered up his services to the many petty kings of the time. For each one he built several mighty warriors made of bronze that were impossibly strong and invulnerable to all weapons that may be wielded by the hand of a mortal man. Every king who obtained such warriors found themselves at an incredible advantage over their enemies and so each king paid Jianguo incredible riches in exchange for their own armies of bronze men.
In time Jianguo amassed a great fortune and all the kings had hundreds of these immortal warriors fighting at their behest. The warriors, mighty as they were, were unable to damage one another however, causing the endless wars to reach a stalemate. A single bronze warrior could slay entire armies of human soldiers, but because they could not damage one another no king was able to gain a true upper hand over the others without significant numbers. This in turn meant they had to pay Jianguo more and more for additional warriors.
It was then that Jianguo, no longer content with mere wealth, crafted for himself the Scepter of Sovereignty. A weapon that usurped the command of every bronze warrior he had ever forged for the petty kings from them and to himself. Now with an immortal army he conquered all the petty kings and solidified the continent under his tyrannical rule.
What happened next varies based on telling. In most versions Jianguo takes a woman from one of the petty kings to be his concubine as an insult to the defeated. Some say the scepter was stolen from him by the woman when he slept and she hid it away so he could never use it again. Soon after his empire collapsed and he was ultimately executed for his conquests. Others say he made the husband of the woman his cup bearer as an additional insult and was poisoned. The poisoner then stole the scepter and, in his attempt to wield it, accidentally destroyed it for all time. Some versions do not have a woman involved at all and merely say his general mistreatment of the people lead to his cook poisoning his food. In all accounts though, the scepter is stolen or destroyed and the Bronze Legion goes inert. Unable to be roused by the petty kings or their court wizards for all time.
Most early tellings of the story had the moral be about the dangers of the common man rising to power and not knowing what to do with it once they had it. More modern interpretations suggest the story to be about the dangers of tyranny and the importance of treating those who have been defeated with dignity. Some have even suggested it is about the dangers of trusting a woman. Each ending has its own interpretations and are used to sell whatever moral the teller is pushing at the time.
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