There I have reigned thereafter.

My banner is a silver pointed spear. My household guard adorn their helmets with the scales of slain basilisks. My sons lead armies, and my daughters give birth to kings. The towers of my keep will crumble long before my honor does.

I have washed the desert in blood. I have set it afire with the blood of demons. All this I have done and more.

And how exactly did you end an Empire? What Empire was it that you put to an end?

Being an adopted noble, I was privileged. I received a formal education in warfare and statecraft. In short, I was raised to be a guard dog. All this turned against my oppressors when my mother was forced into marriage. As a rule, the nobility married into itself, refusing to mingle with the foreign taint on pain of death.

It was my mother who asked me to kill her. Simply put, she planned to become a martyr, the first victim of the revolution. By killing her I conserved what little honor my family name had left, and lit the fires of revolt. I fled the desert cities then. I went west, to Freiland.

Of the freilanders you must know that they are perhaps the greatest warriors alive. I did not believe a march against the Masters possible until I saw them myself, every man a warlord in his own right, covered in steel plate from head to toe, sword and spear close at hand. If I won, it was because of Freiland’s knights.

And so we went into the desert. We freed one city after another, encountering little opposition. The minstrels flatter me by singing that the final battle was unlike any the world had witnessed, but in truth, it was closer to a brawl. There was too much dust, confusion, and heat for that to have been a proper fight. We stumbled through it, hammering ourselves until there was no strength left in us, and when the enemy host broke, the desert was ours – mine. Oh, and how the Masters must have wept knowing that I would hang them all.

And why is your household guard's sigil different from your main one? Is there any significance in the slain basilisk's scales?

I did not slaughter the small folk, the ones that had to a certain extent mingled with my people. The merchants, the slavers, anyone who thought themselves superior, however, needed to be taught a lesson. Those I hung. I gave the eldest children as wards to the families of Freiland, keeping some in my own household. The ones who were resolute against me, I had killed - in time they would be my enemies, it was inevitable. The truly small ones, the ones who could still be changed, I had raised as though my own children.

As for the hanging... I offered them one small mercy. I had my men slit their throats as they choked, so as to not prolong their deaths needlessly. That was how I bathed the desert in blood, or so sing the minstrels.