Throntorian Empire
From Codex Vocrotha
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Foundations of Empire
Around 2395 DR, the Adaric Archipelagos was destroyed by a great conflagration when the volcano, Uladír, erupted in a blast of Vesuvian intensity. The Archipelagos had, until that point, been the sanctuary from which many thousands had fled the Nightmare Imperium on Dalkiar, and the many refugees who fled the destruction by boat decided that they were done with running, and would return to Dalkiar, to face the Warlord down and re-take their homes.
With the leaders of the archipeligos dead, victims of their own political short-sightedness, a Tenebriel named Eredil Lantradi began to organize the refugees even as they made their long voyage back to Dalkiar. Though the Solindriel among them resented him, as many blamed the Tenebriel for the evils that had wracked the archipeligos prior to its destruction, they also realized the need for a strong leader, and none were more effective or charismatic than Eredil. Thus they submitted to his effective rule, throwing their support behind him despite their fears -- even, in some cases, acknowledging that strength, not morality, would be the key to defeating the Warlord after a thousand years of rule.
Thus, when they made landfall on Dalkiar around 2400 DR, it was Eredil who wore the mantle of Field Marshall. His very presence in the darkness of the Nightmare Imperium was a beacon to those who strove under the weight of the Warlord's oppression, and as his military force began to win engagements against the Warlord (and thus territories and recruits to his effort) he began to earn a new title: The Liberator.
Rise of the Empire
Eredil was as clever as he was charismatic; his initial forays against the Twin Emperors earned him many converts at little cost to his own forces, as the Imperial army was complacent and its citizens, repressed for too long, prime for rebellion. His initial target, Highbranch, was freed quickly, earning him troops of Solindriel fighters and wizards, and Kâlindival covert agents and fabricators. Once it became clear that his aim was to free those made slaves under the Warlord's rule, he gained the support of the numerous slaves, at least two errant Champions of the Lords of Light, and a sizeable fifth column of soldiers that could no longer bear the draconian policies of the Nightmare Imperium. Despite extreme measures by the Warlord and the Archmage, including the terror of Ændorl, Eredil triumphed, slaying the Archmage Argauld Alearian and scattering the main body of the Warlord's army at the Battle of Erith Chasm in 2573 DR. His empire crumbled and his armies lost, Daln disappeared, and Eredil, riding the spirit of the moment, was declared Emperor by popular opinion and given the responsibility of rebuilding the land.
Imperial Rule
From the end of this, the first Daloric War, in 2573 DR, and for three hundred more years, Eredil ruled with a benevolent but firm hand and proved his worthiness as Emperor many times over. The few Kâlindur left from the ethnic cleansing on Dalkiar during the Nightmare Imperium joined together and created for Eredil a grand city, Throntor, which formed the center for this new empire: by the time it was complete, there was no question that it was the single most beautiful city ever built. Eredil's conscious choice to name his Empire after his city and not himself was indicative of his deep desire to provide for his people; if he had a failing during his rule, it was his complete intolerance of the Lords of Night and their religion, which he banished bloodily and decisively wherever he could root it out.
Fall of the Empire
Unfortunately, it was this intolerance that ultimatley proved the Empire's weakness. Though it took three hundred years, the Warlord Paldor Daln took a page from the Emperor's book, collected those oppressed by the Liberator and trained his slowly growing network of rebels into an elite military force, melding magic and fighting skills into a deadly whole. When he revealed himself in 2890 DR, the Empire was at its cultural apex, but its armies had largely devolved into local police forces, and its relations with its outlying regions had strained the resources of the Empire to their breaking point. Seizing the opportunity, Daln's army cut a bloody swath through the Empire, forming alliances with the enemies of Eredil Lantradi and smashing through the unprepared forces of the Empire. Within a year Daln had reached the gates of Throntor herself, but he found that breaking the crystal city was another matter entirely. For fifty years, Throntor was a city under siege, slowly spending all its strength in the fight against the Warlord.
In desperation, and no doubt with a desire to rid the world of the Warlord forever no matter what the cost, Eredil took up one of the great Runes and in 2941 DR wrought devastation over his city and the enemy in a conflagration that not only ended the Fifty Year Siege decisively, but also killed himself and all of his own soldiers, slew all the Warlord's forces, and turned the surrounding countryside from a lush, verdant place into the Crystal Sea. Of Throntor, all that survived was the Warrens, a series of tunnels and dungeons deep beneath the city; even the very mountain Throntor had been built into was levelled by the destruction, and Erith Chasm was rendered all but inaccessible by debris and fused glass.
Eredil's heir, Zardim Lantradi, had been smuggled east to Malthar several years prior, but he would never regain the beauty, might or knowledge that the Throntorian Empire had attained. Perhaps knowing this, when he began the effort to rebuild the nation from its ashes, he did not resurrect the name of Throntor, instead declaring his holdings the Maltharian Kingdom and naming himself King, not Emperor.
