When I heard Oblivion was going to be set in Cyrodiil, I was really hoping that some of the in game books would give us more details about the lives of each of the Emperors and the political history of Tamriel. I was pretty disappointed when it turned out we didn't get any expansion on the history of the Empire at all. I've always been interested in historical writing, so back in 2006 I thought I'd go ahead and try my hand at writing a more detailed history of the Empire, roughly in the style of the ancient Roman historians. The idea was to expand on the game universe using A Brief History of the Empire as a general outline.

It's been three years of a sentence here and a sentence there, but thanks to some recent free time I've finally had the chance to finish the thing. I guess this would be classified as "fan-lore" rather than "fan-fiction" since it's not a narrative story in the usual sense. I tried to create a real document that might exist in the ES world. Since this is a fan made political history of a made up empire I can understand that it probably won't appeal to all tastes, but it's not going to do me any good sitting on my hard drive.

I tried to pick a period of Tamriel's history that will probably never get touched on by the main games and not to unintentionally contradict any lore; still, this is strictly AU stuff. I'll go ahead and post the first bit to give an idea of what the project is, and if there's any interest I'll put the rest up.

Hope you guys like it!

The Heirs of the Dragon Throne
A History

Dedicated to Her Great and Terrible Majesty the Empress Katariah Septim, Eastern-Born Queen of the World and Delight of Cyrodiil; Chosen by Alessia; Blessed by Akatosh and the Divines

From the hand of
Alexius Sydonus

Chief Secretary to Her Majesty Katariah Septim
Chair, Histories and Antiquities, Imperial University
Imperial City, Cyrodiil

21 Frost Fall, 168

To Her Most Highly Favored and Learned Majesty, I humbly submit my history.

Preface

Unlike the poet and the playwright, the historian cannot rely on flowery metaphors or dramatic invention to tell the tales of the past. Instead, the primary asset of the historian is truth. To tell a true history, to paint true portraits of the players that walk at the heels of the gods across the stage of the Empire of Tamriel, the writer must live in an environment that welcomes and embraces truth, be it ugly or glorious. For too long, scholarship has been discouraged or ignored by those in power. Now, at long last, thanks to the generous patronage of Her Most Learned and Benevolent Majesty Katariah Septim, I have the opportunity to leave for posterity a true record of the events that have brought us to this most enlightened age.

In writing my history, I have chosen to focus on the lives of those men and women who have occupied the Dragon Throne since the death of Tiber Septim nearly 130 years ago. This is not, however, the kind of poorly written collection of anecdotes and sixual scandals that so often passes for biography. Thanks to the grace of Her Majesty, I have been given extensive access to the Imperial Archives, where I have combed the records of each and every emperor so that we might gain a greater understanding of their life and times.

In completing this work I have not relied on sources from the Imperial Archives alone. I have been blessed with the opportunity to accompany the Empress in her frequent travels across Tamriel. Our Empress, unable to resist her own love of knowledge, made sure that no library in any city in any part of the Empire, large or small, was unavailable to me. I have made good use of these sources to bring each and every emperor and empress to life with a vividness never before attempted. In all, this work has been over ten years in the writing, and I fervently hope that it is received with the same passion as my previous endeavor, the seven-volume Travels in the Aldmer Lands.

Tragically, the men and women who preceded Katariah to the Dragon Throne did not always share her insatiable appetite for truth. Many records have been destroyed or otherwise lost, particularly for the emperors and empresses who reigned before the devastating Civil War of 121-137. For these great men and women, I have tried to paint as full a life as possible, and I believe that my work, paltry though it may be, has far surpassed that of any previous historian in revealing the details of their reigns. As we grow closer to our own happy era, naturally, the sources become fuller, and my own personal experience helps to augment the later biographies.

These are not biographies in the sense that has become traditional, that is, gossip sheets about those in power. Though I pay significant attention to the personal life of each Septim, I do not exclude the social, political, and economic situations of the era in which they ruled, as long as it deepens our understanding of that particular emperor or empress. By way of example, it would be impossible to understand the reigns of Kintyra II, Uriel Mantiarco, and Cephorus without at least a cursory overview of the battles of the Civil War. That said, I shall also endeavor not to be bogged down with the minutia of every battle, skirmish, Elder Council debate, or policy change. You will find no detailed accounts of the Imperial treasury year by year, nor an account of every goblin raid on every farm in every corner of the Empire. Such a task would be beyond the scope of the historian, and, indeed, beyond the threshold of readability.

When Her Eternal Majesty Katariah first suggested that I would be the scholar best suited to undertake such an important task, I was of course honored to take up the charge, difficult though I knew it would be. My only condition, one to which the Empress gladly acquiesced, was that I be given total freedom to tell the truth, no matter how disturbing or unpleasant. This is a story of wars and death, blood and treachery, power and corruption. Occasionally a light shines through, but on the whole the years from Pelagius I to Pelagius III were dark, dismal, and dangerous. There were times when it seemed the dream of the great Talos would be lost forever in a hive of personal ambition and mistaken politics. It was left to our Radiant Queen to right the wrongs of the past and finally break the bloody circle that seemed to trap so many of our leaders in its spin.

My story, then, for all its darkness, is not a tragedy. The presence of our Divine Empress hovers over each word, and every tale of woe is softened by the knowledge that our own enlightened era lies just beyond the horizon. Before we arrive at the story of our Illustrious Empress, however, we must first swim backwards into the past. Tiber Septim's life is already known to every inhabitant of Nirn, from infant to ancient, sload to snake-man. I begin my account, then, with the life of his grandson Pelagius. Julianos guide my pen as I travel back to that rainy autumn night in 3E 38 when the resolute Talos finally breathed his last.

Pelagius I
Part 1

It was the 19th of Sun's Dusk in the year 38, and Tiber Septim was dead. As the news spread from village to village, city to city, a great cry of mourning went up from the entire population of Tamriel. He had ruled over them for seventy years; none but the mer and the ancient General Talos himself could remember life before the Empire of Tamriel. Even if reports of the Emperor's age are exaggerated (existing sources make him over 107 years old) the once great general had been in fading health for years, and had long since become a pale reflection of his past glory. Government rested in the hands of the Elder Council and Tiber's 35 year old grandson, Pelagius.

Even at the end of Tiber's long reign there were strong elements of dissent in the Empire. Long masked by Septim's statesmanship, these conflicts threatened to tear into open rebellion, and there was a good chance that the Septim line may have been snuffed out before it could begin?a brief light in an age of chaos all too quickly squandered. The provinces yearned for greater independence, the Colovians yearned to turn Septim's enlightened government into a petty dictatorship, and the Elder Council yearned to eliminate the position of emperor altogether and rule Tamriel themselves.

Now Pelagius was not a particularly gifted man. He was Tiber's heir not because of his quality, which was limited, but because of blood and blood alone. But he knew that if he did not act immediately, the Empire of Tamriel might well be forfeit. His position as successor was not disputed by those loyal to Tiber nor the Imperial legions. Most of the detractors were within the Elder Council and the provincial governments. Though he could perhaps have secured the Empire's loyalty by military might, he instead chose the wiser course and appealed directly to the people of the Imperial City. It has become more cosmopolitan in our present day, but at the time the city was still mostly Nibenean, and, as it has long been said, it is we Nibeneans who are the soul of the Septim Empire.

Pelagius chose Tiber Septim's funeral to make his appeal to the people. This was a ceremony unlike any ever seen in Tamriel, and one unlikely ever to be seen again. Pelagius and the Imperial family began at the Temple of the One, where Pelagius became the first emperor to light the Dragonfires. Tiber Septim's reconstruction of the Temple of the One, begun twenty years earlier on the derelict chapel in the oldest district of the Imperial City, was still in progress, and signs of construction were everywhere. By Pelagius' death the aged structure would be transformed into a shining example of Imperial power. Tiber had intended the temple as a symbol of his special relationship with Akatosh, the Dragonfires themselves a symbol of the eternal safety of Cyrodiil under Septim rule. It was only with Kintyra I that the ceremony came to be associated with the Imperial coronation itself.

The flames lit, Pelagius and the Imperial family walked in a procession behind the Dragon Guard and the Emperor's pallbearers, who carried Tiber's body on a bier down the massive steps of the temple to a waiting golden skiff. Pelagius and the other high ranking government officials assembled in three boats behind the Emperor's, and together they sailed up and down the canols of the City. Black flags were flown from every balcony, while on the shores of the lake the river dragons moaned in their otherworldly chorus of lament. From every house on every bridge that crisscrossed the great lake, men, women, and children came forth, tear soaked and shaking, to say goodbye to their emperor. They had never known a world ruled by any other. Some sang, some prayed, some just stared and wept.

There is no doubt in my mind that Pelagius was intimidated by the ceremony. While most of the attention was focused on the Emperor's body, laid out as it was like a Nordic hero with the spoils of life arranged around him, many must have also wondered about the young man in the boat behind him. This man was not Tiber Septim?how could he be expected to lead them? For the first man to attempt to follow in Tiber's footsteps, the pressure must have been overwhelming.

These thoughts swam in Pelagius' mind as the procession reached the north shore of the lake, where all disembarked and continued up the hill to Tiber's new mausoleum. This remains, behind the Temple of the One, the most glorious sight in the City. Any traveler visiting the City owes it to themselves to visit the Mausoleum of the Septims at least once. The wondrous top floor is open to all, though the lower burial chambers, of course, are only accessible by Her Most Learned Majesty. I would not, however, be doing my duty as a historian if I failed to point out that Talos made sure his own mausoleum was completed well before his death, while the Temple of the One sat unfinished. But let that not weaken the moment.

As it was that night, just finished and about to receive its first tenant, the mausoleum must have been especially magnificent. Built into a tall hill overlooking the city proper, where the small Sercen River pours into Lake Rumare, the building is a masterpiece of Imperial architecture. Nine golden domes cover nine connected chapels, made of brick but covered with the finest gold and marble. The domes represent the nine provinces of Tamriel; inside, each chapel is decorated from floor to ceiling with vibrant mosaics depicting scenes from the history of each province. Eight of the chapels contain a statue of one of the Divines, while the 9th and largest, the Temple of Cyrodiil, holds a beautiful marble sculpture of Tiber Septim himself.

Outside, the structure is every bit as spectacular. The river is channeled into the complex through a series of aqueducts. It flows through gardens and around the buildings in thin canols crisscrossed by low bridges before finally dropping off the side of the hill in a two hundred foot high waterfall. That night every candle inside the mausoleum was lit, and so the stained glass windows shone in the rising moonlight, cascading their reflections in a million colors out across the silvery surface of Lake Rumare. Many had gathered on the lake in their boats, while many more still stood on the bridges and towers of the Imperial City proper, clutching torches to light up the night. All of Lake Rumare glowed with the light of the heavens, tiny stars flickering, dancing along the face of the water.

In sight of all, Tiber's body was placed in its golden sarcophagus. With the lid closed, Pelagius gazed out at the tens of thousands of lights that shone across the city. He smiled, raised his own torch, and began to speak:


Having thus spoken, Pelagius extinguished his torch while the immediate company did the same. All around the lake, torches were snuffed one by one until the entire Rumare Basin was in darkness. Tiber's body was silently carried into the Mausoleum and away from the eyes of his subjects for the last time. Though they still held their resentments, opponents to the Septim line could now only watch as Pelagius was swept up in a wave of cheers. It was a stunning political triumph and a sad portent for the future, when emperor after emperor would make speech after speech extolling their love for Septim in place of actual governance. Whether this was genuine emotion, however, or a clever bit of political maneuvering, the day after the ceremony Pelagius was in total control of the Elder Council and the hearts of his people. He was crowned in the Temple of the One and officially became Emperor of all Tamriel, a job for which he had been preparing much of his life.

Pelagius I
Part 2
Pelagius was born under the sign of the Steed in the third year of the Septim Era to Tiber Septim II and his wife, the Breton queen Soshanna of Northpoint. This marriage had been arranged by Tiber Septim not long after Hammerfell joined the Empire, and was by no accounts a happy one. Tiber II was a cunning warrior and well regarded by the aristocracy of the Imperial City, but he was also cruel, quick tempered, and disdainful of learning and the arts. The Emperor was at all times patient and admiring of his son in public, but there are certain indications that Septim's faith in his offspring was not absolute. Tiber II was never allowed an active role in government, though ceremonial positions were lavished upon him. The young man grew frustrated and abusive, and he in turn treated his own son and wife with nothing but scorn. Still, records show letter after letter written from Tiber to Shoshanna, insisting that Tiber II would eventually grow into a strong and decent man.

Tiber's hopes were never realized, for Tiber Septim II fell from his horse while hunting in the Colovian Highlands in the ninth year of the Third Era and died soon after. No account survives of Talos' reaction to the loss of his son. We must of course take with a grain of salt the rumors had Tiber had any hand is his son's death. Though there was no love lost between father and son, there was also no real affection by Tiber for Pelagius, so it is difficult to see what the Emperor would have had to gain by the murder of his own son. Tiber II was an embarrassment for certain, but this does not make the Emperor a murderer.

Pelagius was only five years old when his father mysteriously perished, and from that moment on he was heir-apparent to the Septim Empire. Unlike so many later princes, Pelagius had a devoted and caring mother in Soshanna, and she made his welfare and education her first priority. He grew into a handsome, straightforward, and personable young man. Though deeply affected by his mother's death in 3E 20, he did not have long to grieve. Only three weeks later Tiber made arrangements for Pelagius to serve as a captain in the legion, and the sixteen year old was soon shipped off to the garrison at Rimen to begin his military career.

Pelagius rose quickly through the ranks, and by the time he was twenty five he was promoted to Grand Marshall of the Ruby Legion, giving him command of the entire Imperial military force throughout Tamriel. Since the Empire was at peace, this post was largely ceremonial. Pelagius did his duty, but his life must have been dreadfully dull. Tiber's gaze was constantly upon him, and he never had a chance to become his own man. In practice, Pelagius spent most of his time in the Imperial City, attending games and parades as a figurehead while Tiber grew increasingly elderly and feeble. By the 30th year of the Third Era, Pelagius had assumed most of his grandfather's public functions.

The two men were apparently on adequate terms until Pelagius chose for his bride Julia Brica, a distant relative of the Reman line (or so her family claimed) who was at that time little more than a farm girl in a dilapidated manor outside the City. Pelagius adored her and lavished gifts upon her, but Tiber sought to kill the relationship before it could begin. When the Imperial mages (under Septim's employ) showed supposed proof that Brica would be unable to conceive a child, the Emperor threatened to disinherit Pelagius in favor of his nephew Uriel, son of his brother Agnorith. Julia, however, was loved by the people as one of their own, and when she was introduced to the City her popularity rivaled that of Tiber's. Tiber knew better than to act against such strong public opinion, so despite his grandfather's wishes Pelagius married Julia Brica in the Temple of the One in the year 33.

