When the ruling amperor was assassinated the southern empire was in a panic with no surviving heir to the throne, and it likely would have torn apart from the infighting among the nobles wanting to claim the throne for themselves. But then suddenly a noble woman named Seydonia showed up seemingly out of nowhere and declared herself the new empress, and though there were obvious objections they were futile as Seydonia came from an old house that still had a distant claim to the throne as emperors from the past had been of their bloodline. Seydonia wasted no time to try hold the empire together but as word reached her that some of the cities wanted to split from the empire, among which her own province, she did not take kindly to it and ordered several cities to be sieged Goudsbergen and Oosterzee among them to make an example of them and seize their wealth for the future war effort against the northern kingdom of Whitestone and the newly formed border state of Moonrest which now stood in her way.

After the failed siege of Moonrest the empress became increasingly more frustrated when even her spies in the city had all been captured. How dared this one city of lowly beast folk stand in the way of expanding her empire and defy her will... But there was just no way around it as the sea routes north were cut off by Azya's fleet in the west and the eastern route was lost after failing to claim Oosterzee after several attempts, resulting in major losses to the Imperial fleet which would take decades to recover to it's full strength. Thus Seydonia had her hands full with rebuilding the fleet and keeping the empire together through fragile alliances based on fear for becoming the next city to be made an example of should they step out of line. She even considered forming an alliance with Azya for a short time, but such an alliance would be the end of the empire since Azya could not be trusted, not to mention the nobles would not agree to having to work with some misshapen beast like Azya. This led to the empire remaining isolated untill the demon war broke out, which the empire barely survived and left it in shambles and the following unrest started a civil war and the slave rebellion as the final blow to the once mighty empire from which it might never fully recover again.

Unbeknown to anyone the whole time, the empress wasn't who she seemed to be as she was in fact a demon, named Ril'lith, who had been in hiding since the previous demon war and biding her time in order to destabalize the empire to have one less nation standing again the coming demon invasion. After the war she vanished and left her visage of Seydonia behind to keep up the sharade and continue that family's bloodline so she could return again to take the place of another descendant should there be another demon invasion in the distant future, and ofcourse provided she manages to hide somewhere safe and not get slain by adventurers during that time, especially now that the twin goddesses have returned and their lost sister now walks on Eidon in the guise of a mortal adventurer hunting down any demons still in hiding.

Made in Hero Forge
Characters belong to me  Chakat_Blackwater