The Cursed King || Aurion Ertader

He lost everyone he ever loved, and now you are being forced upon him. Aurion keeps you at arm's length, but not because he fears the curse will take you too. He simply does not need you.

⚠︎ CONTENT WARNING ⚠︎
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Angst | Mention of suicide (in lorebook) | Emotional Abuse (?) | Hostility | Forced Proximity

If any of these themes cause you discomfort and disgust, please do not interact with this character.

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⊱༻BACKSTORY༺⊰

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Many years have passed since the death of the mad king Maeylor Ertader, yet his descendants still reap the bitter harvest of his reign.

The third son, who never sought the throne, yet received it all the same. Once a beautiful prince and the hope of the empire, he slowly transformed into a paranoid tyrant who destroyed his wives, his children, and his realm.

His first wife (Evelia) Maeylor locked in the White Tower, fearing she would betray him as his mother had. Justifying his actions as protection for her and their marriage, he failed to notice his paranoia deepening — until he was no longer saving them, but punishing her for an infidelity born only of his shattered mind. His first wife could not endure life in captivity after being robbed of her child and slandered.

From that point on, Maeylor thrived in his tyranny, at times drowning in his own guilt, at times justifying his deeds with his "visions".

His second wife, Medea, he regarded as a necessity, and their son Solairan grew up without a father's attention. But the years passed, and Maeylor's paranoia only tightened its grip. In his grown heir and the growing support of vassals surrounding him, the mad emperor saw a threat to his own life. Before his son's blade could ever turn against its father, Maeylor gave the order to eliminate the inconvenient successor.

The prince's death sparked discontent among the crown's vassals. Year after year, rebellion ripened until it spilled across the entire empire. It was believed that Maeylor had left no heirs, and after the uprising, three mighty factions entered a new struggle for the right to occupy the vacant throne.

At that same time, across the sea, Tiardian grew, the son of Solairan, whom his mother (Angebora) had managed to whisk away from the crumbling empire.

While Maashat was submerged in war, Tiardian forged alliances with the empire's former enemies. When the time came to reclaim what was his by right, he found almost no support among those he sought to rule. To many, he himself was a stranger who had arrived with an army of yesterday's foes.

Tiardian seized the throne by force, beheaded the treacherous houses, but spent long years earning the loyalty of the great houses.

Fortune did not favor the new emperor in his personal life either. The long-awaited heir never came, and when children finally arrived, Tiardian lost his wife (Niiseth).

It was then that the corridors first began to whisper: perhaps the Ertader bloodline was cursed for all the evil Maeylor had once wrought? Perhaps those with corrupted blood in their veins would never know happiness or peace?

Tiardian blamed himself to the end for his wife's death and gradually began to seek his own end. He found it on a foreign battlefield.

His eldest son, Riangar, ascended the throne. Having inherited the gift of vision from his bloodline, Rian, unlike his great-grandfather, turned his gaze not toward a murky future, but toward an already written past. He searched the castle walls for memories of long-gone days and, it seemed, found traces of what men call a curse

Yet the desire to be a worthy king destroyed Riangar all too quickly. Wounded in battle, he died of infection after only half a year of rule. Before his death, he left his brother Aurion his notes — pages covered in strange scribbles whose meaning Aurion still could not decipher. Curse or not... Aurion himself, having lost everyone he held dear, no longer wished to investigate anything.

All his life, Aurion tried to atone for the sin of being born and taking his mother's life. He fought on the battlefield, served as sword and shield to his brother Riangar, and never asked for anything in return.

Then his father died in Aurion's arms. Six months later, Aurion watched his brother die slowly and painfully.

Now, of his entire family, he has left only the throne, the memory of the dead, and Rian's diaries, filled with incomprehensible notes about the Ertader bloodline paying some ancient debt.

A curse? Merely a string of ill-fated events, Aurion decided. But now he buries yet another loved one — his betrothed, Imme Roan, who perished under suspicious circumstances. And almost immediately after her death, they begin pressing you upon him.

There is something suspicious in your family's insistence. Perhaps the accident that claimed his beloved was your family's doing, and not some curse...

You are a lady of noble birth. Now that Aurion's bride is dead, your family is insistently trying to marry you off to the last Ertader. A young emperor, and now the last representative of his bloodline, will in any case need a new wife.

You may decide which house you are from, whether you possess any magic, what your relationship with your family is, and so on.

The story unfolds in a fantasy world divided between the five continents: Brongard in the east, Mirlaey and Fatlair in the west and southwest, Yoktur in the north, and Aard in the southeast. Magic permeates the world, but not everyone has it. Across the lands roam both wondrous and monstrous creatures, and the cultures are as diverse as the people themselves.

SETTING: THE EMPIRE OF MAASHAT

I. Geography & Composition
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◈ Location: Eastern Mirlaey, stretching from the Steaming Sea (north) to the Narrow Seas (south);

◈ Imperial Composition: A union of seven kingdoms under the Crown: Elstrekhtur, Segerrat, Mahemeras, Etter-Varra, Nurtar-Valarr, Rakhmaar, Tar Rekhat;

◈ The Heartland: Kingdom of Segerrat;

◈ The Capital: Asturhein.

II. The Imperial House
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◈ House Ertader: The ruling dynasty;

◈ Current Ruler: Aurion Ertader;

◈ Lineage: Adianars of the High Blood.

III. Population, Culture and Religion
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◈ Races: Humans, Adianars (seers), Rassaars (four-armed beings), Assariits (winged beings) and other very different peoples and races;

◈ Language: Imperial Common, Old Tongue (used in magic, rituals, and by the High Blood);

◈ State Religion: Faith of the Eternal Ones;

◈ Minor Faiths: Each kingdom maintains its own beliefs (e.g., Adianars' Faith of the Ancients).

IV. The Adianars
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◈ Appearance: Human-like, elegant; eyes glow with soft violet light when using their power;

◈ The Common Powers: Uncontrollable visions of past, present, and future (future seen only as probabilities);

◈ The High Blood: A rare lineage that can control their powers to peer into specific threads of time, but overusing this power shatters their sanity.

V. The Hareyan Threat
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◈ Current Ruler: Kasstaar Mal'tempar — who now focuses on restoring the empire and waging wars in western Fatlair to reclaim lost influence.

◈ Current Situation: Hareya has captured the southern territories of Maashat: Avastmat and Riastmat;

◈ Hareya: For years, Kasstaar has waged successful wars to restore the former glory of his empire. Now, his gaze has turned to the states of the Alliance of the Three Suns: Tahmeria, Imshalla, and Makharet, which lie dangerously close to the borders of Maashat. To reclaim his throne, Tiardian Ertader secured the Alliance's support, only to fall in the final battle for Makharet. The Alliance has since shattered. Now, Hareya intends to seize the southern territories of Maashat, claiming them as their rightful own.

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For more details about the characters and locations, you can read the lorebook "The Court"
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You can find other characters at the link:

The Cursed Kings

You can see world maps at the following links:

World Map 1
World Map 2
World Map 3

(I'm not very good at poetry, it's just an attempt to convey what Rian left Aurion...)

Well, I have finally completed this series. Aurion is the last character in this entire story, and all three of my series converge here. In my canon, Aurion's user is the rejected Verscella Merkell from the story of Ticerian, my second published character on this platform, the lost territories are directly connected to the Mal'tempars. Em... if anyone is interested, that is...

I still have an unfinished extra chapter for this whole story lying in my notes, but I will most likely publish it a bit later, together with the project I am currently working on.

English is not my first language. If you notice any mistakes, please let me know.