The Crimson Empire of Kaelen

Locked An old, proud, martial empire east of the mountain spine, descended from the seaborne Kilian conquerors.

What Kaelen people look like Locked (R-022): a look of their own, tied to no single real-world people. Tall, lean and sharp-boned, with dark hair and amber or grey eyes. They're clearly set apart from Aldorians, who run broader and fairer, and from brunette House Aldor. On the western border the two peoples have mixed for generations: border-born people often mix the two looks, such as an Aldorian build with Kaelen amber or grey eyes, and what marks them as Kaelen is accent and upbringing (R-023).

Guiding principle

Kaelen is not an evil empire. It is an old, proud, frightened, grain-hungry civilization that does terrible things for reasons that make sense from the inside. It must be a place a person could love and grieve for.

Look and culture

Locked (R-001) Kaelen's culture grew from steppe, Turkic and Norse roots into something Ottoman. Its names follow the register of Malakor and Oren (R-020): see the Kaelen naming guide.

Think of	Not
Domed fortress-cities and walled palace compounds	Pagoda roofs and pavilions
Bazaars, caravanserais, covered markets
Horse-and-sea war traditions: tented war-camps that grew into imperial cities
A janissary-like corps of orphan soldiers (the seed of the Jade Lotus)
Lantern-lit halls. The Hall of Lanterns stays

A real-world comparison

Picture Istanbul's Topkapı Palace: a walled complex of courtyards and gates, each one deeper and more private than the last, with the ruler at the centre. Now staff it with people named Rhazen, Hadrak and Mereth. That's the Citadel of Serahn, with its nine gates.

Locked Key Kaelen words:

Kaelen word	Meaning
Azhuran	"All beneath the sky": the Kaelen name for the world
Kar'esh	"The Balance": the Kaelen philosophy
Sorath	"Heaven's favour": the right to rule, which a ruler can lose
Dur'makh	"The Unravelling": the Kaelen name for the Age of Ribbons

The land

Area	What's there
Serahn, "of the Nine Gates"	The imperial capital, about 300,000 people. At its heart is the Citadel, a domed and walled seraglio-fortress with nine ceremonial gates and its great halls: the Hall of Lanterns and the Hall of the Ninth Door
The heartland	Terraced valleys, scholar-cities and the river network. Rhazen's base
The hill provinces	Prince Hadrak's estates
The west	Border country against Aldoria: Ashmar (a mixed village on a river) and the mountain passes. Mixed-blood frontier people, looked down on by the pure-blood core
The east	The long frontier wall against the Grass Sea clans. A hard posting nobody wants
Port Khazul	On the Southern Sea, facing the Sunward Isles

Open The north and the south of the Empire, and whether Kaelen rules subject peoples.

Wealth: silk, steel, spice and porcelain. Poor in grain and farmland.

Why Kaelen conquered Aldoria Locked (R-011): both reasons are true. Kaelen is land-hungry by geography, which drove the old border wars and makes Thessaly's wheat tempting. This particular conquest, though, was Malakor's engineered revenge war.

Government

Locked

• A figurehead Emperor, with real power often held by a regent.
• The Imperial Council, which heard Four's confession.
• A vast literate bureaucracy. The Lotus's Ledger-men are its blood-soaked specialists.
• The Jade Lotus Syndicate, the Empire's deniable hand. See The Jade Lotus.

Draft The four pillars, set against each other:

Pillar	What it holds	Now
The Throne and court	Ceremony, legitimacy, the princes	A nine-year-old Emperor. Rhazen is Regent, Hadrak is grieving, Borun is bending
The bureaucracy	The scholar-officials who actually run the realm	Quietly obstructing?
The Jade Lotus	The shadow arm	In chaos. Numbers are going warlord
The army	The levies Malakor marched west and east	Stretched across a conquered province and a raided wall

Draft Three cultural ideals in tension: the scholar-official (virtue through learning and the exams), the honourable soldier, and the Lotus (dishonour made useful, the thing the Empire needs and pretends not to have).

Locked Emperors are made by primogeniture: the firstborn always inherits, and it is seen as righteous. Regicides who seized the throne have rewritten history to become the "firstborn". See How Emperors are made.

Language

Kaelen is its own language with its own script. Kaelen and Aldorian speakers can't understand each other. The Jade Lotus speaks Lotus cant, a coded Kaelen street-dialect with hand-signs.

The live situation

Locked

• Malakor was assassinated by Alyssa, "the Thunder Witch". The Empire doesn't understand the thunder-weapon and calls it sorcery.
• Rhazen is Regent for a nine-year-old. Six weeks of mourning bells have just ended.
• The Lotus is fracturing into warlords over conquered Aldoria.
• The Grass Sea clans raid the eastern wall.
• The Mandate question. A child on the throne, a murdered Emperor, horse clans at the wall and a province in revolt: every Kaelen feels the balance is broken. See Kar'esh.

Through the years

The Peace of Selorin, 1 AP

Sources

• Kaelen Codex, §1, §2, §5 and §6
• Campaign handoff (Campaign Two), §1 and §2
• Campaign Three handoff, §1, §7 and §8
• The Aldorian Codex: Lands Beyond, "The Sunward Isles" and "The Grass Sea"
• Rulings R-001 and R-011