Sample Region: Verelanar
The Grand Mistake; Punishment Detail

Until the Apocalypse, the recent history of the Empire had been bright, filled with successes and victories. However, a few exceptions stand out.

Verelanar was one of its greatest failures.

Twenty years before the Apocalypse, the United Kingdoms of Lanar underwent a period of political upheaval as corrupt kings were overthrown by an extensive and well-organized rebellion. The people took control and unified the lands under the banner of Verelanar, or “the True Lanar.” This was no single man or woman, but an ideal, a position that was immediately granted to the most popular member of the rebellion, Gravisk Carr.

Carr quickly consolidated power, and for a few years, Verelanar was almost a paradise. It didn’t seem strange that he immediately opened negotiations with the Ascondean Empire, who graciously offered to send in legionnaires to help rebuild the newly unified nation. Some whispered of the threat of Enlightenment, but Carr assured everyone that once the small garrison from the Tenth Legion had finished rebuilding, they would leave. The long decades of crippling slavery and poverty that the people had experienced under the cruel kings were swept away, and their future looked bright. The Ascondean Empire continued to rebuild, and no one seemed to notice that the Tenth Legion was in no hurry to leave.

It all ended when it became known that the Empire had instigated the glorious rebellion, and Carr had been — and still was — on the Ascondean payroll.

The people were furious. The grand revolution, their proud act of self-determination, had been nothing of the sort. Empowered by the very freedoms that the Empire had secretly sponsored, they rose up once more and murdered Carr, then turned on their liberators.

Because such an act had previously been unthinkable, the Empire’s borders were barely protected. The Tenth Legion had been watching apprehensively as the rioting broke out, reluctant to interfere without clear orders from Ascondea. The people’s army of Verelanar pierced several leagues into the Empire before they were crushed by the legions. Though the “Ten-Hour Invasion” had given them a bit of a scare, more serious was the bright anger and shining hatred they had created in this once-grateful land.

The Empire militarized the borders of Verelanar, put up walls and gates, and then sent in more legionnaires to try to protect the non-armed populace of the shattered country. The Peacekeeper Legion (the Tenth Legion’s ironic nickname) reconciled its position, fortified and got ready for a longer stay than its soldiers could have imagined.

For nearly a decade, the Peacekeeper Legion attempted to control Verelanar with a gentle touch, though the number of injuries and deaths on both sides was enormous. In the years leading up to the Apocalypse, service in the Tenth Legion was considered punishment detail. The Peacekeepers were comprised of the dregs of the legions. Diplomats, merchants and nobles who had earned the ill favor of the Councils were assigned to Verelanar until they had learned their lesson.

The last year before the Apocalypse finally saw the beginnings of an uneasy peace, with outbreaks of violence becoming less common. The population appeared to finally be settling down and coming to terms with the concept of ruling themselves without Ascondean influence.