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|There was an Empire, once.\\ \\ Rastaban. Empire of lands so plentiful that it stretched across the entire world, touched every shore, and brought together every kind of people imaginable into the service of its sacred purpose. \\ \\ Rastaban. Empire of heroes so numerous that if you emptied out the stone from all the quarries in all its fiefs and carved them into tablets, they could not bear even the index of their names. \\ \\ Rastaban. Capital of that Empire, larger and taller and more magnificent than every other city. Pride of its people. Envy of the world. \\ \\ There was an Empire, once. \\ \\ Its scholars and servants, responsible for maintaining the Empire's vast landholdings, now turn upon each other, backstabbing, intermarrying, scheming; twisted Great Houses who play for echoes of power. \\ \\ Its commissioners, renowned for bringing forth marvels from thin air, now squat in their Guild suckling on the darkness that pours from the depths; their fetid laboratories spewing forth contagion. \\ \\ Its paladins, stalwart followers of the Imperial Muses, still cling to their old, forgotten ways. Daily they fall to worship at the five sanctums. Daily they pray for a time when their Empire needs them, once again. \\ \\ The Imperial Throne lies empty. In place of an Emperor, there is a Silent Regent, and she rules eternally in shadow, the Imperial District her haunt and epicentre of her power. \\ \\ All around the walls crumble and the populous dwindles and the fields lie fallow: but the people still dream of Rastaban, Rastaban the glorious and perfect and undiminished, and in that dream of Rastaban they dream themselves, and in their hearts the Empire never dies. \\ \\ So when, on the Day of Triumph, the Silent Regent steps outside her palanquin -  unprecedented in a thousand years of history - and announces the Great Edict which stoppered the City is finally to be lifted; that Rastaban is to go forth once more to reclaim its forgotten lands - the people are consumed with ecstasy. \\ \\ There was an Empire, once.|
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