The Fall of the Sun Throne

# The Fall of the Sun Throne The year is 1247 by the imperial reckoning, and it is the first of November. For eight hundred years the Empire of the Seven Lights held the continent together with a single church, a single coinage and a single law. Then the Sun Throne burned. The last emperor was crowned in the ruins of his own cathedral, and the courts of the continent have refused to kneel. The old gods have not spoken since the fire. Winter is coming, and every power is counting its grain, its spears and its friends. ## The Powers **Empire of the Seven Lights** (humans, blue). The south-western heartland around Bac Nam Vinh, Quy and Son: rich plains, river towns and a hungry court. Its young emperor holds the capital and little else; his barons obey him only while the grain barges arrive. **Order of the Silver Dawn** (humans, silver). Knight-priests who hold the eastern uplands and the coastal marches. They hold that the empire fell because it grew soft, and that only a crusade can restore the faith. They are the empire's strongest army and its fiercest critics. **League of Free Cities** (humans, teal). Merchant republics on the central rivers around Aous and Mdiq. Neutral by profit, they sell bread, iron and information to everyone. **Sun Caliphate** (humans, amber). Desert and coastal sultanates in the south, around Dalahtafi and Jilat: horse archers, caravans and a court that remembers the empire's old conquests. **Elven High Court** (elves, emerald). The mist marshes and coasts of the north, seat Lindelunonan. Long-lived, proud and divided on whether to help the humans or let them burn. **Wild Court of the Green Mother** (elves, dark green). Exiles and woodland clans of the forests north of the empire, around the Hue and Bac Ninh Ma forests. They worship the forest and hate the High Court's pride. **Dwarf Clans of the Iron Halls** (dwarves, bronze). The western uplands of Heimrol, Kharb and Dugrim. Forge-masters who keep grudges for centuries and guard the old rune-gates against the dragons. **Gnome Tinker League** (gnomes, coral). The high plateau of Dakel and Tagdul in the centre-east: inventors, bridge-builders and arms dealers. They want a war long enough to sell to but not long enough to burn the workshops. **Great Horde** (orcs, dark red). The south-eastern steppe from Kaseem to Hudaybar. Every twentieth winter the clans gather for a Great March; this is that winter. **Beastfolk Clans** (beastfolk, tan). The deep forests of the centre-north around Izoug and Dadeskouyi: wolf, fox and raven clans, cautious mercenaries and guides. **Dragon Crown** (lizardfolk, yellow-green). The western fens around Gomruch and Kuledhelm Marsh. Marsh-priests who say the dragons are gods and that the Crown must serve them. **Quiet Court** (undead, violet). The fog delta of Saouyideq in the north-east. A kingdom of the dead who want neither life nor war, only to be left to their rest; they will fight anyone who disturbs the graves. **Tower Guild of Mages** (humans and others, magenta). Isolated towers (Elwedgrim, Guel Forest and others) whose masters trade spells for secrets and keep the balance of the ether. **Heresy of Silence** (charcoal). Hidden communities in coastal marshes and old ruins who preach that the gods died in the fire and that no one should rule in their name. **Dragon Lairs** (orange-red). Seven ancient dragons sleep or doze in the high peaks: three in the western uplands (Fynzadgiz, Gurunulhe, Kuled) and four in the eastern highlands (Tagdul, Aznakht, Tawnataza, Khoudant). They hold no throne, but each is a power on its own. ## Religion The Seven Lights, the state faith of the empire, teaches that seven gods of sun, flame, tide, wind, stone, life and death watch over the world. Since the fire its church has split between the orthodox clergy of the capital, the knights of the Silver Dawn who want a crusade, and reformers who say the lights have moved on. The Faith of the Ancestors (dwarves and orcs) honours the dead of the clan as spirits that guide their descendants. The Green Mother is the forest the elves serve. The Quiet Faith teaches the dead that rest is holy. The Cult of the Dragon-God claims the dragons are the true gods. The Heresy of Silence teaches that the gods are gone and that no priest has the right to speak for them. ## Magic and the Ether Magic flows from the ether, a tide that rises when great spells are cast and falls in quiet seasons. There are five schools: elements, life, death, mind and runes. Every great working has a price: it raises the world's ether tide, and a high tide wakes the dragons and thins the ward between the living and the dead. The Tower Guild keeps the records of how much magic the world can bear. ## Dragons Seven ancient dragons, each tied to an element and a lair. They are not allies or servants but forces: they may be bargained with, bribed, slain or woken by accident. The Dragon-God cult wants them awake. ## Opening Pressures - The young emperor needs soldiers and the Silver Dawn wants a crusade. Church unity is strained. - The Great Horde is moving north; the Gnome League and the Free Cities fight over who will arm whom. - The ether tide is rising and the dragons are stirring. - The Quiet Court has begun to bury its dead at the borders of the living. - Famine threatens the empire's cities before the thaw. - Two British army corps from 1815, taken from the field of Waterloo by a storm, have appeared in the lowlands of the beastfolk with muskets and guns. Every court wants to know who they are, who sent them and whether they can be hired. ## Wellington's Lost Army On the night of 17 June 1815 a storm over Mont-Saint-Jean carried two corps of Wellington's army, about thirty-two thousand men, into the continent's central lowlands. The I Corps (Prince of Orange) and the II Corps (Lord Hill) hold muskets, field guns, a few hundred horse and a full, loaded baggage train of powder, shot and rations, though no officer can say where in the world they are. They know nothing of the Seven Lights, dragons or elves. The dwarves and the Gnome League covet their guns, the Silver Dawn calls them a sign, and the Tower Guild suspects an ether storm. Their storyline: stretch the full wagons through the winter, decide whether to trade, serve or fight, and look for the storm's origin, which may also be the way home.