Zora IV Shiroko
Empress Zora IV Shiroko
Born in 779, Zora IV was the oldest child of Zora III Shiroko. While her reign was initially peaceful, she became famous for her descent into madness. As her rule progressed, she began to hear what she claimed was the voice of Ilya Shiroko and building race tracks to appease him. Her younger sister and brother/husbadn convinced her to step down from rule and become a priestess in 812.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Zora IV was born in 779, the eldest child of Zora III Shiroko and her brother. However, she was mostly raised in her younger years by her mother's second spouse, a female cousin. While her father taught her basics regarding court life, most of her education in affairs outside of her future position as baejan (empress) were handled by her second mother. From her, she learned about the history of the empire and the necessity of having the government under family control. The marriage of two people at once was not strange to her and she grew up as a well adjusted child.
In regards to her mother, Zora III gave her a strict education in how to run Eoion. These lessons included military strategy, a deeper understanding of history, international politics, law, and several other subjects. After the results of her Attunement Test, it was discovered that she was a lu-esh like Zora III and magical education was added to her curriculum. In particular, she learned to created the Ilyannoi through the use of stitching magic, as all future rulers did.
Her mother decided early that Zora IV would marry her younger brother Ilya VI. However, the marriage did not take place until Zora IV was crowned in 800 after her mother stepped down from the position. Ilya was not yet twenty at the time so they two could not be married. In 802, they were and Zora III insisted that they begin working to make the next generation immediately. Still-borns and miscarriages were not uncommon among the women of the royal family and made securing heirs difficult. Zora IV's first child was born in 802, but died in 805, a loss that caused both her and Ilya a great deal of pain. They continued to try and eventually had two more: Krystana (808) and Ilya VII (813).
The early days of Zora IV's reign were largely peaceful. She saw to infrastructure and tended toward keeping the trade flow peaceful between Eoion and Yzel. Currency exchange rates were renegotiated and adjusted slightly in 805, but in 806 she began to decline.
At first, she began hearing small whispers telling her to go to the temple. In the beginning, she was able to ignore them and understood that they were a manifestation of the madness that was not uncommon in the Shiroko Dynasty. Rather than speak of what she was hearing, she kept the voices to herself and instead began praying to Ilya Shiroko for guidance. This continued for two years before the voices changed.
She became convinced that she was hearing Ilya himself and became obsessed with knowing more about him. The decisions of the voices began to influence her own decision making as she believed they were coming directly from the founder himself. Ilya was the first to notice her increasingly odd behavior. When not in court, Zora IV spent all of her time in the temple and refused to speak with anyone outside of the family. The distancing from the court grew more and more extreme to the point where she insisted on having a screen between herself and anyone not part of the family.
Her delusions began to bleed into grandeur as she believed that Ilya was communicating directly to her because she was the most worthy of the dynasty. The contradictory orders of the voices were relayed to the court and caused a great deal of confusion among the nobility and staff. Bayko and Galyena, Zora IV's younger brother and sister, began working with the priests of the temple to see if this was at all possible. There had never been a case where a Dea communicated directly with someone this way. On top of this, the way Zora IV described his voice was self-contradictory at times and this caused the family to believe she was going mad.
She also began to believe she was outside of the world and would only interact with items and food prepared by the family. Only they were worthy of being near her. This detachment led to the family focusing on her rather than running the departments they had been placed in charge of under Zora III. Nobles still feeling the sting of their demotion in favor of family began embezzling money from the budgets of each of their departments. This led to the government becoming increasingly corrupt as nobles began introducing family to the schemes, causing the empire to lose money quickly and certain necessary services to grind to a halt. Even the commoners began to feel the issues at the top.
Along with this, Zora IV insisted that Ilya wanted her to build race tracks and she became absolutely obsessed with them. Her first came near the start of her descent and resulted in the large racetrack still in use on the grounds of the Gandenye. This and other tracks further drained the empire, causing a great deal of instability in their currency, which Ilya VI would have to solve upon his ascension.
By 812, it was clear that Zora IV was completely lost in her delusions and was incapable of running the empire. Ilya, Bayko, and Galyena gathered the other members of the family and decided that deposing her was the best course of action. However, there was no system to be rid of a baejan who did not willingly give up the throne. Murdering her was unthinkable. Galyena and Ilya decided to try a different tactic.
Between the two of them, they were able to convince Zora IV that she would be better served staying in Parishi where the old Shiroko home was located, the birthplace of Ilya I. She argued that she could only continue her work as baejan in the Gandenye, but eventually agreed that working as a priestess would befit someone of sufficient standing that Ilya I himself had decided to communicate directly to her.
In 812, she willingly stepped down and handed the throne to Ilya VI. For the remainder of her days, she moved between the Shiroko home and the temple in Parishi, the largest shrine devoted to Ilya I. Her hallucinations never ceased, but she was peaceful there and her brother/husband, along with their other siblings visited often. She died in 853 at the age of seventy-four. Upon her death, her body was returned to the Gandenye to be buried in the family mausoleum.
Relationships
Life
779
853
74 years old
Birthplace
Place of Death
Spouses
Ilya VI Shiroko
(brother/husband)
Siblings
Children
Gender
female
Eyes
small, dark violet
Hair
white, long, one large braid and a few small ones
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
pale
Height
5'8"
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