The Hesan Empire is the largest and most disciplined power on the continent of Skybride. Once a loose confederacy of kingdoms across the eastern mountains, the Empire was forged through centuries of divine warfare, reform, and iron law. Its culture blends militarism and imposing grandeur—citizens are taught that order, family lineage, and devotion to @Emperor Isen IV is divine. Its imposing emperor, seen only while dawning an iron dragon mask, has a presence that is more like a god of dread than a human being. His new decree is that expansion is destiny.

The Empire’s legions, known as the Hesan War Covenant, are unmatched in formation and logistics, and its magistrates rule with cold efficiency. Recently, Hesa annexed the ancient kingdom of @Alendria, claiming it as a civilizing and reforming act. But beneath the polished marble of its new holdings, resentment festers. The Empire is a place of loyalty and betrayal, where honor is weaponized and ambition is measured in provinces.

Folklore endures in the countryside, far from the capital’s austere architecture, the people still live with the gods of the war of creation. Hesan folklore is steeped in dread, fatalism, and reverence for the dead and more ancient spirits—not in fear, but in weary familiarity.

The Origin of the Hesan Empire — The War of the Wound

Prelude: The Fractured Kingdoms

Before the rise of the Hesan Empire, the eastern mountains of Skybride were home to a constellation of sovereign realms—each ruled by ancient noble houses bound by shared tongue, ancestral law, and bitter rivalry. At the ceremonial heart stood the kingdom of Kronehain, seated in @Konigsheim. Haus Kronehain was once revered for its spiritual connection to the first gods and ancient governance. Though once seen as the axis of a people called Hesans in eastern Skybride, Kronehain’s kings had grown soft—favoring diplomacy over steel, mercy over judgment.

The other great houses—Stahlbrand, Eisenruh, Falkenhayn, Rochefort, and Hohenfels—began to whisper of Erbbruch. They accused Kronehain of fracturing its legacy, of failing to uphold the divine burden of inheritance. The realm, they claimed, was unraveling.

War of the Wound — Die Wundenkriege

Led by Graf Alaric Stahlbrand, a coalition of noble houses declared a war of restoration. Konigsheim was besieged, its banners burned, and its king slain in ritual combat. The ancestral seat of Kronehain was shattered, and the victors prepared to divide the realm.

But amid the ash and silence, a figure emerged: a priest-warrior of obscure birth, calling himself Isen Aschenriss—rumored to be a bastard of Kronehain or a child of battlefield prophecy. He claimed no house and every house, naming it Hesa, by the order of the first gods. He bore a only a blade etched with stories of the first wound. He spoke not of vengeance, but of structure—of restoring the divine architecture of the world through unity, sacrifice, and law.

Isen called for a Council of the Wound, inviting even the victors of Kronehain’s fall. He proposed a new empire—not ruled by blood, but by legacy. Not crowned, but masked.

The Rite of Rupture

In a ceremony held beneath the torn banners of every kingdom, Isen underwent the Rite of Rupture. He was symbolically murdered by a knight of each ancestral house, his blood spilled upon the Iron Dragon Mask, forged from the melted blades of the war’s fallen champions.

He rose not as a man, but as Emperor Isen I, vessel of divine order. His voice became law. His breath became silence.

The noble houses, bound by Erbbruchrecht and the trauma of war, swore fealty—not to Isen, but to the structure he embodied. Thus began the Hesan Empire, forged not from conquest alone, but from the memory of fracture.

Legacy of the Founding

• Konigsheim was rebuilt as the imperial capital, its shame transfigured into sanctity.

• Today, Haus Kronehain survives as a minor house in quiet exile—tolerated, but never restored.

• Graf Alaric Stahlbrand was named the first High Marshal, but never Emperor. His descendants still whisper of stolen destiny.

• The Council of the Wound became the empire’s sacred adjudicators, guardians of Erbbruchrecht and imperial succession.

Cultural Reverberations

• The @Hesan Emperor's Mask is passed from Emperor to Emperor, each undergoing the Rite of Rupture before ascension.

• The phrase “Where the legacy breaks, the iron must sing” is carved into the walls of @Gotenslag Arena.

