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# Overview
# The Iron Age
The Empire was founded following the Sarvaran Plague, which decimated the population of Sarvara and led to the civilisation’s fall. Coroth, a related Morellic nation, annexed the remaining territories of Sarvara and led an offensive against Aqhor in the south, whom attacked Sarvara for resources following the plague.
With the annexation of Sarvara, a Corothic military group emerged victorious over Aqhor. It was this group that would go on to found the empire, forming a coup d’etat against the government of Coroth due to their political differences. The newly-formed empire then elected a general known as ‘The Elephant’ (or Elephant I) as their first High Patriarch.
During the empire’s existence, an emphasis grew on religion, and the Stonechild Religion developed. This religion was monotheistic, with the Petrified Child held as ‘God.’ The office of High Matriarch evolved to encompas the church, and the empire evolved more and more into a theocracy.
Ultimately, it was by the empire’s hand that the Petrified Child was imprisoned within the -3rd realm following the failed construction of the Temple of the Petrified Child, within which the deity itself was intended to be contained for worship. This failure led to the fall of the empire, when the Petrified Child destroyed the nation’s populus in an extinction event that turned the empire into the largest Baby Meadow seen in recorded history. The empire lasted 2,000 years before it fell c. 4,000 AS.