Pelagius and Tiber never fully reconciled, though by the time of the wedding the old man could do little more than complain. As he aged Tiber became more and more concerned with issues of religious minutia, and so Pelagius governed while Tiber faded away in the palace, surrounded by priests and prelates from every cult in Tamriel. Because Pelagius himself had no interest in or understanding of religious matters, he and his famous grandfather had little, if anything, to talk about in those last years. Tiber never again threatened to disinherit him. Uriel had died, leaving his daughter Kintyra as the only other real choice for successor. Either Tiber saw the Pelagius as a better option than his uncontrollably wanton cousin Kintyra, or he had grown too senile to take any interest in the very empire he had created.

After Septim's death, Pelagius focused on maintaining the system his grandfather had put in place. It has undergone slight changes since then, so it may be wise to spare a few brief words on the government Pelagius inherited. As our Most Wise Empress has always understood, Tiber's government was based not on subjugation but assimilation, using the wealth and power of the Imperial bureaucracy to make life better for all the provinces. There was a great deal of opposition to this in Tiber's day, so he did not enjoy the same success in bringing the virtues of Nibenean culture to the world that Katariah does today. Nevertheless, he endeavored to make each of the provinces as independent as possible, while still of course paying their fare share in men and money. To reassure the provinces that their voices were heard, Tiber worked tirelessly to expand and refine the Elder Council.

Initially the Council was nothing more than a set of Colovian nobles who met to adjudicate their petty wars. Tiber added prominent Nordic, Breton, and Nibenean members. As each province joined the empire, prominent nobility were offered the opportunity to sit on the Council. By the beginning of the Current Era, the Council had over five hundred members, and every race in Tamriel save the hated Orcs was represented. (The issue of Orcish membership has come up again in our own time. Owing to the beneficence of Her Majesty, an Orc warlord Grummak served as a junior member of the council for three months in 159. He soon resigned after a war broke out between Orcish tribes in High Rock, and has not been heard from since.)

At the start of the Third Era, the Elder Council was little more than a board of advisors to the Emperor, though he made sure to listen patiently to each of their arguments before acting. To each member he was respectful and courteous, and soon he allowed them almost total authority of the civil affairs of the City. As he slipped away into old age the Council gained more and more governmental authority. By the reign of Pelagius the Council presented motions, debated policy, and passed laws on their own, all under the independent authority of the Imperial Chancellor. (In the early days of the Empire, the now defunct position of Imperial Battlemage and Imperial Chancellor were considered one and the same, so the legendary Zurin Arctus is generally thought of as the first chancellor. This practice ended with the ascension of the decidedly non-magical Altmer Calodiil to the chancellorship.)

Pelagius preferred the wider empire to the cramped quarters of the City, and his major achievements were diplomatic. It is said that Pelagius twice met in council with the man gods of Morrowind to ensure the peaceful incorporation of that region into the Empire, and on many occasions treated with Akaviri emissaries, guaranteeing good relations with the snake-men for generations to come. (Though tensions remain, traders have moved back and forth from eastern Tamriel to western Akavir with relative ease since the close of the Civil War.) Of his great building projects there has of course been endless documentation. Suffice to say that he continued his grandfather's program of beautifying the Imperial City, culminating in the unveiling of the new Temple of the One in 3E 40.

The Emperor was a good man, devoted to his wife and to his city, but his weaknesses were also many. Chief among them was his disinterest in the practical matters of government. He let the Council make laws and do much of the actual ruling of the Empire, while he was content to build, make speeches to the army, and appear in parades. Like his father, he had a great love of hunting and drink, though never to excess, and unlike his father he was nothing but loving towards his wife, who was herself beloved by the people like no consort would be for many years, perhaps until the marriage of Pelagius III to our own adored Katariah.

In the late summer of 41, Pelagius arranged for a great, weeklong festival in honor of the ancient custom of Harvest's End. (He was a lover of festivals, and his agents were always searching the ancient records for any new festival that might be dusted off and celebrated anew.) People paraded through the streets in colorful costumes while the taverns and inns swarmed with revelers in search of a free drink. The celebration was a great success, and on the final day, the 29th of Last Seed, Pelagius went with Julia Brica in a great parade to the Temple of the One to give thanks to the Divines for the harvest. As the Emperor kneeled in prayer, a Dark Brotherhood assassin disguised as a temple novice burst forth and slit Emperor Pelagius' throat with one slash of his ebony dagger. Julia Brica rushed to her husband, but the damage was done. He gasped out a few unintelligible words before dying in her arms.

The assassin (later identified as one Fadus Rian of Bravil) did not protest when the Dragon Guard ran him through?in fact, he seemed content. Meanwhile, the Empress was inconsolable and had to be dragged screaming from the temple. Images of Julia Brica cradling the dying Pelagius in her arms and weeping before the Dragonfires are commonplace in Imperial art to this day. Some, such as the great statue in Green Emperor Way, must even come close to capturing the horror of that terrible moment. The assembled crowd began to get wind of what had happened, and the whole city was thrown into a panic. At the order of the Elder Council, a nearby legion detachment was brought in to maintain order.

Pelagius' main policy, like Tiber's, had always been integration, especially of the conquered Aldmeri Dominion. This policy frequently met resistance from some of the older families of Skyrim and Colovia who considered the elves little more than beasts. These individuals saw the provinces as simply a means of making money for Cyrodiil, and had no interest in their welfare. It is obvious that the assassination of Pelagius I was planned by one of these families, who hoped that the Emperor's death might open the door for a harsher treatment of the conquered lands and greater prosperity for the Colovian Estates.

If the conspirators believed that the assassination would change things they were badly mistaken. Public support rallied immediately behind Julia Brica, who supported Kintyra Septim, Tiber's closest living relative, as Pelagius' successor. Opposition to the Septim dynasty in Cyrodiil was wiped out for good. During the early months of Kintyra's reign, any voices of dissent were accused of complacency in Pelagius' assassination and immediately silenced.

Pelagius lived 37 years, 2 months, and ten days, having reigned for just less than three of those years. In appearance he looked much like his famous grandfather, although shorter and with lighter hair. Also, whereas Tiber always kept his own beard closely cropped, Pelagius allowed his to grow long, as was the style in those days. He left behind no children. Upon his assassination he was succeeded without any vocal opposition by his cousin Kintyra, also 37 years old and a granddaughter of Tiber Septim's brother, Agnorith. Pelagius was the only direct descendant of Tiber Septim to sit on the Dragon Throne. While he did no good for the Empire, he also did it no harm.

Most interesting!

is there any more to this little History?

Plenty more, trust me. I think this opening bit was probably a bit too long at first glance, so I'm playing with the lengths of some of the others. I'll try to put up Kintyra I by the weekend.

Only read the first entry so far, but I like your style and hope to read the rest when I have time. Keep it up, lol, I like long and detailed reads.

More! i think its interesting to read others thoughts,opinions (etc,etc...) on the Empire!

Excellent! The Katariah thing grabbed me, and I read on from there. The girl in my picture is Katariah's most loyal supporters...yes, she's a bit behind on current affairs. She is current affairs in my game

nice, looks like it could make it as a book in the imperial library^^ (the site and the game XD)

Good to see there are other Katariah fans out there. Thanks to everyone who read and commented! Here we go with part 2. (Note: I wanted to make Kintyra a little younger, so I made Uriel I her brother instead of her son. Hope no die-hard Uriel I fans are offended )

Kintyra I
Part 1
"Why did Tiber Septim bother with Numidium," an old saying goes, "when Kintyra could have enslaved the entire Aldmeri Dominion by simply spreading her legs for Septim's enemies?" It is no myth that the Empress, in her youth, was both wildly beautiful and wildly promiscuous. Those who shared her bed became putty in her hands. After becoming empress, Kintyra took great enjoyment from the exaggerated tales of her own youthful indulgences, going so far as to encourage the publication of several lurid stories. By the time she took the throne, however, the Elder Council submitted to her not because of her beauty or charm but because of her brutal political acumen. She who had been a flighty and carefree princess became on her ascension a firm and capable ruler.

She had long been friends with the widowed dowager empress Julia Brica, and this friendship only intensified after Pelagius' death. Together, the two women placed the blame for Pelagius' assassination squarely on the shoulders of the "old guard" of the Elder Council. Though nothing was ever proven, the Empress' allegations served to forever discredit the anti-Septim faction in the Council. Kintyra, then, would be one of the only Septim leaders to rule without any real opposition, and she used this to its utmost advantage. She enlarged the Imperial Navy and conquered several outlying islands, sent one of the first successful colonization expeditions into Black Marsh, and reformed the tax system to reflect the Empire's new peace-minded outlook.

Kintyra's childhood, unlike that of Pelagius, was a universally happy one. Until the birth of her younger brother Uriel in 3E 13, Kintyra was the only child of Uriel Septim and Gladia Fausta. Her parents denied her nothing. As a result she learned not only the activities typical of a young noblewoman but also alchemy, horseback riding, archery, and diplomacy, along with a host of other subjects that would serve her well when an unexpected assassination made her Empress of Tamriel. Her frivolity grew with her parents' indulgence, and her reputation for mischief and decadence quickly overshadowed her merits.

When the fourteen year old Kintyra became enamored with a rising general in Tiber's army, Julian Ambrose, her parents convinced the ambitious young man to divorce his wife and marry Kintyra. The girl tired of her much older husband almost immediately and began to seek romantic involvement with a string of young soldiers and noblemen. The union did produce one son, the future Uriel II, before Julian was killed (quite conveniently, some would say) in a small skirmish while commanding in Elsweyr. Kintyra was now free to indulge her passions openly, and though she encountered much censure from the elderly Tiber Septim and the nobility, her parents refused to chastise her.

After the death of Julian in 3E 21, Kintyra was sent to Silvenar to rule as queen. (In an effort to bring greater unity to the Empire, Tiber initiated the practice of appointing family members to rule over strategically important areas.) Perhaps Tiber thought the added responsibilities would ameliorate her behavior. He thought wrong. If anything, as Queen of Silvenar she was an even bigger embarrassment than before. Tales of wild, week long cannibalistic orgies with Bosmer and Khajiit are likely exaggerations, but only just. No doubt the young queen was a slave to her own indulgences. (A great deal of information about Kintyra's time in Silvenar, and of the Bosmer people as a whole, can be found in my own recent seven-volume work, Travels in the Aldmer Lands.)

Tiber quickly reconsidered his appointment, and this time not even Kintyra's father could intercede on her behalf. The post went to a trusted general, and Kintyra returned to her father's estate in the Imperial City, not lamenting her loss of status. For a nineteen year old girl of Kintyra's beauty, the city was a playground.

She was quite taken with the City's artistic community and spent much of her time among the poets and painters. She was the talk of society, and when she appeared in public onlookers would race to catch a glimpse of her. People took bets on what popular artist or playwright would be on her arm on any given day. Generally ignoring politics, she even took some time to write a bit of amateur poetry. Of those that survive, the work known as "Palace Stairs" gives us the most insight into the young woman's mind during this period:

Come and go, kings and rabble!
Puppets now, once proud powers.
Grovel, ye servants, to a face broken with age.
Hear us laugh at you foolish men
Forced to bow low to the source of your rage.

We the City are not impressed
By trophies and songs of past glories
Instead we wait and dream and write
And live out our own small stories

Until the day comes (and come it will)
When I too must climb those steps
And put on that careworn face,
Wrecked with sickness; inevitable death.

Goodbye, good friends and lovers!
Never again to your shops and your taverns
Never again to dance with empty-headed care.
For all of the joys that go with this life
We leave behind on the palace stairs.

Perhaps Kintyra will never earn a place among the famed poets of Tamriel. But even in this early, uneven poem, we can see the mind of woman who was more than just a beautiful distraction. Though only in her early 20s, the girl understood the weight of power. As the third decade of Our Era wore on, she seemed to settle down year by year, abandoning her more frivolous affairs for the stability of long term partners. While she had by no means calmed down completely?anyone knew that if they went to a party thrown by the princess, they might not see home again for a week?she had at least ceased making a public spectacle of herself.

The next few years were difficult. Her mother Gladia died in the year 31, followed shortly thereafter by her father in 35. With her father dead, the ancient Tiber Septim had no more patience for Kintyra's exploits. Many of her acknowledged lovers were sent away to various posts across the Empire; some were even put to death. Finally, Tiber Septim himself died, and with Pelagius not expected to have children, Kintyra became heir apparent.

All this did much to change the woman. During Tiber Septim's funeral she wore a gloomy, almost Colovian countenance. She is known to have been a wise if pessimistic counselor to Pelagius, and above all a loyal and devoted friend to the Empress Julia. Gloominess, however, did not suit Kintyra for long. As time went by she found ways to reconcile her growing responsibilities with her natural passion for life. She became a fervent patron of the arts and traveled throughout Cyrodiil as an ambassador of the Emperor.

In 3E 39 she married Count Sergius of Kvatch. Though by all accounts a political marriage, even the austere Westerner could not resist Kintyra's irrepressible spirit. Their two daughters grew up in a household of love and laughter. Any allegations that Kintyra continued to have affairs with other men during the course of her life naturally fall outside the proper realm of the historian.

Kintyra was delivering a lecture at the Imperial University on 2nd Era sculpture when news arrived of Pelagius' assassination. Her students must have been dumbfounded as the Emperor's Dragon Guard poured into the lecture hall. Out of respect for Pelagius she was not officially crowned until the 10th of Hearthfire, over two weeks after the Emperor's murder. She performed the lighting of the Dragonfires just as Pelagius had done, and spoke on the necessity of continuing the work her predecessors had begun.

Most of the gossip in the City, however, dealt not with her policies but with her reputation as a promiscuous idealist. People wondered if she would try to put the old adage to the test and sleep with the entirety of the Elder Council. Derisive tales circulated of Tiber rising from his grave to take back the throne from the six-crazed bard who inherited it. It was not until later in her reign that she came to enjoy and even endorse these stories?early on, she did her best to suppress them, particularly when they came from former lovers exiled by Tiber. In these first years the Empress was in fact quite vicious in rooting out any rumors about her present conduct. By the end of her first year on the throne, no fewer than 100 people had been publicly executed on charges of treason. The flow of rumors stopped.

Kintyra I
Part 2
The major political strife of Kintyra's reign, the Balfiera Invasion, came early on, in 3E 43. Long claimed by the Direnni Altmer, the Isle of Balfiera was protected by a small detachment of the Imperial Legion from any encroachment by the power hungry kingdoms of High Rock and Hammerfell. However, the King of Anticlere, Roger Yeomsley, decreed that the unity of the Septim Empire necessitated that the Altmer be driven from High Rock and forced to return to the Summerset Isles.

With a small invasion force, craftily flying the Red Dragon banner, he sailed to Balfiera and attacked the Imperial Legion defenders there. The Direnni, believing this to be an attack by the Empire itself, managed to get messages out to Firsthold. An Altmer invasion fleet set sail for the Illiac Bay. War seemed inevitable.

