Lettow The Great, the Emperor of the World
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"Even a Dragon shall bow." The Verbrüderung (Alliance / Taming) of Lettow and his Dragon, Helius.
Once upon a time, there was no Empire of the Holy Flame. The many Firebending peoples lived in rustic tribes with barely any productive land. Spirits plagued most of the territory and watched as the Firebenders warred over the scraps. Some Land Lords even worshipped the Spirits of the wilds in exchange of mercy and assistance in their wars, especially in the North where the influence of the Tribes of the North Sea was stronger. This was the Darkest Age.
When the Feudal Lord of Aachen, the only formal kingdom of the time, died without leaving heirs; internal struggle among Fireknights led to a bloody civil war. Pretenders were willing to darken and use Spirits in their fight to power. The people called for a saviour.
A young boy, bastard son of the deceased Feudal Lord, went to Heaven's Shrine as a pilgrim. He had promised to make 100 thousand prayers so that the Grey Guardian would forgive the boy's mother. She was the prostitute who poisoned the boy's father as vengeance and sent the kingdom into disarray. The boy sat for weeks straight as he begged the Grey Guardian for forgiveness. His willpower amazed the Airbending Clergy who began to admire his dedication to his goals.
Finally, as the boy completed 1/6 of the promised prayers, he was already in the brink of death. He lost his consciousness due to exhaustion and according to him, an angel touched him as he slept. The clerics saved the boy and he saw flames blazing off his fingers as he rose from the ground. He had been blessed with the gift of Firebending.
When asked his name, he said:
"Lettow, the Bastard."
A Supreme Priest corrected him:
"Lettow von Aarchen, chosen champion of the Grey Guardian, Holy Emperor of the Fire People."
The Birth of an Empire
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Lettow had been chosen by the Divine, yet not yet by the man. Skepticism and tomatoes welcomed him as he returned to Aarchen with Priests and Inquisitors. They saw him as nothing but another pretender willing to start war for power.
He understood that prayer was the language of the Grey Guardian and power was the language of the humans. Yet 10 Firebenders were still willing to accept a Lord chosen by the divine. Lettow made them his paladins and promised that each would die with vast lands and wealth. They nodded politely and dismissed their master's promise as empty words. Yet those 10 people would become the 9 Dukes of the Empire of the Holy Flame a couple decades later.
They travelled together to the mountains of Pirinéus between Aarchen and Badajoz, a land called The County of Dragons. The ultimate symbol of power for the Fire people was the Dragon. Lettow understood that he would become Emperor by overpowering the most powerful being in the Wild Lands.
The impossible happened: Lettow fought the Alpha Male of all Dragons for 4 months when the earth itself seemed to burn with the battle. By the time Lettow finally wrapped a rope around the Dragon's jaw, looked it in the eyes and told what would be its name (Helius); the entire geography of the Pirinéus had changed. They formed a Bond / Verbündnis and Lettow returned to Aarchen with his paladins and his new Dragon.
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Lettow conquered Aarchen without blood. The populace submitted as they saw Helius, his dragon, flying below Lettow. All pretenders gave up their arms and accepted that fighting him would be futile. Lettow's first decision as a ruler was to crush all sorts of Cults of Spirits through Inquisitional Judges and then ravage the wilderness with fire until most weak Dark Spirits moved to the Spirit Steppes. He then fulfilled his promises to his paladins and conquered the tribes of the north and southwest and turned them into walled feuds like Aarchen. Feudalism crystalized.
Lettow promised his paladins:
"The Emperor of the Holy Flame shall be the guardian of you and your princes until the 19th Generation. No adventurer shall take over the land that the Emperor's flame has bestowed upon you."
Lettow returned to Heaven's Shrine where the Grand-Priest of the Church crowned him Emperor of the Holy Flame, Supreme Guardian of the Fire Peoples, the Penitent Faith and the Sacred Church of Heaven's Shrine. An Empire was born.
The Sunset of a Life
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"I've taken a hundred battles and a thousand arrows before the first one hurt. How much I wish, the Grey Guardian knows, how much I desired that 1001th arrow that hurt me had pierced my chest, not hers."
Among Lettow's ten paladins was a young girl named Siegfrieda who had been born deaf. Her only mean to talk was through Firebending and she had a secret language that Lettow deciphered and shared with her. They fell in love for she knew that he was the only one who could understand her. Yet she never knew that Lettow shared the same feeling.
The Waterbending Northmen were enemies whom Lettow never managed to defeat. They constantly raided the shores and threatened his Princes. Yet the threat only became his priority once they pillaged and destroyed the Feud of Hanhiver. Siegfrieda, as Duchess of Hanhiver and Empress, sought after the raiders for the destruction of her land and she died in the North Sea. Her image haunted Lettow's nightmares. He dreamed of her calling for his help when there was nothing that he could do. He lost his capacity to sleep and went mad.
He rallied his lords and invaded Alba with overwhelming strength. The combined power of all Fire Knights proved to outmatch any enemy in the world once their cavalry landed. They crushed the Northmen, burnt all their images of Spirit worship and erected a huge wall to lock them in the most miserable lands to the north of Alba. Yet his greatest offense was to deny burial to his foes in the tradition of the Water Tribes. He buried them deep in the ground where the Northmen thought the dead could never reach the realm of the Spirits.
Because of his actions, the war for the North Sea claims lives to this day.
The Death of a Legend
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Old, lonely and sleep-deprived, Emperor Lettow dedicated his time to roam around his palace. He often said that he pursued Siegfrieda, who often played a romantic Catch with him in their castles. He went hunting alone every Autumn yet he always brought two mounts: one for himself, and another for Siegfrieda, whom he still hoped to find in his travels.
His retirement was disturbed when he heard news that an extremely powerful bender called the Guide had united all the Earthbending Tribes and had his eyes aimed at Afrika and Europa. His Cult of the Moon (the Camarilla) sounded to Lettow like an eerie religion that he could not distinguish from Spirit worship.
He rose Fire Knights and flew to confront the Guide. They found each other in the Battle of Tassos, a bloody skirmish that would decide the fate of the last Penitent city outside of Europa.
Accustomed to overwhelming victories and glories, the Guide surprised Holy Emperor Lettow with an outstanding understanding of both Elements and the nature of Spirits. Lettow's power could destroy the Guide's flesh, yet not the Guide himself. Exhausted, maddened and old, Lettow finally succumbed to the power of the Guide and fell off the sky, dead.
The Guide stole the crown from the Emperor of the Holy Flame and crowned himself Caliph, Emperor of Both Worlds.
Lettow’s body never returned home. His corpse’s fate is unknown to this day.
Today, while the Caliph expands his lands and narrows his eyes at the destruction of Heaven's Shrine and the Penitent faith, the world cries for a new Emperor of the Holy Flame.