February 2018 Challenge: The Prophecy of the Two Roses
"When the Black Hare flees, and the Spider eclipses the Yellow Towers, the Empire of Roses shall be sundered."
The lands of Nai are rich in prophets, oracles, and soothsayers. From the grand temples and monasteries of the Four Elementals, to the Ghostmen of the great steppes, and from the ancestral shrines in every family's home to the Pagan Quarters of the great coastal cities, prophecies abound. Scarcely a week goes by in Imperial Tonquai, for example, without a prophecy causing a run on the grain markets because famine has been predicted. False prophets compete in the market squares from Outer Sobek to Vlekistan, and monks and witch-women the world over have predicted the downfall of civilization a thousand times over.
But sometimes the prophets speak truth, and sometimes that truth spells disaster. The monks of the Daroo Monastery in southern Baalsheth, for example, have long been famed for producing prophecies that bear fruit. Nearly a hundred years ago, a Daroo Monk whose name has been lost to history produced a series of prophecies that alarmed then-king Tairlanga. A superstitious man, Tairlanga was alerted to the Daroo Prophecies when it became evident to certain people that the divinations might speak of the king's own children. Twelve year-old Prince Idris, the heir to the throne, was already known as the Hare due to his unfortunate buck-teeth, and Idris's younger twin sisters, one pale as snow, one a fiery redhead, were already being referred to as the Twin Roses.
Tairlanga and his advisors had little success in translating the prophecy, and rather than let the wider world know about it and possibly spark the very war the prophecy seemed to suggest, they suppressed the entire group of prophecies. The unknown prophet disappeared, possibly into an imperial dungeon, and any monk or other person who might have possibly known about the prophecies was paid off, coerced, threatened or disappeared. In time, the minor ripples caused by the prophecies subsided and vanished. Almost twenty years passed.
Eventually Tairlanga grew old and died, and Prince Idris, now known as the Black Hare, took the throne of the Empire of Baalsheth. Idris was a weak king, more interested in study and mage-lore than he was in ruling an empire. His sisters, on the other hand, had a great interest in anything that could increase their personal power. Since childhood, Princesses Gorsha and Darquani had been rivals. Both were weak in Elemental Magic where their brother was strong. Jealous of Idris and each other, the Twin Roses turned towards... alternative means. The Brotherhood of Dreams, a sect who worshipped a 'Great Darkness' that they claimed lay behind the very walls of the universe, was growing in numbers throughout the Baalsheth Empire, displacing and usurping many of the roles traditionally filled by the Priests of the Elementals.
A necromancer called Aulek Sheng went in secret to each of the Princesses and gained their trust. Over several years, his influence grew in each sister's court - Gorsha in the west, Darquani in the east - and the sisters became powerful necromancers. King Idris remained largely ignorant of his sisters' mastery of the black magics and the machinations of Aulek Sheng, both in his sisters' households, and his own. Eventually the Twin Roses created a pact, whereby they would assassinate their brother and jointly rule the empire after he was gone. But Darquani, the White Rose, pale and mad, attempted to kill two birds with one stone. She sent assassins not only to end her brother's life, but Gorsha's as well. Both attempts failed. The sisters each declared themselves Queen and marched on the Imperial capital, Tonquai. Idris fled south over the mountains with a small army to the steppes of Vlekistan, where he was well-respected.
The Imperial Civil War lasted over a decade and caused such widespread devastation over the continent of Nai that the period was called The Sundering.
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Sorry for the wall of text.
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Originally Posted by Kelleri