Throughout the Empire citizens derided the Empress' ability to handle the conflict. Considered, at best, a spoiled, brainless brat and at worst a common prosttute, Kintyra was the subject of an endless whisper campaign. She had cowed the Elder Council by blaming the deviant members for the death of Pelagius, and her wave of executions had silenced the public outcry. Still, there was no doubt that the Empress had yet to win the respect of the population, and if she failed in this crisis, as all were sure she would, the rumors about her private life would be guaranteed to explode to the surface again. There was a chance she could lose her support; indeed, she may have even lost her crown.

But Kintyra was a woman of decisive action. First, she sent an emissary to Alinor to order the return of the Altmeri invasion fleet. Second, the Empress ordered a full Imperial blockade of the entire Iliac Bay. Such an armada had not been seen since the early days of Tiber Septim's campaigns, and even those fleets had not been so disciplined and well commanded. When the king of Alinor refused to acknowledge imperial envoys, claiming that the Summerset Isles were at war with the Septim Empire, Kintyra herself traveled to the island to negotiate.

Meanwhile, Kintyra placed Admiral Gaius Luctevius in charge of defending the Iliac against any possible incursions ny the Altmer. Many criticized the Empress for not simply attacking Anticlere, but she wisely judged that she could not afford to antagonize both the Summerset Isles and High Rock at this critical juncture. Instead, she sent reinforcements in secret to the besieged Imperial forces on Balfiera, and soon King Yeomsley's forces were bogged down in an impossible war.

In Alinor, Kintyra met with the Altmer officials. In exchange for a cessation of hostilities, the Empress promised the Altmer perpetual control of the Direnni lands under the support of the Empire and the removal of King Roger from power. As a further act of good faith, Kintyra offered the prominent Prince of Cloudrest, Calodiil, a position on the Elder Council. The Altmer invasion fleet turned around, and Gaius Luctevius turned his fleet to Balfiera. Faced with overwhelming Imperial numbers, the forces of Anticlere had no choice but to surrender. The captured king returned to Anticlere for trial, where the people stripped him of his power and placed a relative on the throne. A larger Imperial force was, and remains, stationed on Balfiera to protect the Altmer interests there. Even the Altmer praised the Kintyra's handling of the crisis. Thus did the Empress turn a potential disaster into a chance to promote greater Imperial unity.

The remaining ten years of Kintyra's reign saw almost unmitigated peace and prosperity. Increasingly beloved by her people, the stories of her past became something like an empire-wide inside joke. Art and literature flourished?some of the most interesting sculptures that now stand in the Imperial City date to this period. This was also the era of Frincheps, the great playwright, the composition of the great and bizarre "King Edward" story, now mostly lost, and of course the always memorable, tolerably didactic stories of Vojne Mierstyyd, whose tales the Empress is said to have read over and over again. In addition to these memorable names the era was home to a host of other poets and artists who have delighted audiences down through the ages. (Some scholars have even claimed that the popular joke "The Arrowshot Woman" was in fact a contemporary reference to Kintyra's supposed foolishness. The Empress is said to have adored the story.)

The Empress' children, Sibylla and Peregrina, were the delight of the Imperial City. At every major ball the two girls were allowed to dance a few dances with their mother to the enchantment of all who attended. Painters flocked to the Imperial City during Kintyra's reign, and portraits of her two golden-haired girls were a more common image in the City than the Red Diamond itself.

Kintyra's court was often more like an academy than a seat of government. While she of course used her audience chamber to conduct the business of the Empire, her list of meetings for the day would include as many poets and dancers as generals and kings. The surviving records of daily life in the palace speak of endless music, dance, and lively conversation. One contemporary observer may have summed up the climate of Kintyra's court best when she wrote "Though some might claim that Tiber Septim was Akatosh descended from the heavens, with Kintyra there is no room for debate. Dibella has come to Mundus to sit on the Dragon Throne."

It was not to last. Apothecaries and mages are still divided on the nature of the plague that swept into the City in 3E 51, but it killed Count Sergius within its first weeks. Kintyra's two daughters had both passed away by the middle of Hearthfire. Rumors swirled through the City that a group of unusually aggressive vampires were responsible. I have found several similar records from the plague in the archives?at least fourteen families reported being forced to murder the risen corpse of a loved one. One can only speculate on the reasons these undead monsters (if they were indeed the source) might have had for attacking the Imperial City. We are fortunate to live in such a time when even the existence of vampires (who are in fact all too real) is treated with a healthy amount of skepticism, so far are the dangers of the world from our borders.

To protect him from the plague, Kintyra sent her son Uriel, her only remaining (legitimate) child, away to Wayrest in late 51. In this year members of the royal house of Wayrest, descendents of one of Tiber's favorite generals Molvirian Faustus, were found guilty of plotting a rebellion against the Empire. Acting with her usual practicality, Kintyra placed her son Uriel on the throne. When they people of Wayrest complained that as the heir to the Imperial throne Uriel would not put Wayrest first, Kintyra agreed. Uriel was disinherited, and Kintyra's brother Uriel was named heir to the Dragon Throne.

Given the catastrophes of Uriel II's subsequent reign, many have suggested that Kintyra may have had more than the present situation in mind when she sent her son away. With her daughters dead, the only two options for a successor were her son and brother. Though neither proved a capable Emperor, we will soon see that Kintyra likely chose the lesser of two evils. Uriel was, by all accounts, a loyal son of his mother, and accepted his loss of status without complaint. Some have criticized Kintyra for this decision, but as empress she had the authority to decide the succession in any way she chose. Critics naturally fail to point out the stability the Empress' decision brought us. It is yet another testament to Kintyra's acumen that she managed to turn the safety of her son into a political hold over the volatile Breton kingdom.

By Mid-Year of 3E 52 most of the city was quarantined. More buildings were used as charnel houses than homes or businesses. The dead flooded out into the streets in fetid piles of corrupted flesh, while the living could do nothing but wait for their own time to come. Where once there had been music and laughter in every street of the city, there were now only moans of grief and fear.

Desperate for a solution, Kintyra assembled a council of mages that remains shrouded in secrecy, so much so that no documents now exist. All that is evident is the result: After the council, the plague abated as quickly as it had come. Many believe that the Empress managed to force the usually aloof Mage's Guild to use some very powerful magic to wipe out the plague forever. It is likely the full story of that strange epidemic will never be known. If it was a vampiric invasion, thank the Divines that we have not seen such a calamity since!

Kintyra never recovered from the loss of her family. The details of her daughters' final hours are lost to history, but rumors that she had watched her bodyguard personally strike down the undead bodies of her two beloved girls have been the subject of grisly legends ever since. Effervescent and beautiful before the plague, the Empress now had a sickly pallor that grew worse throughout the winter. She was a ghost of the vivacious woman who had once so skillfully controlled the Empire.

Kintyra died of a wasting illness just short of her 50th birthday, having reigned twelve years, one month and eleven days. Her funeral oration was delivered by none other than her dear friend Julia Brica, now increasingly viewed as the "mother" of the Septim Empire. As they had for Tiber, nearly the entire population of the city came out to watch the Empress' body carried into the Mausoleum. Kintyra was succeeded in an orderly manner by her younger brother, Uriel I.

It has been said that there was never a more beautiful or cultured ruler in all of Tamriel's history. If the images and writings that have come down to us are genuine, it is difficult to argue with the sentiment. Kintyra had beautiful blonde hair and deep green eyes that even in portraits portray both mischievousness and compassion. Many have commented on the similarity in her appearance with that of her great-great granddaughter, the lovely Queen Jolethe of Solitude.

Had she been given a longer rule, she might have reached the level of achievement of Tiber Septim or even Her Great and Terrible Majesty Katariah Septim herself. As it was, her death marked the start of a long decline, from which we have only now finally recovered.

Funny how you said you thought the first ones were too long, and then more than doubled the length for these two.
Good work!

Haha, quite right. Technically Pelagius I is the longest of the three, I just had the good sense to divide that one into two parts. The later ones, especially Katariah, get pretty epic in length, so I'm definitely trying to subdivide/shorten those further. I think for now I will split Kintyra though, that thing was looking much more massive than I intended! Anyway, here's Uriel I.

Uriel I
Uriel was fortunate that his successor was an even greater failure than he was, or surely he would be remembered as the most ineffectual man ever to sit upon the Dragon Throne. His total lack of political ability, combined with a dour, nebbish personality made him impossible to like for all but a select few. Instead of governing the Empire himself he relied on a series of incompetent, power hungry ne'er-do-wells who piloted our great people towards one disaster after another, like a ship intentionally zigzagging her way to collision with every possible shoal.

He was born under the sign of the thief in the 13th year of Our Era, though his academic nature never lived up to the intrigue promised by his birth sign. Although she adored him from afar, his sister Kintyra was approaching adolescence by the time he was born, and the two spent very little time together. Uriel and Gladia, his parents, were already far more concerned with spoiling Kintyra than with anything the young Uriel had to offer. Instead, he was effectively raised by a series of nursemaids and palace officials.

His mother died when he was only a teenager, and his father not long after that, but this seems to have had very little effect on the man. By this time he was already surly, bookish, and altogether dismissive of the trappings of Tiber's court. In an effort to expand the young man's horizons, Tiber granted Uriel a position as chief secretary to Cornelius Bassus, one of the Empire's leading generals and a favorite of Tiber Septim himself.

The songs and legends of Bassus are well known even in our own day, though the recent war has given us new heroes (and villains) to sing about. In the early 30s, Bassus was in the process of pacifying some rebel tribes in Black Marsh, near Leyawiin. The colonies of Kintyra were still twenty years away, and Argonia in those days was said to be a forbidding country indeed. The Imperial Archives are filled with Bassus' letters to Septim during this time. I need only choose one among many to give a clear picture of Uriel's career in the military.

The letter continues for some pages, detailing Uriel's faults. After only a few months on campaign with Bassus, Uriel was unsurprisingly recalled to the City. Tiber had apparently given up on him; he was given a position in the Imperial Archives which he kept until the death of Pelagius in 41. Kintyra, who always had a fondness for her younger brother, promoted him to Chief Librarian of the Imperial Archives, a position of considerable influence but little power, a sound decision both politically and personally.

He looked very much the scholar: Tall and thin, with a mane of shaggy and unkempt grey hair and a beard to match. He had small, grey eyes, which stayed glued to the floor, even during conversation. In fact, so uncomfortable was he in the presence of others that he planned his schedule around their comings and goings, making sure to encounter as few people as possible each day.

As Chief Librarian Uriel brought to his side scholars from throughout the Empire, compiling a great deal of resources on the early Reman emperors, an obsession that would last his entire life. Often he would enter into drawn out love affairs with scholars of all races and genders, depending on which one had piqued his intellectual curiosity at any given moment. These affairs would have been the subject of greater scandal had the man been able to attract even a shred of public interest.

Everything changed when the plague arrived. With the sudden death of Kintyra's two beloved daughters, and what would become Kintyra's son's virtual imprisonment as king of Wayrest, Uriel emerged as the only real candidate for the throne. Seeing the impending problem, Kintyra did all she could, appointing Uriel regional governor of Skyrim, the safest province in the Empire at the time, and a place where Uriel could hopefully learn at least some leadership skills. However, he refused to do any real governing, preferring instead to work in the ancient castle archives at Solitude. The post of Imperial governor was by that time largely ceremonial, while real control of the province remained, as it had for thousands of years, with the rulers of the nine Holds. Uriel, therefore, did little damage.

Upon news the Empress's final illness Uriel was called to the capital, where he arrived just days after his sister's death on the 9th of Frostfall. He was crowned in the Temple of the One in the Imperial City just as his sister had been, and ceremonially lit the ever burning flame in the Temple, just as his sister had done, and just as every ruler of Tamriel has done from that day to this. Though 39 years old and possessing an unrivaled intellect, he would prove totally unequal to the task of governing.

While the Elder Council had been effectively neutered by Kintyra, Uriel found the city ruled by the mages that had aided his predecessor in ending the plague. Power rested primarily in the hands of the Archmage, Gelaric Relles, known more for his charms than his magical ability. The Mages Guild had cured the plague, after all, and was riding on a wave of popular support. Returning to his studies almost as soon as he was crowned, Uriel let Relles control much of the running of the Empire.

Relles' interests were solely focused on the advancement of the Guild. Acting in the Emperor's name, he razed the merchant's dwellings located on one of the southeastern islands of the city, moving the residents to cheaply constructed Imperial housing projects on the far side of the lake. On newly cleared island he set about constructing the current Arcane University, designed as a grand structure to replace the tired First Era building that sat rotting in the City's dilapidated Elvin Gardens District. (Today a small park occupies the site of the original guildhall.)

This outraged the people, but not as much as Uriel's now very public relationship with the noted Breton scholar Samuel Dupin. Because Uriel was emperor, the people were forced to care about his dealings, and the relationship did not suit them one bit. Graffiti depicting the pair in a variety of lurid poses was common, as were a number of scandalous tales. Like Kintyra before him (but only, I must point out, very early in her reign) Uriel executed any man or mer suspected of speaking against him. Unlike his sister, however, he seemed to take special joy in their suffering, and many are believed to have been executed who had spoken no treasonous words against the Emperor.

In light of these events Julia Brica, window of Pelagius I and the most respected woman in the Empire, appealed to the Elder Council, which by that time had devolved into little more than a ceremonial body. The problems were clear. Relles was using the Imperial prerogative solely to advance the agenda of the Mages Guild, while Uriel I cared nothing for the Empire at all. Julia resolved to travel to Wayrest and work to secure a return home for Kintyra's son Uriel, by now already in his 40s, father of several children, and grandfather to the infant Antiochus.

Under Julia's advice, control of the council was entrusted to Calodiil, the ambitious Altmer noble. His family had been an enemy of Septim's until the Numidium incident, and they still bore a grudge against the Empire. He had been brought onto the council at the conclusion of the Balfiera Invasion, but Kintyra, of course, had allowed him no real power. Now he would come into his own.

Feeling increased pressure from Calodiil and the suddenly empowered Elder Council, Uriel took uncharacteristic action. He publicly decried Relles as a traitor to the Empire and had him tossed in prison, appointing Dupin, a man completely ignorant of magic, as the new head of the Mages Guild. Dupin was hated by both the guild and the public, and Uriel found himself the recipient of constant threats. To counter this, he recruited Rolf the Unyielding, an influential member of the Fighters Guild, as a personal bodyguard. That organization, relatively weak since the end of the Akaviri Potentate, gained a strong foothold in the cities of Tamriel which has only grown down to the present day. And so the dominance of Relles and Dupin was traded for the dominance of Rolf.