• During Frostnacht, some say the @Tomb of Barbarossan groans in disatisfaction.

Imperial Lineage of Hesa (Years 0 - 280)

• Isen I (Aschenriss) (r. 0–37)
  Founder of the empire. United the fractured kingdoms through the Rite of Rupture and instituted the @Hesan Emperor's Mask.

• Sigmar I (Rochefort) (r. 37–72)
  Codified the March Codex and expanded @Gotenslag Arena. Died in a sanctioned ritual duel.

• Isen II (Hohenfels) (r. 72–108)
  Oversaw construction of the Wundfeste and formalized the Wundenbund’s hierarchy.

• Albrecht I (Wieland) (Contest Emperor, r. 108–117)
  Rose through Gotenslag challenge. Masked after a second Rite of Rupture. Legitimacy debated for decades.

• Isen III (Nachtspiegal) (r. 117–165)
  Naval reformer and mystic. Introduced the Runenkiel system and expanded imperial doctrine at sea.

• Gerwalt I (Falkenhayn) (r. 165–189)
  Short, brutal reign. Known for mass purges and the burning of Kronehain archives.

• Matthias I (Hohenfels) (r. 189–221)
  Austere and doctrinal. Reasserted Wundenbund authority and standardized the Path of Ash in annexed provinces.

• Sigmar II (Fluchtrager) (r. 221–248)
  Haunted by visions. His reign saw the Silent Rebellions and the first imperial exorcisms sanctioned by the Red Circle.

• Isen IV (Stahlbrand) (r. 248–present)
  Expansionist ruler. Oversees cultural conversion campaigns in Alendria and Horn’s Light. Mask rumored to whisper.

The @Gotenslag Arena

Nestled just beyond the northern gates of @Konigsheim, the @Gotenslag Arena rises like a stone hymn to the @Hesan Empire ideals of honor, discipline, and lawful violence. Unlike the bloodsport coliseums of other lands, Gotenslag is a sacred judicial ground—its sand consecrated by imperial decree, its walls etched with the names of duelists whose fates shaped the empire. Here, disputes of status, inheritance, and insult are settled not by lawyers or clerics, but by steel. For men of noble standing, the right to demand trial by combat at Gotenslag is enshrined in imperial law, and the outcome of such duels carries binding legal weight. To fight here is to stake one’s life on truth—or at least the strength to enforce it.

The arena itself is austere and symmetrical, designed to reflect the empire’s reverence for order. Spectators sit in silence, not to cheer, but to witness justice unfold. Before each duel, combatants recite oaths of fealty to the empire, acknowledging that their deaths—if required—serve the greater structure. Some duels are private affairs, witnessed only by magistrates and kin. Others are public spectacles, where succession, treaties, or even imperial legitimacy hang in the balance. The arena is not merely a place of violence—it is a crucible of law, where blood sanctifies verdicts.

The Duel of Steinwacht Pass

In the distant past during the spring season, two noble houses—Haus Kesselmark of the southern province of Eberthal and Haus Eisenruh of the northern frontier—clashed over a disputed border fort known as Steinwacht Pass which had long been claimed by both houses, each citing ancient charters and ancestral blood-rights. When imperial arbitration failed, the matter was escalated to Gotenslag Arena, where the Emperor himself sanctioned a duel to prevent civil war.

Representing Haus von Kesselmark was Graf Albrecht der Stolze, a southern noble known for his gilded armor and courtly arrogance. His opponent, Baron Ulrich Eisenruh, was a grim-faced veteran of the northern campaigns, clad in unadorned steel and bearing the scars of a dozen border skirmishes. The duel was brutal and brief—Albrecht’s flourish met Ulrich’s precision, and within minutes, the southerner lay bleeding in the sand.

Ulrich’s victory was hailed in the north as a triumph of humility and grit over southern vanity. Yet the duel had deeper consequences: the Emperor, wary of growing northern pride, quietly reassigned several frontier garrisons to southern command, sowing resentment that would echo for generations. To this day, the phrase “Eisenruh’s silence” is used in Konigsheim to describe a victory that costs more than it claims.