The High King had long been concerned about the growing and insidious Malgothian canker at the heart of the
Pelorean Empire. The new Emperor Arranius, however, seemed to
be different from his father and grandfather and indeed reminded the High King of some of the more noble
Emperors of the past. Seeing hope therefore he sent one of the great of his realm, his own brother Ethilion, to
be his Ambassador at the court of the Emperor. At first Arranius seemed more than capable of halting the fall
from grace of his line, repealing many of the unjust laws which his father had made. In this he had the support of
his wise and beautiful Queen, Elenore, who disdained the title of Empress and was greatly popular with her subjects. Ethilion swiftly became an ally of the Queen and was deep in all her counsels.
Yet the corruption in the Empire ran deep and the many societies and cults that followed Malgoth were cunning.
Once they understood the agenda of the Emperor some adopted the cause of reform amd justice in order
to gain influence at court. The Queen in truth was not easy to fool but the Empire was large and in
order to deal wisely with many matters either the Emperor or his Queen frequently set up court
in one of the provinces. In addition the nomadic tribes at the edge of the Empire took to raiding
over the border and the Emperor, a great warrior and general, often preferred to take to the field himself to end such threats. The Emperor and his Queen were therefore too often separated by circumstance.
At length both the Emperor and the Queen grew to suspect a single malign influence was at work directing
both internal and external threats to the Empire but they could not agree on its nature. The
Emperor suspected that it was an external military power based in the East, perhaps even the new and burgeoning empire of Kadia. The Emperor and the Queen grew estranged and to her dismay he
surrounded himself with many who favoured a 'Great War' as a solution to the Empire's problems. Even the
Emperor's Chancellor, Raglucius, who the Queen has previously seen as an ally, seemed to support this course of action. The Emperor therefore gathered one of the greatest armies the world had ever seen and marched
into the East, leaving the Queen to rule his troubled Empire alone.
As news of the first victories in the East began to reach the capital, the resourceful Elenore started to plan a new assault on the corruption and insidious treason within the Empire. All her plans, however, were postponed by the widespread failure of crops in the provinces due to
a disasterously cold and wet summer. The Queen began distributing food reserves but many still went hungry. She sent messages to the Emeperor begging him to abandon his campaign without any effect. The famine she found out was engulfing the lands in the East also and the Emperor was having difficulty keeping his army fed.
Winter in the North of the Empire that year was harsh and many perished. In the South there was a different
problem for the rains failed in the spring leading again to crop failure in the some of the most
fertile provinces of the Empire. Dark rumours began to surface from the East that the Emperor's campaign
had turned brutal and whole cities were being put to the sword. In the summer Raglucius, who had travelled
East with the Emperor, returned to the Empire but instead of going to the capital he toured
the provinces spreading dissent and blaming the Queen for hoarding food for her favourites. He then raised
an army to march on the capital lying to his followers that the Emperor wished the Queen deposed but abandoned it as soon as it clashed with the Queen's troops and an
assassination attempt on the Queen failed.
Leaving the aftermath of the battle to her generals, the Queen gathered a small group
around her including Ethilion in the hope of capturing Raglucius and uncovering the details of the
plot against the Empire. As they hunted the treasonous advisor across the lands of the Empire, however, they began to realise he was deliberately leaving a trail in the hope no doubt of leading them into a trap. In the end they confronted Raglucius deep beneath the surface of the earth and he was revealed as a lieutenant
of Malgoth of great power. Sadly the heroic Ethilion died in the battle but Raglucius was defeated and
the Queen sealed his tomb.
The Queen returned to the capital hoping that the death of the demon would undo whatever baleful
magic he had worked. The creeping cold did not end, however, and a deepening haze permanently obscured
the sun. She therefore took counsel with the High King and their combined might pierced the shadows
in the East revealing that the Emperor himself had been taking part in dark rituals that were powered
by human sacrifice on a hideous scale in order to keep his campaign moving East. The High King
and the Queen immediately travelled to the East to confront the Emperor in the ancient
city of Ugrash. They arrived too late, however, to save either the Emperor or Empire.
A final ritual
in which more than a hundred thousand souls had died meant that a new age of cold and ice was now
irreversible. The Emperor himself, realising he had been betrayed, took up again the sword that
Elinore had given him as a wedding gift, though it now scorched his hands, and he slew all the cultists
who had been his counsellors before being overwhelmed by their followers. His generals, however,
had then purged the army of the followers of Malgoth before moving their troops to the east to
assault Kadia itself.
The Queen buried her husband and retrieved his sword vowing that it would be ever used on the followers of Malgoth and she and the High King returned to the capital to find it abandoned.
Knowing that each of them must now look to see what could be salvaged from their realms the Queen and the
High King parted company and little is known of her subsequent movements. It is said
that she led a caravan of refugees to
Aratola which alone of the provinces still had a functioning government and
she deposited there many of the treasures of the realm. She also led a group of monks to the southern city of Petta and there founded a monastery to which she entrusted many of the artefacts of the Pelorean Church.
She had borne a single daughter to the Emperor as was common with her line but neither she nor her daughter laid claim to any province or
holding in the disintegrating Empire. Her line which had endured for thousands of years went into the shadows where it may still now
endure.