Greskel Family

The Greskel Family (sometimes called the Greskel Necrolords) was a dynasty of sorcerer-kings who ruled over Grellain from approximately 570 PSE to 643 PSE. Led by King Akazar Greskel, the family was notorious for their cruelty and totalitarianism. The family used a heavily-armed military force as well as their own magical abilities to maintain control over the population. Most of the Greskels and their inner circle were Shadowborn: a rare condition that allowed them to wield powerful epcane magic to bend wills, control bodies, and even kill with a thought. In addition, King Akazar Greskel's experimentation into editing the Fabric - the metaphysical structure that underpins all existence in Rideen - gave him the ability to alter the flow of time, see the future, and even erase dissenters from existence. This earned him the title of "The Patchwork King" for the careless way he shredded the Fabric to suit his own gains.

The family was finally overthrown in 643 PSE when Akazar's experiments began to damage the structure of reality in Grellain, leading to unrest, confusion, and eventually, rebellion. Rather than reinstate the royal Khrisholm family upon the throne, the Republic of Grellain was established, and the Greskel line ended with the execution of Daeleor Greskel in 647 PSE.

Rise to Power
Before his rule, Akazar Greskel was a general in the Royal Army of the Kingdom of Grellain. Though he initially faced prejudice due to his Shadowborn nature, time and time again he proved himself a brilliant tactician, excellent leader, and capable fighter, and eventually earned the respect of the country and the public. In 566 PSE, Grellain was invaded by the ever expanding United Kingdom of Triskel. The war that followed was brutal, but as Akazar led his troops to victory after victory, he became the nation's most renowned war hero. Despite this, the war slowly began to shift in Triskel's favor.

In 569 PSE, Queen Adia Khrisholm was assassinated by spies from Triskel, thrusting the country into chaos. General Akazar Greskel assumed emergency powers and led the nation in her absence. Now commanding the Royal Army, Akazar ordered the production of an epcane directed energy weapon developed by his son, a brilliant inventor and arcanist named Thaeserik Greskel. These magical laser rifles were far superior to the muskets in use by the Triskellian army at the time and almost singlehandedly turned the tables in the war, bringing it to a swift and decisive end within the year. Akazar and his family had reached almost mythic status among the public.

After the war ended, Akazar continued to lead, claiming that he would cede power back to the royal family after the nation had been rebuilt and secured against future attacks. However, as he bolstered Grellain's military, he also consolidated political power among family members and allies, until much of Grellain's government was run either directly or indirectly by the Greskel family. The public grew increasingly uneasy with Akazar's continued rule, culminating in an attempt at a nonviolent coup that ended with a brutal massacre of all those involved in 575 PSE. Afterwards, the family began a brutal crackdown. The use of magic and the ownership of firearms were banned by all those not trusted by the family. Protests were violently crushed. Akazar's temporary emergency powers had become less than temporary.

Only a few months later, Akazar Greskel officially declared himself king of Grellain, and the Greskel Family the rightful rulers of the nation. The royal Khrisholm family was hunted down and those who failed to hide or escape the country were tortured and executed. The reign of King Akazar Greskel had officially begun.

Height of Power
Not content to rule by military might, the Greskel family did everything they could to leverage their Shadowborn heritage for power. The family used their magic to spy on the population, read minds, brutally execute dissidents, and even bend people's wills and puppet their bodies. They developed the Royal Adoption, a secret ritual which allowed them to grant Shadowborn powers to trusted allies and therefore bring them into the family, extending its power. King Akazar Greskel himself began to explore other forms of magic, studying the Fabric. He created the Eye of Akazar, an artifact that allowed him to directly modify the flow of time. With it, he could freeze time, see the future, greatly extend the family's natural lifespan, and even edit past events.

Akazar's manipulation of the Fabric of reality secured the family's power, seemingly forever. With the Eye of Akazar, even the most devastating attacks on the family could be undone. The most influential political dissidents could be retroactively erased, as if they had never existed at all. It's unknown exactly how many times family members were assassinated, as King Akazar simply altered time to prevent it. For over half a century, the family's rule was utterly unchallenged, and though none of them seemed to age, the family was constantly expanding through new births and adoptions. It seemed that the family would rule Grellain forever.

Revolution and Deposition
Akazar's explorations into the Fabric made him powerful, but they were dangerous and unsustainable. Even though he tried to keep it secret, the side effects of his work were noticeable. In 641 PSE, the people of Grellain begin to notice strange sensations of deija vu and hallucinations. Memories of people who they never knew existed. Fragments of entire alternate lives seeping into their own. When pressed for explanation, the family dismissed the visions as a public placebo spurned by paranoia. In reality, this was the result of Akazar's work coming undone, the shredded patchwork he had made of the Fabric beginning to unravel.

