The Emperor of Stone, originally named Vonimir, was the emperor of Ishfadel from 448 PGE to 352 PGE. He controlled the entirety of the continent aside from the southern desert, Faerloren. He was the father of Anithrian the Unborn Plague and was married to the Queen of Bile as part of the surrender conditions of Northerra. His use of earthen magic was unmatched and is from where he drew his namesake. He was killed by the Lord of Common, and his soul was destroyed by Dominic of Trenton.
Early Life
It’s not known exactly when or where Vonimir was born, only that he was found on the steps of the Monastery of Hiealden in Fyrgen sometime between 483 PGE and 479 PGE. There he would have learned from a young age the basics of stone magic. There are few records of Vonimir’s early life and study at the monastery as most of the monastic writings were destroyed by Cantif and later by Vonimir himself.
When King Cynell of Cantif invaded Fyrgen, razing the Monastery and killing the monks, Vonimir escaped into the tunnels deep under the Monastery that wove their way through the mountains. Deep within the labyrinthian tunnels, he found the Conduit of Orthtir which the monks had kept hidden from the world.
Revolutionary
Over the next years, Vonimir trained his magic capabilities, syphoning power from the conduit. While training, Vonimir began to gather people to rise against Cynell. His rebellion started small, spreading dissent, harassing the occupying forces in Fyrgen, and other disruptive activities. In Fyrgen, dissent among the people was not all too uncommon and Vonimir’s band of rebels did not draw any unusual attention. As he grew in his own magic power, so did his rebellion, and with this growth, the actions of his rebels became more and more violent. On more than one occasion, officers of the occupation were found staked through the chest high above the ground, parts of them had been turned to stone and shattered, strewing pieces of body and stone on the ground below. Vonimir led strikes against caravans of supplies from Cantif, and many of the bodies found afterward had been beheaded, their necks being turned to stone and shattered. They would die in agony as their lungs were cut off from their brain, but not quick enough to avoid witnessing their own body separated from their head.
Because of the rising dissent within Fyrgen and Wester (which had also been taken during Cynell’s conquest), King Cynell wanted to personally oversee the hunt for the rebels. Vonimir heard through underground connections that the King would be travelling to Fyrgen through the mountains that boarded Cantif. As the King’s caravan was moving through a mountain pass, a large landslide crushed his carriage. Those that were not crushed under the mass, were executed by Vonimir and the rebels. The King’s death put Edwit the Bastard, the king’s only, but illegitimate, son on the throne of Cantif. With the major route to Fyrgen now cut off by the rubble and the rebels in Wester stopping any movement through the shared border, Vonimir was able to grow his rebellion’s strength without fear of a quick reprisal. And in 449 PGE, he led the first city wide revolt against Cantif. Revolts then quickly began to break out across Fyrgen and Wester.
As the revolts gained strength, Vonimir amassed an army under one banner and marched on Cantif. His army worked their way to Haelif, and at its gates, he felled the stone walls with his magic. The rebels flooded the city, overwhelming the garrison. As his army razed the city, Vonimir walked unopposed to the palace of Edwit and struck him dead with a single blow. With the death of King Edwit, Vonimir declared himself the king of Cantif, Fyrgen, and Wester. As they had seen his displays of power, the garrison surrendered and what remained of the King’s guard relented to their new king.
Rule
As one of his early orders as king, Vonimir ordered the construction of a citadel between the two main kingdoms, Cantif and Fyrgen, on the ruins of the Monastery of Hiealden, and, only known to him, above the Conduit. Over the next two decades, his palace, the Mountain Keep, was constructed, much of it personally carved by Vonimir using his stone magic. The city that grew quickly around it, much of it also personally carved, he named Hiealbren. With the completion of the Keep, Vonimir sat upon his throne, which he had directly sealed to the Conduit, and declared himself the Emperor of Stone.
During the decades of construction, the Emperor of Stone raised an army of skilled mages trained by the remnants of the monks that had raised the Emperor of Stone and military officers.