In Wayrest, Kintyra's son Uriel was enjoying the life of a quiet family man. Married to a beautiful Imperial noblewoman Livia Julia, he was a doting father of six children. Though there were continued efforts to force him to take power from his uncle, Uriel enjoyed his life in Wayrest and was in no hurry to take over his uncle's position. When Julia Brica, his mother's closest friend and something of a mother to Uriel himself at last arrived at court, she delivered an impassioned plea, the effect of which was as follows:


Such was Uriel's love for Julia that he broke down and wept at the mention of the bond she and his mother shared, and after consulting on the matter with his wife and eldest son Pelagius he began plans to assume the throne.

In the capital, Rolf had succeeded in poisoning the already paranoid Emperor's mind against his onetime favorite Dupin, and in the 60th year of Our Era Dupin was dragged from the new Archmage's Tower by members of the Fighter's Guild and murdered in the street.

By now Uriel had found a new favorite, a seventeen year old Redguard maiden named Iszara with a reputation for brilliance. The young woman had something of a calming impact on the Emperor. In the year 61, at Iszara's urging, he at last released the work he had spent years of seclusion composing: a compellation and clarification of all the laws passed down from the Reman emperors up to Kintyra's time. It remains our principle source of law to this day.

To say that the population was surprised by this sudden burst of competence would be an understatement. The Emperor had done literally nothing of note before, nor would he ever again. It is no wonder that the people could not help but give the man a bit of grudging respect.

After the publication of the law code, Uriel left the city with Iszara and took up residence at massive villa in the Nibenay Valley, where the couple sought to ignore the world. It is probably here that Uriel began work on the second major text for which he is known, A Treatise on the Evolution of the Cyrodiilic Tongue from the 2nd Era to the Reign of Tiber Septim.

In the Imperial City, Rolf the Unyielding remained the practical head of government. A slave to traditional Nordic feuds, he allowed the Empire's relationship with Morrowind to deteriorate to the point where House Redoran began to make raids on Skyrim territory. Many suggested that Rolf planned to use the legions to affect a Nordic takeover of Morrowind. He spent lavishly on games and festivals without a thought to the Imperial coffers and took absolutely no interest in the affairs of the provinces. Day by day, the man squandered the years of goodwill that had been built up by Tiber and reinforced by Kintyra. The provinces grew restless. Talk of rebellion was everywhere.

At long last the City could stand this abuse of Imperial power no longer. In early 63 Rolf was found dead near the statue of Akatosh in the Talos Plaza. The Dark Brotherhood took credit for the murder, as did certain rogue members of the Mages Guild, as did various cronies of Calodiil. Most likely the murder was the Altmer's doing, as he had the most to gain by the death of the hated Nord. Like Relles and Dupin before him, Rolf was missed by no one. Calodiil now assumed effective control of the government and, simply by virtue of being a provincial himself, helped calm some of the tensions.

A few months later, Uriel II and Julia Brica were at last able to make their triumphant return to the City. Detained for years by a grievous situation with Orsinium, Uriel finally left Wayrest and entered the capital on the 17th of Mid-Year. He met with his uncle in the Elder Council chambers, under the careful monitoring of both Julia Brica and Calodiil. Uriel I was more than eager to abdicate, and so the transfer of power was scheduled for the 1st of Morning Star the next year. On that day Uriel II, at the age of 45, at last took his place as Emperor of Tamriel.

Uriel I returned to his position as Chief Librarian. He lived out the remaining years of his life with his books, occasionally producing additions and revisions to his celebrated law code. He officially married Iszara in the year 70, and they had two sons, both of whom were killed fighting for Potema in the war. Any surviving descendents are believed to have been executed by Cephorus.

As an Imperial Librarian he was most effective, but as an Emperor he was entirely ineffectual. His own failures, however, would soon be eclipsed by those of his nephew. He died in 3E 75 in the care of his wife Iszara at the age of sixty-two, having served as Tamriel's Emperor for an astonishing ten years and two months.

In an effort to improve (or create) readability, I'll be splitting future bios into at least two parts. Each bio is still one "chapter" but I'm trying to make the posts look less like massive walls of text.

Uriel II
Part 1
The explosion of optimism that greeted Uriel II's ascension to the throne on the first day of 3E 64 had not been seen in the capital since Tiber Septim's final defeat of the Aldmeri Confederation generations before. Though already in his mid 40's Uriel carried a sense of youthful energy that his uncle, Uriel I, had completely lacked. His appearance had a hint of his mother's beauty: he was tall and clean-shaven, with piercing blue eyes and flaxen hair. Popular sentiment held that the long period of chaos was over and that the glory of Kintyra's reign had returned in the person of her son. But Uriel II was not his mother.

Kintyra loved her child, but she lived a hectic, carefree life in her youth, and much of the task of raising Uriel fell to palace servants. As he grew older, Julia Brica became a friendly face in the palace, and it was to that honored lady that he often looked for the comforts of a mother, even as he grew into advlthood.

Tiber considered the child among his favorites, and the great general often let the boy ride at his side during parades and public functions. Young Uriel was a popular face throughout the city, considered a noble son of the Septim line and often contrasted with the wild Kintyra in political circles.

As he grew into a teenager he continued to please the aging Tiber. He was never an academic, and instead joined the Imperial Navy at age 15. He soon became known for his dashing high seas exploits, as well as his womanizing. Young Uriel had lovers in every port in Tamriel. He also kept a close relationship Julia Brica during these years. Most sources indicate that he followed her advice above even that of Tiber Septim himself.

This is borne out by the marriage of Uriel to a close relative of Julia Brica, a young Imperial maiden named Livia Julia. Uriel initially had little interest in the beautiful Livia. Instead he preferred a Dunmer girl named Melisi who he met on a peacekeeping voyage to Ebonheart (even the Dunmer, it seems, were enamored with the boy, and Tiber made use of him as a frequent goodwill ambassador to that nation). Tiber even gave the union his blessing, and Uriel lived for several months in Morrowind with Melisi.

Kintyra largely ignored the affairs of her son. She was a friend to the Dunmer nation and would likely have been content with any spouse Uriel chose. Julia had other plans. She sent letter after letter, week after week, to the 18 year old Uriel, extolling again and again the virtues of Livia and denouncing the influence of Melisi. Though he resisted, Uriel ultimately could never refuse the advice of Julia Brica, even as an advlt, and he dutifully married Livia in 3E 36. The couple's first child, the future Pelagius II, was born that same year.

At the same time, Kintyra gradually began to accept her role as heir apparent and to act with according dignity. During the late 30s, Uriel became truly reacquainted with his mother, and the two were trusted advisors to Tiber and Pelagius I, though more cynical members of the Council observed that Uriel simply parroted the advice of his mother.

After the death of Tiber, Uriel lost his greatest supporter at court, and many members of the Elder Council began to see him as something of a nuisance. He was uneducated, lacking both a basic understanding of court procedures and the decisive nature necessary for leadership. At his own insistence, he started spending most of his time away from court with Julia Brica and the other ladies.

Matters grew worse when Kintyra married Count Sergius and gave birth to two cherished daughters. Her close relationship with the girls must have irritated the young man who had often been ignored by his own mother. There is a legend that the then twenty-five year old Uriel stormed into the room of his infant sister Sibylla and berated her for over an hour. At first angrily calling the child a usurper and interloper, Uriel finally fell to his knees and begged the child not to come between him and his mother. Finally, he was tossed out of the nursery by a justifiably puzzled nursemaid.

With the assassination of Pelagius, Uriel emerged as next in line for the throne. Kintyra did her best to suppress the odder stories of his behavior?these efforts were largely successful. He was once again the center of attention in the Imperial City, where he gave many speeches extolling the virtues of his mother. His most famous speech, On the Qualities of a Proper Imperial Woman, is still memorized by educated young girls in the early stages of their primary education.

His popularity did not last long. Failing relations with High Rock, combined with the arrival of the plague, soon forced Kintyra to name Uriel King of Wayrest. Uriel's place in sun was forgotten. As king, Uriel made no significant contributions to policy, especially after the birth of his two daughters. He spent time with his girls and little else, chasing them through the elaborate hedge mazes on the palace grounds and attending to their every need. Even Livia grew so bored with him that she began a series of very public affairs that continued until her death early in Pelagius' reign.

Uriel was loved by Wayrest as a dashing figurehead and a lover of family, though his young son Pelagius made all the real political decisions. If not for Pelagius, Wayrest would probably have been overrun by Orsinium when the orcs attacked in late 3E 59. Uriel's solution to the problem was to cede a gigantic portion of Wayrest territory to the orcish chieftain Garzonk gro-Urzog. Had this been allowed to stand, it would have effectively given the orcs control of the Bjoulsae River and made the conquest of Wayrest all but inevitable. Such was the foreign policy skill of Uriel II.

Acting in concert with the visiting Julia Brica, Pelagius took to the field of battle and wrestled control of the region away from the orcs by early 63. For political reasons, of course, Uriel was given much of the credit for the endeavor. The final defeat of the orcs at last allowed Uriel to leave Wayrest behind and take control of the Imperial government from his brother. As I have already pointed out, he had no more interest in ruling Tamriel than Uriel I, and, bafflingly, even less ability.

Uriel II
Part 2
Thanks in part to the shrewd public policy of Julia Brica and Pelagius and in part to the general optimism of the era, it was still the golden boy that the people of the City saw when Uriel arrived to overthrow his uncle. For a time, that is exactly what they got. Uriel wasted no time initiating an elaborate program of building and reform in the Imperial City. He built a large temple near the palace dedicated to the memory of his mother Kintyra, and poured a great deal of money into renovating the Rumare slums region?it became for a time one of the safest parts of the city.

Uriel was utterly unprepared, however, for the famine that swept the Nibenay in 65. That winter a terrible cold came down from Skyrim, destroying the crops from Cheydinhal to Leyawiin. When it came time for harvest in 3E 66, the Empire's breadbasket yielded only a tenth of her usual crops. Instead of acting on the famine, Uriel publicly declared that it was a freak occurrence. The crops would return to normal next year. When the following harvest was even worse than the last, public opinion began to turn against the Emperor.

Julia Brica was constantly with Uriel, advising him on every area of policy. When Black Marsh refused to lend food to the struggling Nibenay, she advised an Imperial raid on the Argonians in order to secure food. This plan was loudly decried by Calodiil and the Elder Council. Uriel's own son, Pelagius, now 32, made an impassioned plea in front of the Council for peace, but Uriel refused any advice but that of Julia. He himself rode out of the City at the head of a massive army, determined to punish Black Marsh.

The areas around the Argonian border are notoriously difficult for armies to cross?even Tiber had difficulty with the region. Under the leadership of Uriel, who had no experience with land combat, the expedition was a disaster. The Imperial army was slaughtered by Argonian tribesman left and right. Bodies collapsed upon bodies, forcing their fallen comrades down into the cold oblivion of the swamp. Uriel himself was only saved from death by a fortuitous twist of fate?he was thrown from his horse when the beast became mired in a bog and knocked unconscious for much of the battle.

When he awoke, he found that his army had been obliterated. Of the fifty thousand men that had marched with him from the capital, less than five thousand were thought to remain. Crushed, Uriel marched the stragglers back to the City. This march took the Emperor through the devastated Nibenay Valley. Uriel is reported to have wept at the terrible condition of his people, though he was incapable of any action. A few weeks later, a large Argonian army lunged into Cyrodiil and took control of Leyawiin, killing or enslaving many of her human inhabitants.

Julia Brica took full responsibility for the catastrophe, cementing Uriel's reputation as her lapdog. In the coming years, as the Empire dissolved into chaos, policy was alternatively dictated by Julia, Calodiil, and Pelagius. Uriel's public appearances became rarer and rarer as he retreated to the safety of his palace. His public decrees generally emphasized the sanctity of marriage and family, despite rampant (and all too true) rumors of his wife's infidelity.

Meanwhile, the Empire was crumbling. Following the famine, Black March became more or less independent of the Empire, Morrowind launched a full invasion of eastern Skyrim, Colovia erupted in civil war, and Hammerfell was rocked by a debilitating plague. Seeing the Empire's weakness, Elsweyr moved to take control of the west bank of the Niben. Traders were forced to pay exorbitant sums to Argonian leaders at Leyawiin to enter the river, and the Khajiit set up choke points all the way to Lake Rumare, extorting even greater payments. As a result, trade to the Imperial City virtually vanished. Only High Rock and the Aldmeri Dominion prospered during Uriel's reign, though even these regions were cut off from direct Imperial control thanks to the war in Colovia. By the year 70, only northern Cyrodiil and western Skyrim were under the Empire's effective control.

Public unrest grew as news of these disasters reached the Imperial City. Every time the people demanded Uriel address the problem, he would appear, make vague statements about the will of the gods and the glories of Tiber Septim, and then begin a discussion on the virtues of marriage and family, the importance of religious devotion, or the necessity of good morale. Aid was given to the problems in the forms of giant financial contributions that were taken by those in power and kept from the suffering. Even when war broke out between the Khajiit and Argonians, finally resulting in Argonia gaining complete control of the lower Niben, Uriel did nothing.

Instead, the Emperor turned his attention increasingly to the Imperial City. He expanded the original temple to Kintyra into a massive Temple of Mara compound, eating away at several neighborhoods. He decreed that the Cult of Mara was to become the central religion of the Empire, and that every family must give at least one daughter to Mara's service. Uriel made his own beloved daughters, Galana and Juliana, high priests of the new religion. The cult emphasized devotion to family at the expense of devotion to the state, the role of mothers at the expense of fathers, and religious zealotry at the expense of common sense.

In the desperate climate of the era, the cult spread quickly. This was another disastrous drain on the treasury as membership to the cult required that adherents give a large percentage of their income to the Temple. Uriel absolutely refused to use any of "mother Mara's" money for what he considered the petty affairs of state, and made a public decree stating that citizens should give as much of their income to the temple as possible, even if it meant not paying taxes. After 3E 70, the Emperor ceased appearing in public at all.

From that time on, Julia Brica would often appear in the Elder Council hall in the Emperor's place and advise them of his condition. Although well past the prime of her life, Julia remained a beautiful and powerful leader in the Council. It came as a devastating shock to the Empire when she died of pneumonia without warning in the fall of 3E 75 at the age of 70. The entire Empire (at least the sections of it that remained) went into mourning.

No one, however, suffered from the death more than Uriel, whose appearance at Julia's funeral shocked the assembled crowd. His long blond hair was almost entirely gone. Only a few strands of stringy gray hair appeared around his pale, cadaverous skull. His eyes were ringed with black and sunken into his head; he could barely walk up the stairs of Julia's tomb without the help of servants. Pelagius gave a rousing speech at Julia's funeral, though it was difficult to distract the crowd from the wretched state of the Emperor.

