The Comprehensive History of The Imperium Before Book I

A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF THE IMPERIUM

Prior to Starsight Book 1, Vol. 1

(Warning: Spoiler Alert)

 Long before the political history of the Imperium takes recognizable shape, the world is influenced by Kerillian, a prophet associated with extraordinary knowledge, foresight, and the deliberate shaping of humanity’s future. Kerillian is revealed as Conifere to the Trillone, and he speaks of having been present “when the mountains were young,” suggesting that his influence predates recorded imperial history by immense spans of time.

Kerillian’s project appears to have been nothing less than the long preparation of humankind for an eventual existential crisis. Through prophecy, teaching, hidden intervention, and what he calls “progenitor manipulations,” he works across generations to produce a final human vessel capable of carrying the Sight and confronting the darkness. That vessel is eventually Joshan Jenhada Thoringale, though the groundwork is laid centuries before Joshan’s birth.

The names Cessas and Kerillian are closely tied to ancient knowledge preserved through the Crystal, strange forgotten language, and the buried architecture of prophecy. By the time of the first book, this knowledge has become fragmented, mythic, or institutionalized through Assemblage, but its original purpose was far greater than ordinary magical instruction.

The Rise of the Power and the Starguiders

At some point after Kerillian’s interventions, the use of the Power becomes formalized through the order of starguiders. These guiders become the educated, magical, prophetic, and advisory class of the Imperium. They are trained through progressive “trials,” carry vias or scepters, and develop varying degrees of control over the Power.

Over time, Assemblage emerges as the institutional heart of guider learning. It preserves the Crystal, trains young guiders, keeps records, and provides counsel to the imperial government. Ideally, Assemblage exists to preserve wisdom, serve the people, train disciplined wielders of power, and maintain balance between supernatural knowledge and worldly rule.

Yet the history shows that Assemblage gradually declines from its original purpose. Its members increasingly rely on the Power rather than wisdom, ritual rather than understanding, and rank rather than service. Dissent, arrogance, jealousy, and spiritual weakness begin to erode the institution from within. The guiders looked to the power and not to their knowledge and the children spent more time with vias than books.

The Formation of the Imperium and the Eight Provinces

At the time of the first book, the Imperium is ruled by an emperor and encompasses the Eight Provinces. Joshan Jenhada Thoringale is identified as First Prince, heir to Emperor Jenhada Thoringale Evenson, who is Emperor of the Eight Provinces and Keeper of Mathisma.

The Imperium is a centralized imperial structure with provincial identities still intact. It has a capital stronghold, the Keep, a royal court, a council structure, an elite military corps, provincial soldiers, maritime power, and close ties to Assemblage. The emperor’s legitimacy seems rooted in hereditary rule, imperial law, symbolic unity, and the stabilizing presence of the Starguiders.

The Keep functions as a crucial imperial center. It is not simply a city or province but a repository of memory, authority, and institutional continuity. The emperor’s title as Keeper of The Imperium implies both political and custodial responsibility: the emperor guards more than territory; he guards civilization.

The Ancient Catastrophe of the Trillone and Mathisma

One of the oldest historical traumas tied to the Imperium’s world is the destruction wrought by the Trillone. The Trillone were once a violent, conquering people from Dru. They destroyed a civilization on the Great Isle, which mainlanders call Mathisma, annihilating great works of art, treasures, antiquities, and inventions.

This means Mathisma’s imperial importance rests atop a much older ruin. Before the Imperium, Mathisma had already hosted a sophisticated civilization whose loss shaped later history. The Trillone’s attack becomes both a civilizational wound and the origin of their later vow of service.

The turning point comes when the Trillone captures Conifere, the Assemblage Prelate at that time. Rather than merely survive, he transforms them. He teaches them a disciplined martial and philosophical art under strict conditions: they must not use the art until their training is complete, and after one thousand seasons they must fulfill a promise, whose meaning is withheld until the appointed time.

Over generations, the Trillone abandon conquest, devote themselves to self-mastery, and secretly aid humankind. Their island society remains outside the Imperium, but their hidden history is deeply tied to the fate of the imperial world.