Not many years after the Emperor of Stone had taken the throne, he declared war on Thyla, who had occupied Torfen after pushing Cantif occupiers out. The war did not last long as the armies of Thyla had grown smaller as Ardis of Midthyl, King of Thyla, had since shifted focus from a war economy to a producer economy. The armies of Thyla could not withstand the mages that fought under the Emperor of Stone, and after two years of fighting, Ardis surrendered to stay the bloodshed in his kingdom. As part of the surrender conditions, Ardis and the giants would serve the Emperor of Stone in wartime if it was demanded of them.
During the years after the conquest of Thyla, the Emperor of Stone let his empire rebuild. Eventually, however, he wanted to expand. He began amassing larger and more trained armies with the intent to conquer the whole of the northern continent. After twenty years, he invaded Sutherra. With the power of his armies and the might of the giants, who had been drafted into the war, the Emperor of Stone was able to quickly conquer Sutherra. He did not stop his advance into the north, continuing into Northerra. Much like Sutherra, Northerra fell quickly. As part of the conditions for Northerra’s surrender, the Emperor of Stone wed Ilina, the Queen of Bile, the queen of Northerra.
After conquering Northerra, the Emperor of Stone became increasingly paranoid of a rebellion by the giants and ordered that the giants were to be hunted down. His armies in Thyla began the systematic execution of the giants. Under his command, mages were gathered into death squads to find and kill every giant. Many giants fled to Woirfren, but this did not deter the Emperor of Stone who ordered his armies into the country to destroy the remnants.
Not long after the conquest of Woirfren, the Emperor’s son, Anithrian, was killed by his mother, the Queen of Bile. For this, he exiled her back to Northerra, where she would have regional control but no longer have any influence over imperial matters.
Still having a desire to conquer more, the Emperor of Stone ordered his armies over the southern mountains to conquer the deserts of Faerloren; however, the armies met with their first major defeat at the hands of a Desert Tempest, a sandstorm of devastating proportions. The tempest shrouded Faerloren raiders who systematically struck his armies, destroying supply lines and killing commanding officers. Those that were not killed by the raiders were swallowed by the storm. With no army to conquer the south or protect his reign, the now rapidly aging Emperor sequestered himself in the Mountain Keep, resigning himself to sit upon his throne, which, with its seal to the Conduit, was the only thing keeping him from death.
His reign in each of the outlying countries would come to an unceremonious end. The regional governors, one by one beginning with the Queen of Bile, declared independence, and those loyal to the Emperor were hunted and killed. Fyrgen remained in his control until his final days. In 352 PGE, after ruling for 96 years, Fyrgen rebelled against their Emperor and stormed the Mountain Keep, led by the half-giant called the Lord of Common, whose true name is lost to history. On his throne, he was struck down, sealing the conduit and shifting the fate of Orthtir.
Soul Death
While his body was destroyed when he was slain by the Lord of Common, the Emperor of Stone’s soul did not return to Aeon, rather it remained in the Living Universe, inhabiting the body of his murderer. The Lord of Common was driven to madness by the soul, but could not die, instead, as the Emperor had, he cloistered himself in the decaying Mountain Keep. In 272 PGE, Dominic of Trenton, was sent by the Gold Curators to unseal the Conduit, and he found his way to the Keep. There he found the Lord of Common upon the throne and bested him in a duel. The soul of the Emperor was finally released into full control over the dead Lord’s body. But once again, he was defeated. Dominic then destroyed the throne and the seal, in the process turning himself to stone.
Anithrian
During his systematic killing of the giants, the Emperor had a son with the Queen of Bile named Anithrian. He had hoped that by fathering a child he would have a vessel to transfer his soul into when he grew older; however, due to the Queen of Bile’s magic, Anithrian was born premature and malformed. After having his son, the Emperor of Stone began his invasion of Woirfren to hunt down the last of the giants, believing that despite the deformations, he could still use Anithrian’s body as a vessel.
The Queen of Bile despised her son, and not long after the conquest of Woirfren, she came to his bed chamber and strangled him. Upon learning of his son’s death, the Emperor exiled the Queen and attempted to resurrect his son using an imbued stone of oranum. While it was successful, the resurrection left Anithrian scarred and even more malformed.
The Emperor was disgusted with what had become of his son and exiled him southward into the Faerloren desert.
Stories of H Merrill 
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