Meanwhile, the Greskel "family" had come to encompass hundreds of people across five generations and countless adoptions, and had begun to lose a sense of shared identity and purpose. Some family members felt it was time for Akazar to pass the reigns to his children. Some feared that Akazar's meddling with the Fabric threatened all of reality. Some simply thought that some creative restructuring could put them a few spots up in the family hierarchy. Whatever the case, by 642 PSE, inter-family tensions had become strained, loyalties tested, and the family was on the verge of outright bloodshed.

Events reached a boiling point when, during a ceremony at the Greskel University for Arcanology, a student named Jaequiros "Jay" Lavisk took the stage and revealed that he had discovered Akazar's meddling with the Fabric of time, and that the memories of lost loved ones that people were experiencing were in fact dissidents Akazar had erased from existence. Akazar himself, present at the ceremony, attempted to erase Jay. However Jay's actions were so public and affected so many people, that trying to edit such a major event partially fractured time and retroactively became the very event that caused people to start to perceive lost memories in the first place. Jay was destroyed, but his actions inspired a revolution that quickly gathered steam.

The revolution was aided by Jania Khrisholm, one of the last surviving members of Grellain's former royal family, who helped coordinate rebellion efforts. It was also aided by both the neighboring countries of Masia and Triskel - no fans of the Greskel regime - and by members within the family itself who were no longer loyal to Akazar. The resulting civil war between Akazar's loyalists, Grellain revolutionaries, outside agitators, and the Greskel family coup consumed the nation for two bloody years until late 643 PSE.

By this point, much of the family had killed one another off, the country lay in ruins, and both the revolution and Akazar's own forces approached their breaking point. Finally, a desperate last assault on Akazar's palace in Aglad led to the capture of Akazar's keep. Rather than face justice at the hands of the rebellion, Akazar shot himself in his throne room, finally ending the reign of the Greskel family.

Aftermath
With the Greskel family defeated, there were immediately calls for Jania Khrisholm to reclaim the Khrisholm throne once again. However, Jania had no desire to rule and decided Grellain had had enough of kings and queens. She helped establish the Free Republic of Grellain, a new nation that would experience a brief but glorious golden age until its destruction due to the Winter Event only three decades later.

Over the next several years, the Greskel family was mercilessly hunted down and either killed on the spot or publicly executed. This concluded with the execution of Daeleor Greskel, Akazar's great grand-daughter, in 647 PSE. Though many adopted family members escaped the revolution, Daeleor was the last direct descendant of Akazar and the official end of the Greskel line.

Today, the Greskel family, often known as the Greskel Necrolords, are remembered for the brutal tyrants they were, but their legacy is sometimes overshadowed by the devastating Winter Event that occurred shortly after and resulted in the diaspora of the ruby people from Grellain. Now that Grellain is being recolonized, many citizens of the New Grellain Republic are discovering powerful and deadly old artifacts of the Greskel regime: magical devices and weapons capable of much of the same powers as the family members themselves, such as mind control, domination, and the ability to kill with ease. The Department of Magical Containment struggles to keep these dangerous epcane artifacts from falling into the wrong hand, but despite this the Greskel legacy of bloodshed and domination lives on in the tools they left behind.

Akazar
Leader of the family.

Khazatrate
Akazar's wife

Jaskar
Akazar's firstborn son. Notorious for a cruelty that surpassed even his father. While Akazar wielded violence as a tool, Jaskar wielded it as a toy. In the early days of the family's reign, Jaskar commissioned a ceremonial sword from an arcane blacksmith named Alak Tirano. He asked that the sword be "so sharp it would sing as it cut through the air." Tirano, not fond of the family and planning to leave the country anyway, decided to make a sword that was enchanted to sing a bawdy folk song when swung as a practical joke. He was arrested before he could flee. With the aid of his siblings, Jaskar rewrote the enchantment on the sword and presented the modified version to the public by executing Tirano himself with it. The new sword was cursed to trap the final screams of its victims, to be replayed whenever the sword was swung.

The Singing Sword of Jaskar Greskel became a symbol of the cruelty of the Greskel Regime.

Alazine
Akazar's daughter, the most capable sorcerer of the three siblings and publicly known to be Akazar's favorite.

Thaeseric
Akazar's youngest son and a brilliant scientist and engineer. Thaeseric developed many of the tools of oppression that the family used to maintain power. In addition to developing the epcane laser rifles that won Grellain's war against Triskel, Thaeseric headed a lab that built personal shield devices for all family members,