For weeks after her death the Emperor would ride up into the hills and stand alone by Julia's mausoleum. There is no need to repeat the spurious accusations that were rampant in the city in those years. The idea that Uriel and Julia's relationship was somehow physical is insulting to both parties. It is undeniable that their mutual affection for each other cost the Empire dearly, but any sixual encounter would have been viewed by both as practically incistuous. (Though I would be a poor historian if I failed to point out that incist in Maran communities was hardly unheard of.) More likely, Julia was a second mother to a child who desperately needed attention. Uriel never saw her as anything more than a caregiver, even as an advlt.

The following year, the cold finally broke and the Nibenay enjoyed its first successful harvest in ten years. The Empire, unfortunately, was bankrupt and exhausted. The news met with little fanfare in the suffering cities of the Empire. Calodiil and Pelagius worked diligently during Uriel's final years to put things back together, but it would not be until well into Pelagius' reign that the disasters were finally repaired.

The only action of any consequence the Emperor took in his last years was, naturally, domestic. It was Uriel who gave his granddaughter Potema's hand in marriage to the King of Solitude, setting the stage for the terrible Civil War. As with all the girls in his family, Uriel had a special fondness for little Potema, and his spending on dresses, toys, and other sundries for the girl was yet another drain on the vanished treasury.

In First Seed of the year 82, Uriel was taken ill. Surrounded by his family, he made Pelagius promise that he would keep the memory of Julia Brica alive. He lingered on for several weeks, occasionally inquiring about the cult of Mara, or the well being of his mother, before finally dying on 2 Rain's Hand at the age of sixty-four. Though Pelagius had already proven himself an astute politician, no optimism accompanied his ascension. The people were so disillusioned with the failure of Uriel that they would not have welcomed back Tiber Septim himself.

Had the office of Emperor been purely ceremonial, Uriel might have made a fine figurehead, but he was talented at very little, government least of all. Kind to a fault, easily manipulated, and prone to every kind of superstition and paranoia, he left the Empire in the worst state it had been in since before the days of Tiber Septim. One wonders what that great Emperor saw in young Uriel. It is quite possible that Talos, like the rest of Tamriel, was simply won over by the young man's good looks and gentle nature.

I was going to let this die and put up one of those newfangled fan-fics with plots and dialogue and such, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. The historian, Alexius Sydonus brought it to my attention that certain individuals were simply raiding the Imperial Archives and posting pre-existing chronicles of the emperors up all over the Imperial City, "with little or no respect for the art of historical research. Such practices would not surprise me in the days of the Uriels or Cephorus, when brigands masquerading as Colovian nobles brought our Empire near to extinction, but to see the profession of historian so cruelly maligned in the reign of our Eternal and Benevolent Queen Katariah Septim is beyond reproach." Indeed.

In any case, we're moving out of the rather unremarkable early emperors and getting towards the more familiar territory of the War of the Red Diamond, so I hope you'll take a look. Feedback is always welcome.

Pelagius II
Part 1
After the disastrous reigns of the two Uriels the Septim Empire was all but destroyed. Petty warlords and rebels had risen up to carve out their share of the once glorious kingdom. Even the nobility conducted themselves more like combatants in the Arena than loyal sons and daughters of the Empire. Into this void stepped Pelagius II, a stern, calculating, and cruel man. After the good natured disaster that was the reign of Uriel II, the cold-hearted Pelagius was just what the Empire needed.

Pelagius grew up during the full flowering of the Septim Empire under Kintyra I, and received every benefit of an Imperial education. Unlike the other members of his family, he seemed genuinely interested in learning every aspect of government. He attended military drills with the army, learned law and history at the Imperial University, and studied science and philosophy at the Mage's Guild. Other than this affinity for knowledge, however, he was entirely Colovian?militaristic, ambitious, cunning and callous.

In the eleventh year of the Empress Kintyra, when he was sixteen, Pelagius married a great niece of Julia Brica, Caecilia Mamea. By this time he was already caught up in the politics of the Iliac Bay, and paid little attention to his young wife. His father was by right King of Wayrest, but Uriel II preferred playing games with Pelagius' sisters Juliana and Galana. From the time he was a teenager, then, it was Pelagius, not Uriel, who would govern the Kingdom of Wayrest.

Pelagius' first major act was to attack the problem of the rival street gangs that had come to effectively control Wayrest. Instead of relying on the over-extended Wayrest city guard to solve the crisis, Pelagius took the unorthodox action of appealing to the various gang leaders themselves. He offered them all exorbitant sums of money to abandon their life of crime. The payoff worked, former crime lords became landed farmers, and without leadership the gangs melted away. This actually saved the kingdom money in the long run, and the people of Wayrest knew that they had found a capable guardian.

Pelagius was not so skilled in his personal life. While he devoted himself to the affairs of state, his wife Caecilia entered into an affair with Uriel's second eldest son, Geldall. Though he considered his wife to be of secondary importance at best, the affair was perceived as an affront to his dignity and the dignity of the entire Septim household. Under promises that Geldall would be given full Imperial protection and rights, Pelagius convinced Uriel to exile the young man to a small village in the Wrothgarian Mountains. Here Geldall lived in a lavish court staffed by nearly the entire village. During the first year of Pelagius' reign as Emperor, the entire village was mysteriously destroyed by some sort of magical anomaly.

Caecilia dutifully bore Pelagius two children, a son, Antiochus, and a daughter, Pulcheria. In the year 57 Pelagius discovered that Caecilia was again pregnant, though he had not lain with her since well before the birth of Pulcheria. Pelagius scoured the kingdom until he tracked down Caecilia's new lover. The rest proceeded as expected. Pelagius produced documents that implicated the man in a conspiracy against the throne, the man was executed and Caecilia was locked away in the palace. On hearing of her death (most likely due to starvation) along with the baby, a few months later, Pelagius is said to have remarked. "So be it. Now what of this month's revenues?"

Some years later, King Vulstaed of Camlorn invited Pelagius to his castle. Camlorn was under constant threat of bandit raids, and the king hoped that Pelagius would lend aid. After securing a promise of a massive gold payment, Pelagius and his army marched to Camlorn. On the way they were attacked by the soldiers of the king's daughter, Quintilla. Princess Quintilla sought the throne of Camlorn for herself, and planned to dispose of both Pelagius of Wayrest and the bandit army with one attack.

When Pelagius saw the size of Quintilla's army, he immediately called for negotiations, and the two met just outside the capital. Little is known of what took place in this discussion. All that is certain is that when it was over, Quintilla and Pelagius joined forces against the bandits and Camlorn became a vassal of Wayrest. Only two months later, Pelagius and Quintilla traveled together to the Imperial City, where they were married.

They made a handsome couple. Pelagius had long, dark hair and sharp features, and stayed in good physical shape his entire life. Quintilla looked very much the Breton queen?tall, fair haired, with an expression that was perhaps a trifle arrogant. Portraits of the couple make no secret of their calculating and serious natures?unlike many of our other leaders, no likeness comes down to us showing any hint of a smile.

Quintilla bore Pelagius five children, three of whom survived and should be well known to every citizen of the Empire: Potema, Cephorus, and Magnus. With the ascension of Uriel II to the throne, Pelagius returned control of Wayrest to handpicked members of the local nobility and journeyed to Cyrodiil to help manage his father's affairs. Any sound policy that might exist from Uriel's reign is certainly the work of Pelagius. He governed in an unofficial triumvirate with Julia Brica and Calodiil, though the three often disagreed. With Julia Brica's death relations between the High Elf and the Emperor-in-waiting became increasingly strained.

On the death of his father in 82 Pelagius at last took official command of the government. He inherited an empty treasury, a population disgusted with the Septim dynasty, and an Empire that was less than a third the size it had been when Uriel II took power. The entire Colovian west was in the control of various warlords, particularly the self-proclaimed "Empire of Skingrad" which now ruled most of the region. Black Marsh was in open rebellion against the Empire, and had by now taken control of southern Cyrodiil along with most of Elsweyr. Hammerfell, though theoretically still under Septim control, was struggling with plague, and at the time Pelagius took power was at the mercy of bandits and thieves. Morrowind and Skyrim continued their war, completely ignoring Imperial power.

Pelagius' Empire, then, consisted of the disjointed provinces of High Rock, Valenwood, Summerset Isle, and central Cyrodiil. With Colovia lost, Valenwood and Summerset were ungovernable, and looked to their own affairs without Imperial consultation. And High Rock was High Rock. Even in the best of times that province is a sordid nest of opportunists and bandits. Effective control was impossible, and Tiber's empire threatened to cave in on itself only fifty years after his death.

Glad you decided to continue! :tops:

Pelagius II
Part 2
Had any other man but Pelagius taken the throne, the Empire may well have crumbled. Though they had different ideas about the direction of the Empire, Pelagius and Calodiil were of like mind on the crisis?action had to be taken, and taken immediately. During the last years of his father and the first years of his own reign, Pelagius and Calodiil worked diligently to send the best physicians from across the Empire to quell the plague in Hammerfell. Local armies were promised land grants if they cracked down on banditry, and gradually the land of the Redguards began to recover.

With Calodiil's backing, Pelagius instituted a policy whereby every member of the Elder Council was required to pay 100,000 Septims in order to maintain their seat. This was an emergency measure, and it had an unintended consequence of leaving the Council in the hands of the highest nobility. However, the plan worked as a fundraising tactic. Pelagius used the sudden influx of funds to build up the army and navy, neglected since Kintyra's day. Credit must be given to Calodiil for drumming up support for the measure?without the work of this remarkable Altmer, the policies of Pelagius may never have succeeded as they did.

Meanwhile, Quintilla embarked on a goodwill mission to western Cyrodiil. Several cities, most notably Kvatch, were swayed by little more than the Empress' presence to swear loyalty to the Septim Empire. With ever-increasing support from Colovian troops, Pelagius marched his forces from the Imperial City. Every village and town he passed renounced Skingrad and offered men and supplies to the growing legion. In 85, Pelagius rendezvoused with Quintilla and a host of troops from Kvatch. Using loyal Kvatch as a base, he organized his troops and descended on the remnants of Skingrad's empire. The city surrendered almost immediately, and the west was regained, opening up roads to Hammerfell, Valenwood, and Elsweyr.

With the heartland restored, Pelagius could afford to tax these territories to his heart's content. More territory meant more money and more armies. Turning his attentions east, Pelagius again dispatched Quintilla, this time to Mournhold. Equipped with her diplomatic ability and overflowing purse, Quintilla was able to buy the support of great house Hlaalu with the help of a seventeen year old but staunchly pro-Septim Hlaalu noblewoman, Katariah Ra'athim. Thanks to the golden tongue of our Most Learned Queen, Morrowind was able to see the benefits of loyalty to the Empire, and the war with Skyrim ceased. Quintilla and Katariah became fast friends, and the journey of our Esteemed Empress to the Dragon Throne had begun.

Last to be resolved was the matter of Black Marsh. Pelagius and Calodiil agreed that a single, decisive battle would be sufficient to end the Argonian threat. To that end, Pelagius rode out at the head of 50,000 well equipped troops. They trapped the main Argonian force on a small peninsula just south of the port of Leyawiin, where a full surrender was achieved without a costly battle. Just for good measure, Pelagius imposed an enormous "Gratitude Tax" on the Imperial city of Leyawiin in exchange for their restoration to the Empire.

With Leyawiin conquered, it was a simple matter to mop up remaining Argonian outposts along the Niben. Free of Argonian pressure, the Khajiit once more advanced to the western bank of the Niben, but as long as they paid Pelagius his taxes, he let them keep the territory. Black Marsh did not crumble quite as quickly as the Emperor had hoped, but though it took another two years of campaigning, the Argonians eventually surrendered and pledged their undying loyalty to the Dragon Throne.

In such a way did Pelagius, in ten years, restore peace to the Empire of the Septims. As soon as he had completed the subjugation of the rebel factions, however, Pelagius came under attack from Calodiil. The Emperor had amassed a huge treasury through his re-conquest, the Altmer argued?should not the people, particularly the loyal subjects in Summerset Isles, be entitled to some of this good fortune?

Pelagius began an immediate campaign to discredit the Altmer, playing on the public's general distrust of mer. Difficult as it is to believe in our enlightened age, Calodiil, after his years of noble service to the Empire, found himself the victim of public threats and outright racism.

Naturally, the Altmer began to spend more and more time in his home province. The more Pelagius tried to urge Calodiil out of Cloudrest, the more Calodiil dug in his heels. Finally, as Calodiil had grown totally derelict in his duties, Pelagius had no choice but to send a force to bring the Altmer back to the capital city. When Calodiil got wind of this, he raised an army of his own, comprised mainly of Altmeri loyalists. Though often at odds with their High Elf brethren, the Bosmer promised to support the embattled chancellor. The long simmering tensions between the Imperials and the Elves (which are detailed at great length in my popular seven-volume work, Travels in the Aldmer Lands) threatened to explode into full scale war.

Fearing a resurgent Aldmeri Confederation, Pelagius marched the entirety of his army to the border of Valenwood, but did not cross. He simply impressed upon the Bosmer the size and strength of his force. The Bosmer professed their loyalty to the Emperor, and even sent troops to swell Pelagius' ranks. On hearing this news, Calodiil's army scattered, and the Chancellor retreated back to Cloudrest. After a short discussion, the leaders of the city decided to give up the elf to Pelagius' forces.

Disgraced, Calodiil was taken back to the Imperial City, tried for treason, and executed in the thirteenth year of Pelagius' reign. Since being appointed to the Elder Council by Kintyra, he had served the Empire for fifty two years before his betrayal?twelve as a member of the council and forty as Chancellor. He was replaced by Quintilla's brother Vorenus, who served until the fifth year of the Emperor Antiochus.

So it was that Pelagius Septim took total control of the Empire at the expense of one of its ablest politicians. This act remains a deep blemish on an otherwise competent reign. Without Calodiil, Pelagius may never have restored the borders of the Empire, yet the noble mer was treated as a vanquished enemy, executed by a firing squad at the Imperial prison, and buried in a pauper's grave.

Only a few weeks after the death of Calodiil, the Empress Quintilla was struck with a dreadful illness. On Morndas the Empress noticed a strange rash on her left arm. By Middas the rash had spread across her body. By Middas evening she could no longer speak, and by the end of the day on Turdas the Empress was dead. She had lived 54 years and two months. She was given a state funeral, and remains up to the present day one of the most beloved empresses of the Septim line despite her icy demeanor.

To everyone's surprise, Pelagius was grief stricken. He would pace the halls of the palace night after night, sobbing for his wife. His sons Antiochus and Cephorus went to increasing lengths to keep this behavior from the public. Within a month of his wife's death the Emperor was bedridden, constantly calling for his wife's aid. He finally died in Morning Star of the year 98 of the Third Era, just five months after the execution of Calodiil and just four months after the death of Quintilla. He died in the 16th year of his reign, having lived sixty one years, two months, and seventeen days.

