Drassa Askar
Era beginning/end
Drassa Askar was considered by many of those who had mentored her, unsuited to the job of ruling. Her father had spent much of his reign belittling her and treating her as weak and incapable. As a child she had been banished to a Malermic Temple in the the Arcish wastes to the north, where a life of silent contemplation was interrupted by tragedy. When her eldest brother Merodin died in a hunting accident months after his father, Drassa was brought back to Arc, where she was crowned empress, following the elderly emperor's abdication. Faerdyn had intended to hand over the reigns of power to his son, and was consumed by grief and anger when he was forced to step aside for his daughter. It was the Arcish general Nurian, then a charismatic commander of the Arcish third army who escorted her back to the city, accompanied by her advisor, the Malermic Brother Aeolfan, who sensed that Nurian could not be trusted. His suspicions were confirmed when he discovered that Nurian and Faerdyn plotted together to return the old emperor to power and to kill Drassa. Nurian had been assured that he would inherit the throne once the Faerdyn eventually passed away. The old man was driven by nothing more than spite and the desire to thwart his daughter. When Drassa fell in love with the Golan ranger captain Viyeldin, she provoked further outrage from her father, who had intended that she marry into the noble Loverien family (on the understanding that if he failed to assassinate his own daughter, the family would be loyal to his throne and find their own way to remove her). Viyeldin and Aeolfan discovered Nurian's coup and managed to persuade his supporters not to act against Drassa (reminding them of the terrible consequences should they try and fail). Drassa sent Nurian north to command her armies around the small military outpost that would eventually become Dran. She dared him to disobey her, and Nurian, sensing that the moment to mount a coup had passed, declined to do so. It was in this act, however, that the long term seeds of conflict were sown and centuries of bloody rivalry between Dran and Arc began.
