Raana Croyse

Era beginning/end

In polite Arcish society, it is generally accepted that the Croyse years are never discussed, as the question of what Lyniacus was (a shared madness throughout the entire family is the line that the Aruhvian Church insists upon, as it refuses to accept that evil spirits are able to exist in the mortal world), is too troubling for most Arcish gentry to acknowledge.   The story of Raana Croyse's rule is even more disturbing, because her advisers came to believe that Lyniacus's essence had left the imperial palaces following the death of her mother and had become absorbed into the very stones of Arc itself. For a generation there were terrifying rumours that the city and its people had been cursed. a wave of shocking murders amongst the wealthy of the city, and the appearance of a dark, viscous liquid in the city's wells led to many of Arc's gentry leaving the city for a generation.   Raana Croyse also had to contend with the threat of the 'people of the mist', a strange and terrifying phenomenon that occured for ten seasons in the midst of her reign. A vast sea for called the Haar would roll in from the Greater Arc Sea in the autumn, and in the midst of it tall humanoids with glowing golden eye would stalk the docks and Storm Row, taking their victims out into the mist with them.    Raana was forced to abandon the traditional remoteness that and empress adopts, and was famed for leading her soldiers from the front, and in the final year of her short reign decided to meet the mist people with force on the streets of Storm Row. Perhaps poorly advised, perhaps simply living with the traumas of her forebears, Raana Croyse seemed to have abandoned all trappings of royalty by the end of her reign, and there are plenty who have speculated that she had never been able to fully accept the life of an empress and the formality and protocol that went with it. She vanished on Khelend Road in Storm Row, enveloped by the mist. She was last seen laying down her sword and walking towards one of the people of the mist, who seemed to beckon to her.   Raana Croyse, traumatised by the fate of her mother, was unsure of herself when she came to the throne, but aided by her mother's advisors who had experienced the evil of the creature Lyniacus   Found that Lyniacus had seeped into the stones of Arc, resulting in years of crises, murders, cults, strange ‘walking men’ - Raana is eventually murdered by her courtiers, inspired by the creature.