The Dark Age of Sirdar’s First Rise

Sirdar, Lord of Badain is not simply a warlord but a corrupt magician, manipulator, and creator of abominations. He commands or creates sasarans, laminia, deinos, tarsians, daligon, and the Mournas.

Sirdar’s atrocities are especially clear in the history of Nissa and the Mournas. He attacks Cortaim, slaughters families, tortures villagers and royalty, and uses the catalyst and his compelling persuasion to enslave them. He creates the black Mournas in the far north, then forces human spirits into their bodies. Twenty-five people are transformed into these living weapons, stripped of their humanity and bound to his will.

Cortaim therefore becomes one of the great haunted sites of imperial history: a royal or civilized place reduced to horror, experimentation, enslavement, and memory. Sirdar’s rule is not merely military occupation; it is metaphysical violation.

Sirdar is defeated and believed dead under a mountain of glass that was his castle in Badain. This earlier fall is central to the world’s false sense of security. His servants scatter or hide; the Mournas are hunted down by people seeking revenge; and the world believes the worst evil has passed.

The Aftermath of Sirdar’s Fall

After Sirdar’s apparent death, the surviving Mournas experience a brief freedom from his corrupt touch, but they are not accepted back into the world. People hunt them as monsters, unable or unwilling to see the human victims trapped inside them. One by one, the Mournas are killed, until only a handful remain hidden beneath the waste of Mt. Cortaim. Eventually only Dornarth and Nissa survive.

This period seems to mark a broad imperial recovery. The Imperium survives, the Eight Provinces continue, Assemblage remains powerful, and the royal house carries on. But the victory is incomplete. Sirdar’s works remain, his servants endure, and the institutions meant to guard against his return gradually weaken.

The historical pattern is important: the Imperium wins a reprieve, not a final victory.

The Imperial House Before Joshan

By the generation immediately before the beginning of Book 1, the imperial throne is held by Jen­hada Thoringale Evenson. He is emperor, Keeper of Mathisma, father of Joshan Jenhada Thoringale, and consort or partner to Saldorian. His court includes figures such as Pravius, Councilor of Justice and imperial advisor.

When Book I opens, Jenhada is already ill, sleepless, strained, and increasingly harsh. The illness of the emperor mirrors the illness of the empire: authority remains intact, but vitality is failing. His reprimand of Haiden Bails and young Joshan in the opening chapter shows a court under pressure, a father deteriorating, and a prince still sheltered from the scale of what is coming.

Joshan’s early life is shaped by three principal forces: imperial inheritance through his father, martial training through Haiden Bails, and spiritual/magical guidance through Trenara. He begins as First Prince rather than emperor, a frightened child in Trenara’s visions, and the hidden culmination of Kerillian’s long design.

Trenara’s Visions and the Warning Before the Fall

The first book opens before the overt collapse, but the warning signs are already present. Trenara dreams of a vast black wall consuming the world, the Imperium shattering, and only one promise against destruction: a frightened child and a broken wand. This vision is effectively the prophetic threshold between prehistory and the narrative present.

Trenara understands that the dream is becoming vision, and that the gods—or fate—are pushing her toward Joshan. Her uncertainty is significant: even the wise can see only fragments. The Imperium enters Book I not with confidence, but with its guardian figures afraid, aging, uncertain, and partially blind to the shape of the danger.

Assemblage’s Decline Before Book I

Although Assemblage remains powerful at the start of Book I, its decline is well underway before the story begins. Ricilyn describes her childhood among the guiders and reveals that she foresaw Assemblage falling into disfavor and eventually being swayed by Sirdar.

Her warnings are rejected. She is shunned as an atrocity because of her Truth Sayer gift. Her father, Saminee, nearly loses standing because of her visions. Even when she reaches trials unusually early, she is excluded, resented, and feared.

This history shows that Assemblage’s fall is not sudden. It is seeded by pride, institutional jealousy, fear of uncomfortable truth, and overdependence on magical instruments. Ricilyn leaves because she sees a future in which Assemblage cannot save itself.