He was buried beside his wife in the Mausoleum of Tiber Septim. Antiochus I, Pelagius' eldest son, took control of an Empire that was financially and politically restored but spiritually and culturally bankrupt. For Pelagius had restored only the borders and coffers of the Empire. His successors still had a duty ahead of them to restore its prestige, culture, and spirit. With few exceptions, this duty was utterly ignored.

Antiochus
Part 1
Antiochus succeeded his father in the 98th year of the Third Era, when he was forty three years old. Few could have suspected that the plump and fun loving child of Pelagius, who by the time of his ascension had grown into the bloated and decadent child of Pelagius, would be forced to preside over one of the most dangerous conflicts the Empire had faced in years. That the Empire would survive and prosper through and beyond the War of the Isle is to the great credit of Antiochus. It was the open policy of Antiochus' siblings to place the seeds of the Civil War entirely in the reign of their brother, however, with our Lady Katariah's blessing I hope to tell the true story of the man, as I have done of all the Septim heirs thus far.

Any traveler to the court at Castle Wayrest during the years immediately before the Emperor Uriel II took the Dragon Throne would certainly list among the highlights of the trip their meeting with the always giggling, baby-faced child of Pelagius and his first wife Caecilia. From as young as the age of five Antiochus would entertain guests with impressions of important political figures (his imitation of his dour father was said to be a particular highlight) and long jokes. Usually the boy would collapse into a fit of laughter before reaching the punch line, but the guests loved the jokes just the same. After Pelagius indulged Antiochus for a few minutes, the child and his sister Pulcheria would be ushered away to bed by their stepmother Quintilla, leaving the guests disappointed at the prospect of having to return to the always grim conversation with Pelagius.

Tales of Antiochus' boisterous nature only grew during his adolescence in the Imperial City. During a particularly heated fight in the arena, young Antiochus leapt from the stands and challenged the Blue and Yellow teams to a race around the stadium's floor. The crowd roared with approval to see the corpulent Antiochus waddling around the circuit, the Yellow and Blue combatants unsure of whether or not to let the young man win. When the race had finished, Antiochus invited the entire crowd back to the palace for drinks. Many took the young man up on his hospitality, to the horror of the upright Uriel II and the stern Pelagius II. To the two combatants who had let him win the race, he gave lavish estates near the Temple of the One.

It was said by the Emperor Cephorus, who had nothing but disdain for his older brother, that Antiochus had relations with every single woman in the Imperial City by the time he was eighteen. While this must be an exaggeration, there is no doubt that Antiochus, despite his corpulence, developed a reputation for his way with women from a very early age. A letter from Julia Brica to Pelagius bears witness to the stories:


It should be ample evidence of the rift between Pelagius and Julia Brica that there is no response extant for the letter. When pestered about his son's actions, Pelagius only pointed out that even the great Kintyra was promiscuous in her youth. Otherwise, he took no interest.

By the time of Pelagius' ascension, Antiochus had constructed a pleasure palace of epic proportions on southern shores of Lake Rumare. His nightly festivals, complete with music and fireworks, were the talk of the Imperial City, and even the most chaste and virtuous of citizens would not turn down an invitation. Throughout the evening Antiochus would ride around on his large horse, chatting with whomsoever he should encounter, from the lowliest servant to the highest noblemen and ladies. For the noble ladies he had an especial fondness, and to this day our courts are rife with legal proceedings attempting to determine just how many noble families may now claim Septim lineage.

Antiochus' first wife was a small Imperial girl, Valeria, who was married to the prince on her sixteenth birthday. By the time of her seventeenth birthday she had a reputation for lust and debauchery that surpassed even that of Antiochus; the two were in fact close friends in all matters. The small bronze statue of Valeria that stands in Green Emperor Way is a testament to the young woman's beauty and also her sense of mischief?it depicts her lowering the shoulder strap of her gown at a passing priest of Mara. She died of a wasting illness at the age of 21, during the 5th year of the Emperor Pelagius. Antiochus did not remarry for many years, and though their carnal appetites and decadent natures kept them from anything resembling a real marriage as sanctioned by the Cult of Mara, the number of buildings and towns dedicated to Valeria nearly matches those dedicated to the Empresses Kintyra I and Katariah. Obviously, the woman was never far from the Emperor's mind.

According to Antiochus' court historian Alistair of Camlorn, shortly after the death of Valeria, Antiochus was called upon by Pelagius to lead an army into Black March during Pelagius' campaign to pacify the province. When Antiochus received the message, he was in mid-coitus with his Nordic housekeeper Nora. Antiochus left the girl alone in the bedroom, strapped on his armor, and rode out to battle that very night. Following the successful conclusion of the Black Marsh campaign, he returned to the delighted girl and picked up right where he left off. With any other emperor these stories would seem incredulous. In the case of Antiochus they may well be the truth.

Now when it came time for Antiochus to succeed his father, his brothers and sisters gathered together in what was meant to be a show support for his ascension. With his sister Pulcheria, daughter of Pelagius' first wife, he was quite close. She was now the queen of Daggerfall and mother to a large brood of children. However, Quintilla's three children Potema, Cephorus, and Magnus had little respect for their sybarite of a brother. Potema went so far as to petition the Elder Council against Antiochus' succession, but nothing came of these threats.

Her kingdom of Solitude, once a great trade center, was suffering under miserable economic stagnation. She accused Pelagius of doing nothing during his reign to aid the kingdom and feared these policies would continue under Antiochus. As soon as he was crowned in the Temple of the One, Potema was sent back to Solitude and given little help from the Imperial government. The kingdom continued to sink into economic and cultural squalor, despite the Queen's best efforts.

For having the sense to at least keep silent about their distain for their brother, Quintilla's other children fared far better. Magnus was married to the beautiful Cyro-Nordic noblewoman, Hellena Whitecrest, and they were soon appointed King and Queen of Lilmoth in Black Marsh. Cephorus married Queen Bianki of Gilane in Hammerfell, and under their competent rule the land of the Redguards suffered no egregious catastrophes. The other provinces fared well during Antiochus' reign, and there were no major efforts to rebel against Imperial authority while Antiochus was Emperor.

In the fifth year of his reign, Antiochus married again, to a Breton woman named Gysilla. She bore him his only legitimate child, named Kintyra in honor of Pelagius' frequent comparisons of Antiochus to that great Empress. Unlike Valeria, Gysilla was a proper Imperial woman, wholly devoted to the Cult of Mara, and it is no wonder she produced only one child with the Emperor.

A few years after the birth of Kintyra, Gysilla moved away from the Imperial City permanently and became and important advisor in the court of Cephorus, contributing to his already morally uptight policies. Kintyra, in her turn, was raised by a series of Imperial servants, including Matilda, one of Antiochus' favorite mistresses. Given the number of illegitimate children that lived in the palace in those days, the child never lacked for playmates.

I am glad you are continuing this piece. Loved every word.

Glad you're enjoying it Here's the conclusion of Antiochus.

Antiochus
Part 2
Under Antiochus, prosperity returned in full (albeit temporarily) to the Empire, and thanks to his lavish patronage of the arts (and every major guild in the city, including the prosttutes Guild) culture returned to the Imperial City. Unafraid to put Pelagius' massive treasury surplus to use he spent freely, wisely realizing that an Empire's happiness does not stem from military strength alone.

He sponsored theater groups, musical performances, and even created the Ministry of the Arts in the Imperial City, home to the Musicians Guild and the Actors Guild. Poets and playwrights, including the great Marcellus Lestillius and Casmyr Kreestrom flourished under Antiochus, as did the popular historians Asgrim Kolsgreg and Agrippa Fundilius. Actors and writers were fully subsidized by Antiochus' government, and the arts prospered.

Antiochus also undertook the first major religious reform since the days of Uriel II. That emperor had promoted the Cult of Mara as the central religion of the Empire. By the time of Antiochus the cult had lost many adherents but maintained its strict moral laws and sought to enforce them over the entirety of the Empire. Not since the near-mythological days of the Order of Alessia had a religious order gained such power. To the high priest of Mara, Zephellus Ammianus, Antiochus' reign marked the end of the world, the fulfillment of an obscure prophecy that the followers of Mara would turn to decadence and corruption under the leadership of a great teller of falsehood.

Antiochus, for his part, believed that the cult had gained far too much political power; moreover, their strict belief systems were contributing to Empire-wide poverty. In those days, the Cult of Mara promoted strict maternal devotion, total sixual abstinence, and was harshly critical of trade and the merchant class as a whole. Any effort to earn money was a selfish act and a direct insult to Mother Mara. To strict devotees of the cult, the only productive use of time was prayer and contemplation of the love of Mara.

It goes without saying that Antiochus was an impassioned follower of Dibella, but he did not seek to supplant the Cult of Mara with a Cult of Dibella. Rather, he advocated a return to the more polytheistic days of the early Empire, wherein the various gods were given equal sway in the pantheon of Cyrodiil.

Support for this religious reform came from an unlikely ally, Queen Potema of Solitude. The Cult of Mara had gained a strong influence in Solitude, where they spent most of their time hunting down any individual who did not live up to their moral code. Children raised by fathers with no mother in the household were particular targets. In many cases, when a mother died in childbirth, children would be ripped away from the grieving father and virtually imprisoned by the Cult of Mara. Naturally, this had a detrimental effect on Solitude's prosperity.

Potema fully backed her brother's efforts to have Ammianus deposed, and with the support of the Elder Council the furious priest was finally exiled to the Wrothgarian Mountains in 108. Antiochus then began the construction of several magnificent temples in the Imperial City. His pleasure palace on the south side of the Lake was gradually transformed into the Empire's largest Temple of Dibella, which it remains to this day. Unrest among the Maran faithful was quickly suppressed with the construction of a large temple to Mara in Talos plaza, and citizens of the Empire generally applauded the Emperor for giving them back the right to worship the full roster of gods.

Cephorus resisted his brother's religious reforms, even going so far as to threaten to break Hammerfell away from the Empire. Cephorus persuaded the weak willed Magnus to join his cause, while High Rock, under the influence of Queen Pulcheria of Daggerfall, and Solitude, under Queen Potema, promised to stay faithful to Antiochus. The Emperor mobilized the army and prepared for civil war with his brothers. Then, in the year 110, King Orgnum attacked the land of the Altmer. (A detailed account of the War of the Isle can be found in my popular seven volume work, Travels in the Aldmer Lands.)

While the Kingdom of Pyandonea had frequently raided the Summerset Isles since at least the First Era, this was by far the largest attack in recorded history. The Maormer seemed bent not only on taking the Summerset Isles, but all of Western Tamriel. Little was known about the Maormer before the war, but numerous accounts of soldiers and sailors (including my parents) now give us some idea of their form.

According to my father, who served in Antiochus' navy under Admiral Amiel Lennus for the duration of the war, the sea elves had an appearance not unlike the Bosmer, save for the fact that their skin was almost completely translucent, revealing the organs and bones beneath. They also lack the Bosmer's sense of mischief, and went about the execution of the war with a deadly seriousness that at times threatened to break the morale of Antiochus' army.

Of their supposed king, Orgnum, less was learned from the war. It is unclear whether Orgnum refers to some sort of immortal god-king, or is simply the Pyandonean word for "king." Whatever the case, he communicated only through emissaries, and never left his colossal flagship. Rumors that the king is in fact a deathless sea-serpent with the mind of a man are no doubt spurious, made up by the Maormer to frighten their less thoughtful adversaries.

Whatever their nature, the Pyandoneans attacked the Empire in force, blockading ports from Sunhold and Alinor to Sentinel. When news arrived of the attack, Cephorus immediately apologized to his brother and begged for Imperial aide against the sea elves. Antiochus consented, though in the early days of the war the Imperial fleet was totally unequipped for battle against the superior Pyandonean navy. The Maormer ships could crack an Imperial battleship in two by simply colliding with it. Sea elf ships were constructed of a durable, impenetrable substance not unlike the chitin armor of Morrowind, and it was to Morrowind that the troubled Emperor now turned for help.

Katariah Ra'athim agreed to allow Imperial engineers access to Dunmer chitin crafting technology, and for her great service to the Empire she was offered, and accepted, a seat on the Elder Council. Soon, thanks to Katariah, the Empire was producing ships on par with the Pyandonean navy. With these new ships, the Empire was able to break the Pyandonean blockade of their major ports, and soon had the Maormer fleet on the defensive. Antiochus left most of the strategy to Lennus and other capable commanders. Even in the fiercest of battles, however, he never left his post, standing like a rotund statue on the bow of his flagship, inspiring all who saw him with his surprisingly steely nerve.

With the Emperor himself on the west coast for the war, Katariah helped galvanize the Elder Council, badly weakened since Pelagius' reign, into becoming a body once more capable of ruling the Empire. She upheld Antiochus' policies while he was away and several times put down revolts that sprung up from one or another of the Emperor's illegitimate children. Her actions greatly impressed Chancellor Petullius Cassus, who had succeeded Vorenus early in Antiochus' reign. More and more authority was vested upon her as her fame grew both within the Council and without.

Meanwhile, Emperor Antiochus had worked out a deal with Celarus, head Psijic, for the order's help in the war. It is to the Emperor's great credit that he was able to successfully negotiate with this famously aloof and standoffish group of magicians. In exchange for de facto independence, the Psijics conjured up a great storm that destroyed what was left of the already ravaged Pyandonean navy. Indeed, the damage suffered by the mysterious tempest was so severe that the Maormer have not been seen in Tamriel for over fifty years. It is rumored that their king himself may have been killed in the war, perhaps ridding us of this dreadful menace for good. Katariah has not had occasion to travel to Pyandonea, and little is known of their current activities.

The victory over the Pyandoneans in 116 was considered a validation of Antiochus' religious policies, and even Cephorus had to give ground to the new Imperial Cult of the Divines. Cephorus' new grief was the presence of the Dunmer Katariah in such a significant position on the Elder Council, but Antiochus was wholly in support of the energetic elf.

Though by now over sixty years old and fat almost to the point of immobility, Antiochus managed to maintain his lavish lifestyle to the last. After the war, control of the Imperial policy increasingly fell into the hands of the Elder Council. Cephorus and Potema were both preparing for war?Cephorus to break what he saw as the Dunmer influence on the Council and take the throne, and Potema to make her son Uriel Emperor and restore Skyrim's wealth and influence.

Antiochus and Katariah foresaw this brewing conflict and did everything in their power to make sure that young Kintyra was ready to take the throne. Katariah ensured that the princess was given an entire Imperial education in 2 years. Furthermore, to help create heirs as quickly as possible and strengthen her claim to the throne, Kintyra was engaged to a prominent member of the Council, Modellus Tullian.

Then, in the 21st year of his reign, weighed down by sores and rashes, the old Emperor lapsed into a coma, and Katariah prepared for the succession of the fifteen year old Kintyra. On the third of First Seed, 3E 120, the Emperor Antiochus died at the age of 64, having reigned over the Empire for twenty two years, one months and 4 days. The throne passed to his daughter Kintyra, who became Empress Kintyra II of Tamriel at age fifteen.

