In the Age of Steel, during the reign of King Jerlon Penacor, it was Rusticar Lorimor who split from the kingdom of Talindon to found the Lorimor Empire.
Love tore the realm apart, as it is ever wont to do. By all accounts, Queen Riya and the king’s greatest friend and highest councilor, Rusticar Lorimor, had fallen deeply for each other, despite their respective vows to husband and throne. When the king learned of this, his priests and advisors begged him to show no clemency, warning him that to tolerate such a betrayal flew in the face of the will of the gods and made him weak in the eyes of his people. But King Jerlon still loved his queen, and he grew melancholic rather than wrathful. He annulled his marriage and forever banished Riya and Rusticar from the nascent kingdom.
A large group of the king’s subjects joined Rusticar and Riya in exile, a strange happenstance that leads some to wonder if there was more to the betrayal than mere love. King Jerlon seems to have had trouble commanding the loyalty of his subjects, and this speaks to a lack of charisma or other weakness of character. Whatever the truth, Rusticar was to prove a great leader and Riya at least his equal in all matters. Shortly after arriving on the shores of the western ocean, they founded a legacy of their own that rivaled anything the Penacor line produced. This is, of course, the Lorimor Empire.
References
- Realms of Terrinoth