Ricilyn’s Exile and the Hidden Parallel Society of Dru

Before Book I begins, Ricilyn leaves Assemblage as a young guider after a vision draws her toward Dru and toward a man with fiery hair and green eyes—later revealed as Shadedale. Her departure represents a break from the failing institutional order and a movement toward a hidden, older discipline.

Her voyage nearly kills her. She is saved by a vulcha and brought to Dru, where Shadedale and Porphont find her. The Trillone heal her, train her, and eventually call her the Oracle. She teaches them medicine, plant lore, music, and healing, but refuses to teach them the Power, recognizing that they already possess a different and perhaps purer discipline.

This means that before Book I begins, one of the world’s most important prophetic figures has already left the Imperium’s formal power structure and joined a hidden people whose destiny will later become essential to the war.

The Imperium’s Military and Social Order

Before the first book, the Imperium maintains a layered military structure: imperial guards, the Elite Corps, provincial soldiers, captains, admirals, and mercenary leaders. Figures such as Haiden Bails, Vanderlinden, Sark DuMontaire, and Thiels indicate a broad martial culture that includes palace defense, naval power, provincial command, and irregular mercenary strength.

The Imperium’s social order also includes inns, pubs, villages, sailors, courtiers, guiders, guards, provincial rulers, and northern kings. The cast list from the first book points to a world already politically complex before the plot begins, with the North, Selas, Thrain, Mathisma, Badain, Cortaim, Dru, and the provinces forming a web of identities and loyalties.

The State of the Imperium on the Eve of Book I

Immediately before Book I begins, the Imperium appears outwardly intact but inwardly vulnerable:

• The emperor is ill and emotionally strained.
• The heir, Joshan, is still young and untested.
• Assemblage is powerful but spiritually compromised.
• The old prophecies are misunderstood.
• Sirdar is believed to be defeated but is returning.
• His creatures and servants remain active.
• The Crystal and the old knowledge are still present but not fully understood.
• Hidden allies such as the Trillone remain outside imperial awareness.
• Trenara is receiving visions of collapse but does not yet know how to stop it.

In short, the Imperium before Book I is a civilization living in the afterglow of an old victory while standing unknowingly at the edge of a second, greater catastrophe.

Condensed Chronology

·      Kerillian’s ancient intervention — Kerillian and then Cessas’ knowledge enters the world; long-term preparations begin.

·      Rise of guider traditions — The Power becomes formalized through Starguiders, trials, vias, and eventually Assemblage.

·      Early Mathismian civilization — Mathisma once holds great art, inventions, and treasures before the later Imperium.

·      Trillone devastation — The warlike Trillone destroy the old Mathismian civilization.

·      Conifere transforms the Trillone —Conifere, teaches them discipline and binds them to a thousand-season promise.

·      Imperium of the Eight Provinces emerges — Mathisma becomes the imperial center; the emperor rules as Keeper of Mathisma.

·      Sirdar rises — Sirdar creates or commands monsters, enslaves peoples, and devastates Cortaim.

·      Creation of the Mournas — Twenty-five humans are transformed into black Mournas and bound to Sirdar.

·      Sirdar’s first defeat — He falls beneath the mountain of glass; the world believes him dead.

·      Postwar recovery — The Imperium survives, but Sirdar’s remnants endure and the Mournas are hunted.

·      Assemblage declines — The institution grows arrogant, fearful, and dependent on the Power.

·      Ricilyn leaves Assemblage — Her Truthsayer visions drive her to Dru, where she becomes Oracle.

·      Jen­hada’s reign weakens — The emperor grows ill; the court becomes tense; Joshan remains an untested prince.

·      Trenara’s warning vision — The black wall, the frightened child, and the broken wand signal the approaching crisis.

Big-Picture Interpretation

The pre–Book I history of the Imperium is the story of a civilization built on buried knowledge, old wounds, and unfinished prophecies. Its institutions were created to preserve wisdom and guard humanity, but by the time the first book begins, those institutions have become brittle. The imperial throne is weakened, Assemblage is compromised, and the old enemy has returned from a defeat that was never final. Against that decay stands the long design of Kerillian, the hidden discipline of the Trillone, the foresight of Truth Sayers, and the emergence of Joshan as the inheritor of a destiny older than the Imperium itself.