Kintyra II
The brief reign of Kintyra II marks the beginning of the horrifying war for the throne. All armies carried the banner of the Red Dragon, though perhaps none carried the spirit of Tiber Septim. From the day she took power Kintyra was the pawn of powerful outside forces that would hold the Empire in their grip for the next several decades. Her tragic life remains the subject of popular songs and ballads, with some going as far as to call her the last of the Septims.

Kintyra was born on the 29th of Last Seed in the eighth year of Emperor Antiochus, the only child of Antiochus' second wife Gysilla. While her father treated the child with great affection, Kintyra rarely saw him, and was instead raised primarily by one of his mistresses, Matilda. In appearance, she was more like Antiochus' first wife Valeria, small and sprite-like, with just a hint of mischief behind her pale blue eyes.

From an early age, Kintyra was forced to deal with the rumors of her father's extravagant lifestyle, and face accusations from much of the Council that she was illegitimate. With her mother gone to the court of King Cephorus of Hammerfell, she was easy prey to rumors that some other woman had borne her. Because the palace was full of Antiochus' illegitimate offspring, Kintyra was never short of playmates, though the other children were often cruel to her because of her superior status.

After the War of the Isle, Antiochus grew increasingly feeble, and the Lady Katariah was ordered by the Council to train the child to be Empress. Under the best tutors in the city, Kintyra was given a full eight year imperial education in just two years. She became increasingly isolated under the strict guidance of Katariah, but the Dumner took a genuine interest in the young girl and became one of Kintyra's few close confidants. Kintyra excelled in all of her studies, but Katariah has confessed to me that she worried the girl was too bookish to put the theories into practice, and at age fifteen far too young and inexperienced to take on the responsibilities of an Empress.

Nevertheless, on the 3rd of First Seed those responsibilities came to her. Cephorus, Magnus, and Potema rushed to the Imperial City and the two older siblings each made a case to the Elder Council. Potema argued that since Kintyra's parentage was uncertain (her mother, now entirely a tool of Cephorus, made no effort to defend her daughter) the throne should instead be given to her son Uriel, as much a descendant of Pelagius II as Kintyra, and already a few years older.

Cephorus, for his part, argued that Kintyra was yet inexperienced, and should be placed in the care of his family, as they had cared for her mother. Katariah and Cassus listened to both cases carefully, but decreed that Kintyra was the rightful ruler of the Empire and that Potema's son would inherit the throne of Solitude and Solitude only. When Potema protested, Cephorus convinced the council to declare Potema a traitor to Kintyra. Potema retreated to Solitude, and with that the kingdom's small army began raiding the borders of High Rock.

Though he had been given no official position by the Council, Cephorus managed to play on family sympathies to earn Kintyra's trust. He convinced the Empress that Katariah was a Dark Elf witch in league with Potema, and in the sixth month of her reign the Empress dismissed the Elder Council. At Cephorus' urging, she announced a campaign designed to wipe out Potema permanently and destroy the rebellious Kingdom of Solitude. With this announcement, public sympathy in High Rock and Skyrim for Kintyra collapsed, and what began as a series of small raids turned into a full scale rebellion.

Cephorus insisted that Kintyra would need only a small force to defeat Potema, and so under her uncle's influence she marched north towards High Rock with an army less than a third the size of the one Pelagius had used to pacify Black Marsh. The inexperienced young woman spent the harsh winter of 120/121 in a difficult overland crossing of the Dragontail Mountains, and by the time she finally reached the Bjoulsae River valley her army was exhausted and in desperate need of supplies. Cephorus had convinced her that taking the water route from Anvil to Wayrest would give Potema and Uriel time to take the whole of High Rock and that the treacherous overland route would surprise Potema and end the war. The na?ve Empress refused any other council.

She wrote frequently to Cephorus asking for reinforcements, but her uncle never graced her with a response. She finally traveled to the nearby court of Evermore, a large city in the Wrothgarian foothills, to demand aid. Though he promised her food and weapons, the treacherous Duke of Evermore, Ignatius Hawksly, instead revealed the location of the Empress' army to Potema and Uriel.

In the ensuing Battle of the Bjoulsae, the Empress's forces were annihilated by the combined armies of Skyrim and High Rock. Kintyra fought as valiantly as an untrained sixteen year old could be expected to fight, and when she saw how badly things were going she attempted an orderly retreat across the river to safety. Instead the retreat turned into a panicked rout, and most of her army drowned trying to struggle across the river. Some even defected to Uriel and Potema. In the shallows of the Upper Bjoulsae, surrounded by drowned and drowning men, the Empress attempted to ford the river with her bodyguard and escape back towards the Dragontails. But Potema's army was too large, and by now the rebel forces surrounded both sides of the river. As soon as the brave Empress finished her crossing, she was captured.

To prevent the possibility of rescue, the Empress was taken all the way across High Rock to the small kingdom of Glenpoint, where she was imprisoned in a local castle. The entire province of High Rock, loyal almost to a man to Potema, now separated the unfortunate Empress from any army who might rescue her. As soon as the Empress was locked away, Potema's son Uriel declared himself Uriel III, Emperor of Tamriel, and marched with his mother's forces towards the Imperial City.

The remaining four years of Kintyra's life are a sad story that has only recently come to light, with the discovery of a series of letters written by Kintyra, first to Cephorus and then to Katariah, pleading for help in increasingly desperate tones. These letters were given to her jailer Catelus with the promise that they would be delivered to the Imperial City. They were instead kept by the jailer, and in an effort to commute his prison sentence the aged man has donated them to the Imperial Archives.

The earliest letter was written to Cephorus in Kintyra's proud, educated handwriting:


As time went by, and Kintyra perceived that Cephorus had refused to return her letters, she began writing to Lady Katariah:


These letters continued, and reflected the deteriorating condition of the Empress's captivity as the war raged on.




It would be inappropriate to publish the remainder of Kintyra's letters, and there are some, from the very end, that Katariah has refused to let any member of the court see. The letters are, however, valuable tools at reconstructing those last four years. For about the first year and a half, Kintyra remained in the state bedroom in Glenumbria castle, treated as an empress. She was then moved to a small bedroom in a lower wing of the castle, and finally to a small dungeon where she lived the last six months of her life.

No one is quite sure when the Empress died, though it was some time before the castle was taken by Cephorus' forces in 125. According to her jailer, the Empress only stopped drinking water a few days before. The unit scouting the castle discovered the Empress's body, dressed in a dirty white gown, huddled in the corner of her cell, emaciated almost beyond recognition. Under interrogation, it was discovered that the captors had simply stopped feeding the Empress.

In the years before the Battle of Ichidag, when Uriel still had control of the capital, the body of Kintyra was carried with Cephorus' army in a massive golden sarcophagus. As the tide turned in Cephorus' favor, the soldiers came to believe that the body was some divine blessing, and the Dragon Guard would parade the gilded box before the assembled troops at the start of every battle.

When at last Cephorus reclaimed the City, the Empress' body was taken back to the Mausoleum of the Septims and buried beside her father, Antiochus. (Her fianc?e Modellus also died during the early stages of the war, but since he was not officially a Septim, he was instead buried near his native city of Bruma.) To this day talk of Kintyra is the only thing that can bring a tear to Empress Katariah's stern countenance. The wise know better than to discuss the poor girl's fate in the Empress' presence.

Kintyra died sometime in her 20th year, and was succeeded by her uncle Cephorus in name, and officially when Cephorus at last defeated Uriel the Usurper in 127.

Uriel Mantiarco, the Usurper

Though often thought of as a puppet of his domineering and powerful mother, Uriel the Usurper was in fact a passionate and intelligent man even more deeply concerned with the social issues of the northern empire than Potema herself. As a young man he fought tirelessly to improve the social welfare of Solitude and the surrounding kingdoms, and it is little wonder that so many rallied to his cause. Though he styled himself Emperor Uriel Septim III, it has become customary to refer to him as Uriel Mantiarco the Usurper. Cephorus is now considered the sanctioned heir of Kintyra II, yet the life and death of Uriel form an important part of our recent history. No account of Tamriel's rulers would be complete without a study of this ambitious and complicated young man.

Uriel was born to Potema in the year 97 of our era, the only child of Mantiarco of Solitude. Rumors still swirl that Potema had to resort to magicians and strange herbs to produce the pregnancy, the beginnings of the many accusations of occult practices leveled at the Queen through the years. Regardless of how the birth came about, Uriel, so named for Potema's grandfather, was a healthy and energetic child who from a very early age took his duties as heir to the throne of Solitude with seriousness worthy of the frigid city-state.

Potema was a huge influence on young Uriel, and until the child was well into adolescence he was never seen except at his mother's side. Judging from Uriel's own writings, his mother was everything a good Imperial woman should be?"wholly devoted to her country, her family, and the common man." When he became Emperor, he lavished endless honors upon her, and erected many statues. Unfortunately none of these survive, and for all her fame we have no reliable image of Potema for posterity.

It is certainly true that Potema instilled in her son from an early age her own hatred of the Imperial aristocracy and her populist sentiments, but to this Uriel added an unrivaled education in the most celebrated of philosophers, both human and elf. By the time he was a teenager he was writing treatises on the necessity for Imperial reform, and even went so far as to call for an eventual abolition of the office of Emperor and a radical redistribution of Imperial wealth and lands that would effectively neuter Tamriel's aristocracy forever.

"We have seen the effectiveness of Antiochus' fleets at war." he wrote in Guidebook for a Better Future,


Literature like this filled the streets of Solitude and many of the other northern kingdoms, and soon Uriel had a considerable following among both the educated and the poor. This was good news for his mother, who continued to put pressure on Antiochus for more aid to the north. Aid was, unfortunately, not forthcoming, though Potema did succeed in breaking the power of the cult of Mara in her city, which did much to improve the people's attitude if not their situation.

By the time he was in his twenties, with the full support of his mother, Uriel began to speak about open revolution against Antiochus. Potema felt that Uriel had as much right to succeed to the throne as Antiochus' daughter Kintyra, and began referring to her son as the heir to the throne in the official correspondence. During a state visit to Black Marsh late in Antiochus' reign, Potema attempted to convince Magnus to join with her in proclaiming Uriel as heir to Kintyra. Magnus promised to think matters over, but made no commitments.

When Antiochus at last died, Potema rushed to the Imperial City to make good her claims. Cephorus was naturally opposed, but Magnus refused to come down on either side. While Katariah and Cassus did not accept Potema's claims for Uriel to succeed his uncle, they also refused Cephorus' demands to have Uriel executed for treason. Potema herself was not so lucky?because she refused to renounce her son as the rightful ruler of Tamriel, the Council had no choice but to declare her a traitor to the Empire as soon as she left the capital. This news so infuriated Uriel that he began making small raids?with his mother's help, along the borders of Skyrim and High Rock, using the plunder to support the economy of Solitude.

To Cephorus this was an open rebellion. He already had his niece Kintyra thoroughly under his sway, and it was no huge task to convince the haughty Empress that Uriel needed to be wiped out. Either underestimating Uriel's forces or intentionally sending the young girl into harm's way, Cephorus assured Kintyra that only a small number of troops would be needed to defeat the usurper. The provinces, however, particularly High Rock and Skyrim, thought that the Empress' action was a flagrant violation of the rights of the sovereign kingdoms of the Empire, and flocked to Uriel's banner in droves.

Kintyra's force never had a chance. After her capture, Uriel marched south into Cyrodiil, while his mother's armies continued to wash over Skyrim and even into Morrowind. At Chorrol, Uriel met a poorly organized Imperial force commanded by Cephorus. He easily crushed the Imperial army and continued his march towards the capital, gaining more and more supporters as he traveled. With the news of Cephorus' defeat at Chorrol, most of the council, along with the city's more wealthy citizens, fled.

Uriel was proclaimed Emperor by the Imperial Guard and took the throne as Uriel III. At the same time, Cephorus was proclaimed Emperor by his own soldiers. He never acknowledged his nephew's claim on the throne. Most of Cyrodiil save for the eastern Nibenay, which was firmly under the control of the Elder Council, immediately took up the cause of the usurper. Uriel then marched his army into Elsweyr and securedpromises of loyalty from Valenwood and Summerset Isles before returning to the Imperial City in the winter of 122.

As the year 123 began, then, the Empire was split into three competing factions. The center of Tamriel and most of High Rock were loyal to Uriel, while the East, including Morrowind and Black Marsh, were ruled by the Elder Council and Queen Hellena. (Magnus, though fond of both his siblings, kept to the wise council of his wife throughout the conflict. In keeping with the policy of the Eastern Theater, he became hostile to Potema only after the news of Kintyra's death) Meanwhile, Cephorus was isolated in the Province of Hammerfell.

Fortunately for the beleaguered Cephorus, Uriel was intent on practicing what he preached. While his mother advocated that he march on Hammerfell and crush Cephorus while he was weak and then attempt to make peace with the eastern regions, Uriel was convinced that Cephorus was finished and now was the time to begin his grand social reforms. In a grand speech in the Imperial City, he announced that the time for Tamriel as a league of "separate and unequal peoples" was at an end, and he publicly forgave Cephorus for what he now called the Hammerfell Rebellion.

Uriel's first move was to appropriate the land of the Elder Council, which he considered a symbol of the tyrannical Imperial Aristocracy. With the money taken from these estates he was able to begin a great series of public works in the Kingdom of Solitude, and eventually all of Tamriel, including housing for the poor and a public welfare program. He re-opened many factories that had been closed during the reigns of his predecessors, reviving archaic industries such as glass-painting and bronze-works. When there proved to be no market for the goods these factories were producing, Uriel simply bought them himself with the vast Imperial treasury that had been left behind by Antiochus.

In early 124, Uriel decreed that the title of "Emperor" was an out of date invention of the forgotten aristocracy, and made its use a capital offence. He referred to himself instead as "Chief Citizen of the Palace" and expected others to follow suit. As the year dragged on, he began to confiscate the lands of more and more local farmers and landowners.

It was at this time that Cephorus renewed his attacks against Uriel and Potema in earnest. Because of Uriel's radical reforms the political climate had changed, and many of the displaced rich of Cyrodiil, Hammerfell, and High Rock raced to Cephorus. Frustrated that he was again forced to resort to war, Uriel arranged for a meeting with Katariah and Cassus in Cheydinhal, hoping to secure an alliance that would crush Cephorus.

In a meeting that also included the King and Queen of Lilmoth, Katariah made a case for peace. If Uriel withdrew his claims on the Imperial Throne and instead restored Kintyra II, he and Potema would be given a full pardon and allowed to return to Solitude. Then, if Cephorus could not be brought to heel, Katariah promised full Imperial backing in bringing him to justice. (The truth of these events, of course, can only now be told. During Cephorus' life, the official story remained that Katariah, Magnus and Hellena were on the side of Cephorus throughout the war. This is nonsense, and Katariah never publicly endorsed a single one of Cephorus' actions) Despite the good sense of Katariah's proposals, Uriel refused to give up the throne, and so the war continued.

