The Founder's Regalia

About 400 years ago, shortly after the first portals opened and the first immigrants stepped foot (or hoof, or claw) on the new lands of the Funhouse, a mighty warrior, statesman, and general rose to prominence along the Eastern shores of The South Sea. Though young, and new to this land like so many others, he quickly begin a campaign of conquest, domination, and development that would continue unabated to his death. Along the way he established the boundaries of one of the first documented stable reflections, uniting the people of the lands he conquered with a common culture, and beginning to give them a common history in this new and strange land. Even though that empire has fallen to dust long ago, and now only small city-states and feudal baronies are left to squabble over the ashes of greatness, myths and legends are still spoken far beyond its most ambitious borders of the powerful magic items that allowed this man, known most commonly by his title "The Founder" to do all that he did.


While the legends do not always agree on the exact nature or number of the items which officially count as the Regalia of the Founder, and which ones more properly "belonged" to his lieutenants, there are some items which are common across nearly all stories, the eight greatest. These are, in no particular order: his Scepter, Sword, Shield, Crown, Ring, Map, Gauntlet, and Banner. Unfortunately, the exact properties and abilities of each item have been the subject of such debate and hyperbole throughout the ages that most serious scholars admit that, at this point, there is nearly no way to know exactly what they did. Most of the myths telling of his rise and deeds however do tend to ascribe the same general types of powers to each item however, even if the specifics are lost to the age
The myths continue however, saying that the general or ruler who manages to find all eight of these storied relics will receive the blessing of the Founder to reunite his old empire, before leading the people of the reflection on to conquer the entirety of the Funhouse, and usher in a new golden age.  While there have been claims, some substantiated better than others, over the centuries of one renowned leader or another discovering one, or even two of these artifacts, the full eight have never again resurfaced.  And so the people who live in what used to be a great empire wait, and whisper, while the ambitious among them search and scheme for the keys to ever greater power.