The Empire

A conqueror’s realm, fracturing among his heirs.

The Palatine Empire was forged in a single lifetime. A king of a small mountain kingdom led an expedition into a long-lost magical stronghold and returned with the secret of the Palatine Knights — twelve suits of enchanted stone, bonded to twelve paladins. At the head of that army the kingdom swept outward and built an empire that swallowed a dozen older realms.

It has been coming apart ever since.

A Realm Coming Apart

The empire’s undoing was the same as every conqueror’s: too many heirs, and no firm law of succession. The first emperor’s sons built coalitions against one another and against their father; treaties split the realm and were broken; a third son, a new wife, a disputed will. The brothers died and passed their claims to their sons, and those to theirs. Today three lines all style themselves Rex Magnus — High King — and not one can make the title stick.

So men swear loyalty to lords rather than to any single crown. A noble may hold three titles and owe fealty to two rival claimants. Imperial authority is real on paper and thin on the ground, and thinnest of all out on the frontier — which is exactly where your company rides.

(For the full chronology — the Fall of the Gods through the present succession wars — see the Timeline ».)

The Kingdoms

The empire is a patchwork of successor kingdoms, each with its own peoples, traditions, and grudges — Talins, Severni Mars, the imperial heartland of Voznia, and the more distant realms beyond. The orders draw knights from all of them, and from lands the empire never conquered at all.

[ Insert map of the Palatinate here — the contested border between Talins and Severni Mars, with Talinsthorpe and the frontier cities marked. ]

The War on the Border

The game itself plays out on a narrow strip of contested ground between Talins and Severni Mars. The Orders are forbidden from ruling territory in their own name, so they fight through proxies — backing one lord’s claim against another’s, never holding a keep themselves:

The Order of Saatti backs the lords of Talinsthorpe, a dynasty that won Talins by conquest and has never fully digested it — well-armored, disciplined, slow to forgive. Their proxies hold the roads.
The Order of Agilaz backs rival claimants pressing down out of Severni Mars — fierce, fast, and hungrier than their enemies expect. Where Saatti consolidates, Agilaz raids.

Every company working this border is eventually asked to take a side, or has one chosen for it.

Wizards and the Sacred

There is no organized faith in the Palatine Empire. What passes for the sacred is older and stranger — wayside idols, folk charms, the uneasy sense of something watching from the deep forest. The roles other ages give to priests belong here to the Tower Wizards, with their traditions of fire, lightning, and protection: they counsel lords and peasants alike, read omens, and hold the knowledge of how the world works. It is their craft that shapes and consecrates the knights’ golems — no wizard, no knight.

Beneath the wizards and the knights stand the retinue: the common soldiery of the empire — footmen, archers, light horse. Against a Palatine Knight they are nearly powerless, so they serve more as constables, scouts, and skirmishers. But it is the retinue who hold the towns, escort the caravans, and bleed in the empire’s smaller wars.

Explore the encyclopedia

The peoples, powers, and places of the empire:

Wizards » — the Tower Wizards and their traditions
Retinue » — the common soldiery and how they are raised
Regions » — the kingdoms and lands of the Palatinate
Cities » — Talinsthorpe and the towns of the frontier