Reluctantly, Uriel took the field of battle again, though now he found himself on the losing end of the war. Cephorus had already taken most of western High Rock by the early days of 125, and when his armies discovered the body of Kintyra II and learned of her ill-treatment, public opinion flared up against Uriel and Potema. Angry mobs began to riot in the Imperial City, and burned many of Uriel's poorhouses and factories to the ground.

Uriel still commanded a sizeable force, and with some struggle was able to overtake Cephorus' forces near Daggerfall. Again, Uriel allowed Cephorus to escape into Hammerfell, and spent a year in High Rock attempting to undo the damage that had been done during the campaign. Finally, in Sun's Height of 127, Uriel moved his army into the scorching heat of Hammerfell, determined to wipe out Cephorus once and for all. News from Skyrim perhaps made Uriel overconfident. Katariah and Magnus' mostly Argonian and Dunmer troops had faired poorly in the cold weather, and been decisively beaten back by Potema's forces at Falconstar only a few days before. With the sincere belief that the war had at last reached its conclusion, Uriel marched boldly to desert town of Ichidag.

He took the town without incident, and was within striking distance of Gilane when the town was surrounded by Cephorus' forces. Though he was unfamiliar with the territory, Uriel was resolute in his plan to rout Cephorus. Uriel had overwhelming numbers, but they were still mostly new recruits, unaccustomed to desert combat.. Cephorus' army knew the desert well, and stationed itself on a high ridge overlooking the town. Despite several valiant charges, Uriel could not dislodge them. After several days of fighting, Uriel's generals demanded he retreat. Uriel ignored their council, insisting that Cephorus' army could be destroyed.

The next day, the 2nd of Last Seed, Uriel committed the entirely of his forces to dislodging Cephorus' troops. The assault proved successful early on. Uriel's troops began to turn the right flank of the enemy army, smashing the Hammerfell soldiers against the cliffs. The Imperial army came on and on, and Cephorus' entire line began to crumble. Just as Cephorus' forces seemed on the verge of retreat, Uriel himself was struck by an arrow and fell from his horse. Seeing their leader injured, and suffering under the brutal desert sun, many of his army began to panic and fall back. By the end of the day Cephorus had annihilated Uriel's entire army, though he suffered heavy casualties himself.

Uriel was taken into custody and brought before Cephorus. He accused Uriel of murdering Kintyra, and Uriel leveled the same accusation at Cephorus, saying "You yourself murdered my cousin when you sent her alone and unprepared against a great foe, a foe you and your kind created when you ceased listening to the downtrodden voices of Tamriel." Uriel is reported to have continued speaking, though what he said was not heard over Cephorus' derisive laughter.

Uriel was stripped of all rank and title by Cephorus and loaded into a carriage with several other high ranking prisoners for transport to Gilane. Though the stories are confused, at some point on the journey the carriage was waylaid, either by an angry mob loyal to Cephorus, a group of common bandits, or, most likely, on the orders of Cephorus himself. Uriel and all inside were burned to death. After the incident, one soldier remarked that the usurper's body was so badly destroyed that his own mother could not have recognized him. The outright murder of a legitimate member of the Septim family without a trial is still considered in many circles the most shameful event of our national history.

Just before Antiochus' death, Uriel was married, at his mother's insistence, to Princess Rakma of Farrun, an important ally for Potema and Uriel. Though he was not particularly fond of his wife, Uriel made certain to keep her part of all his public actions, and the image they presented to the public was one of a happy, well adjusted marriage. Rakma was in fact one of the few to survive the Civil War unharmed. After the death of her husband she returned to Farrun, married a local nobleman, and lives there to this day with a healthy litter of children and grandchildren.

Uriel died one week before his 30th birthday, having ruled parts of the Empire for over five years. He was tall, fair haired, and highly intelligent, perhaps too much so to have been a successful Emperor. From his earliest years he could excite crowds by filling their heads with dreams of a better world. His efforts to put his ideas into practice led, in just five years, to an Empire bankrupt and bloodied by war. Though there are still some that mourn the day Uriel was murdered as the day the Empire lost its soul, Uriel the Usurper is best remembered as a great mind better suited to the lyceum than the palace.

Cephorus
Part 1
Cephorus entered the capital in early autumn of 127 on a wave of popular support. There was open celebration in the streets as the people hailed the return of their liberator. The Elder Council was recalled (eventually), and Cephorus was at last proclaimed Emperor of all Tamriel in the traditional ceremony in the Temple of the One. Although Potema still commanded a large army and controlled Skyrim and the Western Reach, Cephorus made it his priority to round up supporters of Uriel and to propagate the notion that Uriel and Potema had been responsible for the murder of Kintyra. If any found his devotion to this idea somewhat suspicious, they wisely kept their mouths shut.

It was not until three years after taking the throne that Cephorus turned his attentions back to the schemes of his sister, and even then his actions were sporadic. When at last he took the field of battle, it was with a massive army that would have easily crushed the hopelessly outnumbered forces of Potema no matter who was in command. Even with these advantages, he did not bring the Civil War to an end until 137. Such was the lauded generalship of the esteemed Emperor Cephorus.

Cephorus was born to Quintilla and Pelagius II in the Imperial City during the thirteenth year of the Emperor Uriel II. As his father Pelagius was busy running the Empire he spent little time with his children, though he was famously devoted to his wife Quintilla. Quintilla herself was by all accounts far more interested in her firstborn daughter Potema than in the moody Cephorus. He was forced then to grow up in his big sister's shadow, and to compete from an early age with her sometimes loveable and more often deplorable sense of entitlement.

It must have come as a great relief to the six year-old Cephorus when his big sister was finally married off to King Mantiarco of Solitude. At last he was free to receive the full and undivided attention of his parents. He and his younger brother Magnus became inseparable, and often put on puppet shows and mock battles for the amusemant of their family. These mock battles were, apparently, a poor recreation of reality, for Cephorus often won.

With Potema gone the family dynamic shifted permanently in favor of Cephorus. He took charge of the other children in the household like he was already the Emperor in waiting, yet no one expected him to succeed to the throne. Though never to his face, many members of the Imperial Family remarked how similar he was to sister in his pride, intelligence, and sheer aristocratic arrogance. Had circumstances been slightly different, they may have become allies instead of rivals.

In the later years of Pelagius' reign Cephorus developed a close bond with his father, and the aging Emperor appears to have seen a great deal of potential in the young man. In the year 97 the twenty-one year old Cephorus was given governorship of the southern region of Hammerfell with the hopes that he might restore order in the wake of the devastating plague. Before he could assume his new post, however, the Empress Quintilla died suddenly. With his father grief stricken, Cephorus stayed behind at the palace to help his half-brother Antiochus run the day to day affairs of the Empire. Cephorus hated Antiochus nearly as much as he hated his older sister, but the two worked diligently in this era to keep news of the Emperor's frail state from reaching the public. It was only with the death of Pelagius a few months later that Antiochus gave his brother leave to take on his new duties in Hammerfell.

Cephorus made his court at the small town of Lainebon, centrally located between the two towns of Gilane and Taneth. These cities had been hit the hardest by the plague and it was here that the bandit raids and disorder had been at their most fierce during the reign of Pelagius. He found the customs and theologies of the Redguards immensely to his liking and began to dress in native clothes and show devotion to the native gods. On a state visit to Gilane he was first introduced to the beautiful Redguard queen Bianki. He was immediately smitten, and wrote a letter to Antiochus listing the many reasons it was crucial for the security of the Empire that he be allowed to marry the lovely Redguard. Antiochus agreed, and the two were married in Frost Fall of the year 99.

Cephorus moved his court to Gilane shortly thereafter and began styling himself king. In dress and manner he already resembled more a Redguard potentate than an Imperial governor. A brief word about Reguards: Since the days of the Reman dynasty, Redguard society has been divided into two factions, the Crowns and the Forebears. The Crowns cling to the strange customs of their lost homeland. They worship the bizarre gods Ruptga, Leki, Sep, and others, characters that would be more at home in a theater troupe than guiding the lives of men. They even claim that intervention from the god HoonDing somehow saved Hammerfell from conquest by Tiber Septim. And yet conquered it was.

Though the tolerant policies of Katariah permit this ancient Yokudan culture, most educated and sensible Redguards consider themselves Forebears. These are the men who pushed for accommodation with Tiber Septim, understanding that Septim rule would only bring peace and prosperity to Hammerfell. Most of the great achievements of the Redguard people, including the majestic and beautiful capital of Sentinel, are the work of the Forebears.

Gilane itself is somewhat torn between the two factions. Cephorus, of course, sided with the Crowns, who to him represented military prowess and the warrior spirit. Though he never understood religion of any sort, he took to worshipping the Redguard deities in order to earn the loyalty of the people. He managed to rob their simple archaic beliefs of any shred of dignity, while his attempts to wear the elaborate Redguard clothing and speak their language must have been a sight indeed. Despite the odd incongruity of an Imperial Prince practicing ancient Yokudan customs (and practicing them badly) the people of Gilane took a liking to their new king.

While subsequent history proves that rumors of Cephorus as a hapless tool of his wife are entirely fabricated, it is all too true that she was a force in Gilane just as powerful as her husband. Bianki came from an old, traditional Crown family. Her strict moral statutes became immensely popular throughout Hammerfell, as the populace had grown disgusted with Antiochus' lax personal morality. Cephorus himself was a full partner in Bianki's moral legislation, which made him all the more popular with the militant Redguards. However, it was said then and continues to be said today that had Antiochus been the brother of strict moral standing, than Cephorus would have adopted the life of a sybarite.

Bianki lived up to her own moral standards, and produced a healthy brood of male children for Cephorus. Daron, born in 100, Agnorith, born in 101, Marcion, born in 104, and Lathon, born in 107. They had only one girl, Mariah, the middle child of the group, who Cephorus loved above all the others. He was a devoted but strict father to his sons, but he indulged Mariah's every whim throughout her life.

Cephorus' discipline of his sons was part of a larger scheme to promote martial prowess he enacted throughout Gilane, a trend which caught on through much of Hammerfell. While Cephorus himself ruled from the comfort of his palace, drills and military shows were common, and it is clear that the efforts caused Antiochus no small amount of concern. "To Our dear brother," he wrote in one of many letters to Gilane,


Cephorus' reply to these and other similar requests provides a clear a picture as any of his thoughts.


In addition to open displays of power, Cephorus strove to win the hearts and minds of the Redguards through extensive building programs. He constructed the famous Citadel of Divad in Gilane, actually a series of markets and temples dedicated to the famous Redguard hero. Divad was in fact little more than a goblin slayer, the kind of mercenary doer of deeds that so often rise up and die in the Arena Mundus. The Forebear Redguards, being prone to religious fervor, revere Divad as no other, and so Cephorus was careful to embrace this superstition.

Cephorus also promoted the histories and writings of the famed Redguard historian Destri Malarg, whose works, while lacking in any respectable historical methodology or objectivity were nonetheless a source of great pride among the Redguards. Until his death in 114, Malarg devoted his energies to writing extensive panegyrics to Cephorus and Bianki, and with such practices disappeared any respect he may have earned in posterity as a historian. So much for Malarg and Cephorus' projects in Gilane.

Soon before the birth of Cephorus' youngest son Lathon, the estranged wife of the Emperor Antiochus came to Gilane on Cephorus' invitation. Like Bianki, the Empress Gysilla was a patron of the Cult of Mara and disgusted by the Emperor Antiochus. Gysilla came with news that the Cult of Mara had been effectively dismantled by the Emperor, and the even more disturbing intelligence that Potema had actually sided with Antiochus in the decision. Gysilla and Bianki quickly spread the gossip around the kingdom, and the Emperor was denounced as a traitor for abandoning the family values of Cephorus' regime. No one mentioned that the moral crusader Gysilla had abandoned her only child in the Imperial City to be raised by Antiochus.

Cephorus, certain that he now had the leverage he needed to attack Antiochus outright, dispatched messengers to his brother in Black Marsh. Magnus was wholly devoted to Cephorus and sent back assurances that he and his wife Hellena would contribute all the soldiers they could spare to back the rebellion. By now Cephorus' domain in Hammerfell extended from the southeast corner of the Alik'r Desert to the area around Verkath City. According to later reports, his plan was to sweep north towards Sentinel and secure that city's submission, then march south to Rihad and into the Imperial Province while Magnus mounted a simultaneous attack from Black Marsh. Unbeknownst to Cephorus, however, Emperor Antiochus' full sister Pulcheria, Queen of Daggerfall, had a massive network of spies in Cephorus' kingdom, and was able to bring news of these plans to Antiochus before Cephorus managed to mobilize his forces.

Cephorus did manage to make it part way to Sentinel before he heard the news that the city had been attacked by the Pyandonean fleet. Terrified by local legends of the Maormer and their king Orgnum, Cephorus immediately retreated to Gilane, where Antiochus and the might of the Cyrodiilic Army were waiting for him. Cephorus immediately begged for his brother's forgiveness and promised aid in the war against the Pyandoneans. Bianki and Gysilla were disgusted with this decision, but Cephorus felt that he had no chance against his brother and King Orgnum. He was almost certainly correct.

Of this devastating war that took from us so many of our fathers, much has already been written in my Life of Antiochus, and concerning Cephorus' involvement little more need be said. For the six years the war raged Cephorus stayed constantly within the walls of Gilane. Cephorus had initially suggested that since his brother was needed in the west to fight the war, Cephorus should return to the Imperial City and deal with the mundane affairs of the Empire. Given Cephorus' recent coup attempt this request was rightly laughed off by Antiochus, but that Cephorus should even ask should be a clear enough window into his mind. When he learned of the sudden influence of Katariah Ra'athim in the Imperial City, his anger at his brother grew fiercer. The Dunmer's sensible policies and sound governance were obviously alien concepts to the King of Gilane.

It was a source of no small amusemant to opponents of Cephorus' moral reforms that during these years widespread rumors began to circulate that Queen Bianki had begun an affair with the upright Empress Gysilla. While guessing at the bedroom habits of our Emperors is beyond the scope of this history, it is true that the two women were never separate in public, and that when Cephorus became Emperor both women were taken to live in the palace with him. That subsequent marriage of Cephorus to Gysilla after the death of Bianki only complicates matters, and the truth of their exact sixual arrangement will probably never be known. Praise the Divines for that!

After the victory in the War of the Isle, Antiochus pardoned Cephorus and Magnus for their plot and returned in victory to the Imperial City. Cephorus now ruled over a much smaller kingdom, and may even have been briefly humbled by his brother's pardon. He plotted no further intrigues for the remainder of Antiochus' reign.