The Sword of Fire
The Sword of Fire: Forged by Agni in The Celestial Temple, the Sword of Fire was gifted to the Mortal realm long before the fall of the Khaz Modanian Empire, and the rise of Shireroth. The sword belonged to the Line of Emperors who ruled the Khaz Modanian Empire and was seen as a sign of the royal throne of Khaz Modan. Legend tells that the sword was lost several centuries before the fall of the Empire and was not found again until Kaiser Raynor I vanquished the dæmon creature, Rrakanychan and reclaimed the sword for Mortal Man. It is said that the wielder of this Great Sword would have the power to command flame and bend it to their will. Under the control of the dæmon creature, Rrakanychan the sword was used to set ablaze entire villages, forests and plains, reducing even the strongest fortified walls to rubble.
By the reign of Kaiser Gaelen IV, the Sword of Fire was noted as having been lost for centuries[1] yet subsequently, having been rediscovered in some forgotten reliquary of the House of Raynor during the reign of [2] Mira Raynora the Younger, fell into the hands of the Kaiserin's daughter, Lyssansa, who in her turn became the Empress of Minarboria, a Gnostic and chthonic realm populated by the undead and genetically modified post-humans. In this manner it thereby passed once more out of the hands of mortal man and back to those powers which were long decried as demonic by the Cedrist religion. Another facet perhaps to the ongoing Benacian Schism between the bloodlines of the Kaiser who enslaved the demon tree Malarbor and those who worship that same tree's sprouting, the shrub Minarbor.
The Sword of Fire, once rediscovered, played a prominent role in the propaganda of the rulers of Lichbrook as they asserted the rule of the undead over the realm of what was once Brookshire. On the Heraldic display of Lyssansa, in her capacity as Queen of Lichbrook, used an armoured gauntlet holding a flaming sword, placed on either side of her cloth, as supporters.[3] The sword, being an ancient heirloom of the Khaz Modanian emperors, enabled her to stress her ancient lineage and the legitimacy of her rule. Furthermore, Raynor I's eldest child, Mira, was famously passed over in favour of her younger brother, Brrapa, on the grounds that a female could not inherit the Shirerithian throne. However, Raynor had inherited the Duchy of Brookshire from his mother- which proves that females were able to inherit the duchy. As Mira's heirs general, the Queens of Lichbrook therefore claimed sovereignty over Brookshire by ancient right of inheritance and the use of the gauntlets and swords in their heraldry was a very visible reminders of that claim.
The Sword of Fire first came to the attention of Kizzy Drakland in the year 1620 when her failing efforts to curb the lawlessness endemic in Demonsfall led her to seek out the blade in order to craft a means by which to subdue the restless malignant spirits which plagued Ynnraille. [4] Consulting with Mira Raynoria the Elder in Lichkeep, Kizzy found herself direct to venture to Lyhigh, the administrative seat of the County of Lywind, where Lyssansa had exiled herself on account of some familial discord.[5] Miss Kizzy, as she was invariably known during that time, managed to disguise a penitential pilgrimage to the Cedar of Raynor, set amidst the Grove of Lovers in Mesior under the guise of a licentious river cruise as part of her leisurely journey to Lyhigh.[6] Whilst not evidently experiencing any profound spiritual benefits from the visit, Kizzy resumed her journey leaving Mesior richer in herself after collecting a branch torn from Raynor's Tree. In spite of being stalled repeatedly by Lyssansa, and held subject to her capricious whims whilst waiting upon her pleasure at the Palace of Winds in Lyhigh[7], Kizzy persevered and, having finally gained access to the sacred blade, used the Sword of Fire to craft a potent artefact hereafter known as the Emberbark.[8] Where upon she departed and set to work wreaking havoc upon the recalcitrant inhabitants of Demonsfall.
The chaos unleashed by the Struggle for the South combined with a certain familial misfortune resulting in her banishment from Goldshire, Kizzy once more found herself in Lywind, where the fates set her on a path towards reunification with the Sword of Fire.[9] Reunited with the sword once more, after a trial of worthiness by Kalgachian occultists[10]. Kizzy utilised the Sword of Fire, along with a coterie of demons harvested from Demonsfall, much to the displeasure of the Imperial Government, to establish a new state on the ruins of Lichbrook and western Minarboria - the Domain of Malarboria.[11]
Kizzy was, in turn, obliged to surrender the Sword of Fire to Daniyal ibn Daniyal Simrani-Kalirion in 1662 under the terms of the Convention of Drakorda, which permitted her to depart from the lands of what had then become the State of Modan following a Humanist revolt against daemonic rule.
The Sword of Fire, as the centre piece of the state regalia of Modan, represents the celestial fire by which the human supremacy was established upon the hostile alien world of Micras, and represents the reforging of the ancient continuity between the greatest empire, that of Khaz Modan, and the revived State of Modan in the fallen and degrade modern age where - in the absence of purifying fire from the heavens - coexistence with inhuman and nonhuman sapients has long been tolerated, to the ultimate degradation of humanity.
The Sword of Fire has been said to have only reached its full potential when it was used by Rrakanychan. Only a demon, it was postulated, could transcend the self-imposed constraints of moral scruples, such as which inform human conduct. The Liches, whilst pretending to a heightened sensibility beyond good and evil and possessed of an arrogance that was itself bordering on divine proportions, were still moral creatures, their residual fondness for mankind, even as merely the pupae from which their undead forms had emerged, limited the scope of their imagination and thus denied them access to the blade's full potential.
It is not yet know what the sword, now in the custody of the Prince of Modan, is capable of in the hands of one whose intent is to rededicate it to the archonic workings of the Celestial Temple. That a number of villages, known to have been withholding their taxes from state and imperial authorities, have recently gone up in smoke following personal visitations does suggest that he might be getting somewhat more proficient at igniting the blade.
