The Unification
Founding
Extracts from the works of Cleric Beauregard Widegast - On the history of the Empire of Tonnerre. Currently housed in the Great Royal Library.
For Time immemorial, Thunderia was a land of 6 Kingdoms. Each of what are now the regions were once their own lands, ruled by their own ‘Great Kings’. Relationships between the lands waxed and waned, sometimes peaceful, even friendly, other times violent, bloody conflicts would arise over territory, resources, or simply who had the bigger…..army. This all changed with the rise of King Noah Tonnerre, of what is now known as the Capital. Noah had ambitions to unify the land, start an empire spanning the entire continent.
He began with his closest ally, King Tobias Reider of Portland. Offering him a seat in his court, the title of Duke, and royal favour for him and his descendants was almost enough – the hand of his daughter Katarina tipped the balance.
Next to join the rapidly expanding Tonnerre Empire was the fishing region of Oceanside. Ruled by Queen Gwendoline Crouse, Noah did not wish to engage in war with a woman. His original envoy was sent back missing key parts of their anatomy – exactly what the content of their offer contained is lost to the ages, but one can assume. What is known is that King Noah then attended Queen Gwendoline’s court himself and soon began the Tonnerre tradition of taking multiple Queens. Gwendoline’s son Lawson Crouse was named Duke in her stead, and the Crouse family took up their dukedom.
The Dwarven king Thammous Dragonbraid, of Gedag, was if nothing else, a practical and long sighted dwarf. With 3 of the regions now unified under Noah’s banners, and winter soon setting in, he knew a prolonged combat would be won or lost on resources – of which Gedag was less prosperous than its neighbors. He willingly aligned under the banners of Tonnerre and his family took up their Dukedom. Thammous’ personal journals subsequently were stolen by Tonnerreian operatives and uncovered his plans to simply outlive Noah and fraudulently take up the throne to put the entire land under dwarven control. While officially he died on a hunting trip, many have attributed his death to a guild of assassins – the mysterious and possibly mythical Shadowstep. His son, Thragrod, was all too willing to take up the Dukedom and fall in line.
Fortune favoured Noah, the Wilds fell under his rule by the chance death of each of the warring kings of the wild – be it in the wars between the Tigerborn and the Yaun-Ti, by misfortunes - such being crushed under a landslip or impaled on the tusks of a wild creature - or killed by their own guards – the guard who struck the blow on the final ‘Warring King’ being given the Dukedom associated with the Wilds.
Surrounded on all sides, the Lowlands waged a yearlong war against the combined might of the other former-kingdoms. Though they held out for a long time, eventually the sheer numbers and power of the Empire was too much, and they too fell in line with the Tonnerre empire. The walled city of Helmfirth was the last to fall – The king defending his estate until the last when he was captured. Noah personally oversaw the execution – wielding the Sword of Talos in its last public appearance for some time. The King, Dvorak Strome, along with his Queen and his 4 sons were killed in front of a braying crowd of soldiers. His daughter was ‘gifted’ to one of Noah’s generals - Clerenbald the Heartbreaker (so named for his habit of using wives of his enemies to torture them) – who had overseen much of the war for the Lowlands. She born him children, before his painful death from some malady unknown. It is said that Sophia, standing over as her ‘husband’ died, smiled for the first time since the birth of the Tonnerre Empire.
