Andreji, father of Tukor, reign of the Dark Lands. Tukor had himself three sons and an abandoned daughter because he disdained female heirs he cast her away into the plains. Two of his sons were slain in a raid by the pale men of the north, when they were driven into the Dark Lands by a drought that lasted for 5 years, destroyed most of their live-stock, dried all the rivers of the north. They fled in draughts over the frontier, tattered, sly, worn out from their diet of blood they drew from their cattle. At night they slowly crept up the castle walls in search for food and water. Their limbs were elongated and glistened white in the upcoming moon, but they were weak and with their sticks furnished with sharpened flint stone they were no match for the king’s guard. Still, some of them managed to sneak into royal tract of the castle, moving slowly and silently close to the walls until they met the brothers Tiron and Elion, both thirteen of age, slender, but large for their age, with swords in hand, woken up from the turmoil in the castle. They slained five of the pale men before they were overcome. The pale men seemed to be dissolving from the castle walls, more and more of them pouring out of the draperies, emerge from underneath tables, drop from ceilings, rise from between the planks of the floor. When the king’s guard arrived, they cut through the pale men like weed and found Tiron and Elion slain and covered in their own blood and that of the pale men under a heap of cut off limbs and smashed-in skulls.

Adriel, the remaining third brother was a weakling who had hidden in his bedroom: He had heard the shouts and the battle cries of his brothers, but he was too afraid to go outside. And so his reign took its course.

His father detested him for his survival and so Adriel had had him killed and his body torn and taken  away and scattered in the hills.

Instead of force he relied on his wits and a tireless plotting and scheming to weave a tight net of dependencies to rule the kingdom. He was more into peace than he was into war, war forced his hand and rushed him into decisions. Yet he carried out his war with a fierce, almost reckless rage that threw his men into impossible situations. Yet, more often than not he emerged victorious and brought home with him blazing victories and grew the empire and secured its borders.

The religious zealots.

The guilds.

The traders.

The artists (artists only appear rarely in fantasy novels…)