A to Z: W is for Wind, Water and Waves

Today is brought to you by the letter W. W is the first letter in words like “Wind, Water and Waves which overwhelmed the Islands of the White Emperor.”

To the east of Arding, across the Great Easter Sea, lie the shattered remains of a group of islands commonly referred to as, “The White Empire” or “Lenara” or “The Lenaran Empire.” Almost 500 years ago, these islands were much larger and represented the single most powerful empire within known Aldeboran history. The decadent”Dragonlords of Lenara” (for they have mastered the art of riding dragons) once ruled the rest of Aldeboran much like the Melnibonéans once ruled Moorcock’s barbarian lands. As a teenager I ripped the whole thing off from Moorcock.

A little background: About 500 years ago, while the ‘young kingdoms’ of the continent were in rebellion against the Lenarans, the Lenaran Islands themselves were 90% destroyed by a great cataclysm. Fire fell from the sky, the ground shook, waves inundated the lands… the whole bit. Nearly everything was destroyed. The remaining islands are called Thambar, Elmmar, Summar, Xenar and Tessar (which are also, by strange coincidence, the names of late 19th/early 20th century photographic lens formulas created by the engineers of Leitz GMBH and Zeiss-Ikon). Priests of the gods of the young kingdoms and wizards of the rebellion took credit for the cataclysm, but evidence that the rebels or their gods actually caused the near total destruction of Lenara is somewhat thin.

The ruler of Lenara is known as “The White Emperor” because the palace he occupies is made of white stone (and ‘Green Emperor’ was already taken by Bob Bledsaw’s Wilderlands). Like the Roman emperors of earth, the White Emperor is considered a god by the Lenarans… and, strangely enough, the Emperors themselves have lifespans that are much longer than the average Lenarans… while the Lenarans have lifespans much longer than the average ‘barbarian’ or ‘Hinterlander,’ so there might be something to this claim.

Although still powerful, the Lenarans are in no way as strong as they used to be and currently devote most of their energies to the constant assassinations and rivalries that plague their royal families as well as various decadent entertainments. Few non-Lenarans willingly visit Lenara. Some end up there as slaves and are seldom seen again. Some people on the continent still claim descent from Lenarans which is a badge of honor that many others may look somewhat askance at — sort of like a modern day Virginian on Earth bragging about how many slaves his great-great-great grandpappy owned.