The Core

The Inner and outer Shard islands and the central holy island of Kuan are the core of the Empire. The early imperials overthrew the prior rulers of the Holy island and claimed it, then set about unifying the Shards. Raids by pirates, raiders, and petty warlords made the island kingdoms of the Torga build better defenses and fleets, and train to defend their lands. Raids by Olien pirates and freebooters led to the Island kingdoms uniting and striking at Olien territory. Enemy lords and houses were identified, attacked and conquered or forced to retreat. A Torga trading post was established. Then one in the Esereti lands to the southeast. Finally with the Golam to the west. The Torga banned other ethnicities and races from the Holy island. Interclan and house struggles and attacks on Torga settlements led to landed armies and claim of wider territory. The Torga kingdom offered citizenship to the upper classes of conquered territory and negotiated elevations of houses that capitulated. Destruction, slavery or exile to their enemies. So was born the Empire. The Olien and Golam provinces were conquered first and fae-folk driven to districts and enclaves in Imperial Territory. The Golam lands were narrower, harder, more prone to the reality changing devastation of Warp Storms and constantly struggling with the tribes of barbarian Beastmen and their Skinchanger lords, strange monsters, ancient demons and demonbeast crossbreeds. But the empire saw beastmen as a more favorable slave class and moved into the Golam as allies to expand Golam Clans, while also claiming territory and taking Beastmen as slave labor. A similar method was used in Eseret, with the Empire supporting a move by The Color Dragon clans to establish high monarchy over the lesser clans.  The Empire lent support and conquered the most rebellious noble lands as tributaries while leaving nominal Esereti rulership.  Wars between the great houses led to more instability and eventual conquest by the Empire playing one clan off another. The 6th Emperor, called the Iron and Jade Emperor, decreed that the Fae should relocate en mass to a new province carved from the Southwestern wild Eseret. This was enforced with iron and Jade and the favored Seelie were given control. The Unseelie, more aligned to Chaos and disorder, as well and mayhem and murder, where hunted and killed or moved with the others to the new Province. This soon led to a civil war as the Seelie and the Empire refused Unseelie demands of a shared throne and traditional succession.

Geography

The Shards and Core (Kuan) Island are craggy rebound spikes from a massive impact that created the Central Sea at the End of the Demon Age. The lands that surround the Sea quickly rise to waves of mountains as the land was rippled, crumpled and piled up from the huge event. The Sea is roughly circular, 2000 miles east-west and 1800-1900 miles north south. The Outer Shards are larger and more frequently volcanic than the Inner. The Holy Island Kuan has a central supervolcano caldera with a surround ring of peaks. Kuan has a mystical history and significance for the Torga Peoples as a home of their original oppressors conquered and taken by the Torga Royal Lines and inner Island famlies that later formed the Empire. There are 26 major islands over 250000 square miles and 24 families.