Deviation Actions
Description
"My bloody queen..."
"Not just yet, not just yet... did you killed them?"
"I did"
"They screamed?"
"They did."
The Kingdom of Ester Gate, as well Ëssther or Easter Gate was a Human Petty Kingdom of the Polforian states of the Outregam. Founded by prince Jeanauvel, younger brother of the Hunclech king and several Hunclech nobles who crossed the Pass of Oster Gate into Polforia in the aftermath of the First War of the Power, having been tasked to secure the eastern slopes of the pass, to protect Huncle from future invasions from Polforia.
At the 2227 a.a.H, the crusaders crossed the Pass of Öster Gate into Polforia, and after their initial success against the orcish tribes of the mountains, having secured several forts, bulwarks and castles of the old Olga's Wall of the Demons during the 2228 and 2229 a.a.H, prince Jeanauvel proclaimed the creation of the Principality of the Ester Gate at the 2233 a.a.H, under the blessing of the Karentian church, who saw this as a victory of christianity over the demon worshippers.
One of the greatest success of the conquest of the Fortress of Azad Buul -a powerful castle that had been a court of a demonic Prince in the days of the First War of the Power.-. Prince Jeanauvel, conquering the fortress at the 2239, will rename it as Raven's Watch, making it into the capitol of the realm:
While the conquerors of the demonic fortress killed the more monstruous looking servants -beastmen, goblins, lesser demons and orcs-, the Prince captured as well the succubaero, the succubi of the former bazrrod: and despise the warnings to destroy the more human-looking demons as well, instead he decided to spare them: he told to the church: "what greater victory to christianity, for demons to serve their enemies?"
Following the example of the Prince, the nobles took as well for their own as concubines demonic mistresses, and while a cathedral was being built in Raven's Watch and settlers came for the promised lands and riches, there began the seed of dissention, in that act of lust of sparing the demons.
While originally meant to be a vassal of Huncle, soon there was infighting and dissention amongst the ambitious nobles, while there were protests from the local church for some of the practices of the conquerors, who had taken as concubines demonic mistresses.
Prince Jeanauvel, who had for long be contempted being only a prince and second son, finally decided to proclaim himself as a king, turning Ester Gate into a Kingdom at the 2244 a.a.H, growing further away from his brother. As a King, he wanted to produce a heir, and married to an Hunclech noblewoman, Daerope: however, as happened to other Ester Gate nobles, being married to a woman of nobility didn't meant the King would leave his mistressess and favorites.
After the death in suspicious circumstances of the king Jeanauvel in an Orgy at the 2249 a.a.H, there will be a succession crisis as the legitimate heir -son of Daerope- of the king was still an infant... while the older, illegitimate sons had demonic blood from the succubus concubine of the king, the concubine that they had christened as Bells.-
While Bells the concubine tried to become herself a queen and crown her son as the new king of Ester, they fought the loyalists of Queen Daerope and the legitimate heir: however in the end, it will be a duke who will seize the power for himself, chosen from amongst the higher nobles at the 2246:
King Damian I of Ester Gate's first act was to send the queen Daerope and the legitimate heir of Jeanauvel back to their uncle, the King of Huncle: however he arranged during their journey across the Dargoina Mountains an orc ambush, and killed the queen and son of Jeanauvel in a ravine, along with all their escort.
As the Hunclech king only protested, but he didn't seem to be decided to send an army -worried by his troubles with Sargos-, Damian claimed the independence of Ester Gate, bedding Bells, the succubus concubine of Jeanauvel and taking as heir to his throne the half-demon son of Jeaunavel -that tragically drowned in his bathtub that same night.
The scandalous doings already known under Jeaunavel will become unheard of excesses during the rule of Damian I and his court: scandalized, the people said he had been possessed by the succubus and the bishop of Ester Gate will say he was bewitched and excommunicated the king by the 2249.
In return, King Damian raided the cathedral only to find the bishop in his bed with two young incubi: Damian killed the bishop and ruled as a tyrant.
As the orcish tribes organized again in the mountains, the abandoned realm will begin a series of blood-crazed campaigns against the orcs: as unsatisfied seemed to be Damian of his excesses and scandals, he seemed unsatisfied with all the spilled blood.
For about six years, between the 2249 and the 2256 a.a.H, the Excommunicated king ruled Ester Gate into a bloodbath: the nobles died fighting the orcs in bloody campaigns, or backstabbing each other: ambition run deep, and many attempted to kill the king, who reacted violently: the common people, scared, stopped settling in Ester Gate -aside of the worse kind of amoral adventurers, seeking only a quick rise for their sword and dagger:
what had been a crusader state, founded by the blessing of the Karentian Church, lived in sin and with a headless church, as the Archbishop of Karentia didn't sended a new bishop until the king humiliated himself. As the common people didn't had the religious services and masses due the excommunication of their ruler, King Damian will instead put a degenerated wandering, self-proclaimed monk as a bishop -the only cleric he found would go against the wishes of the church.-
An ambitious man, when the false bishop of the king lost his favour -for being found bedding with one of the favorite concubines succubi of the king, to which he tried to explain it was only a drunken mistake-, Damian I got the wandering monk drowned in wine in the baptismal font... and then, he didn't had any ordered cleric to do the religious services in his capital, and the people was getting unruly, sure that god had forsaken them and their tyrant.
Damian I then, to try to control the common people, sended a letter to apologize to the Archbishop of Karentia, asking for a new bishop.
By the 2256 will arrive the mission from the Archbishop of Karentia to replace the killed bishop and obtain the repentance of Damian: Damian I asked for forgiveness and humiliated himself, appearing as a poor pilgrim in front of the newly appointed bishop and kneeling before him: after giving a dragon's treasure hoard to the church and expelling from his side the succubus Bells -locking her in a monastery- and marrying a young noblewoman of Roccasone -Allonwyn- his sins were pardoned and his soul was saved.
Seemingly, the kingdom had been purged from evil and saved from damnation: the Karentian mission left the kingdom and peace was apparent. Between the 2256 and the 2261, while the wars with the orcs continued, it seemed like the young queen and the new bishop had been enough to stop the lust from Damian I, and the sins of the nobles: the christian peace had returned... but not the peace with the orcs and other peoples of the mountains, who continued their wars against the humans: once more blessed by the church, again came holy warriors, crusaders to help fighting the demons: Ester Gate, again an accepted christian realm, will as well support the nobles suppressing the peasant rebellions of the Rivieries in Huncle, Öster Gate.
but the apparent peace was broken: when the virginal young wife of Damian I -married to him when she was still to young to conceive- had come to age to bear children, they hurried to have a heir... but as the young queen of Ester Gate died from childbirth complications -along with the unborn heir of Damian- at the 2261 a.a.H, the King in his sorrow began to drink again, and in drunken rage he razed the monastery and broke free the succubus Bells: in the desecrated monastery, between the bodies of the nuns, he asked her to be his queen.
Upon the news of Damian I crowning a demon as his queen, many of the nobles of Ester Gate rebelled, and the other Polforian States of the Outregam, shocked, prepared for war against the Mad King and his Demon Queen:
But Damian, helped by his demons, will be able to defeat the enemy armies with a numerical inferior force in several coup de main -many saw behind that, black magic- and secured himself in the throne. Promised immortality and demonic powers, he did the same to his closer followers, richly rewarded in the spyraling to chaos crazed realm.
Increasingly unstable, he will kill all his illegitime children, seeing them as future usurpers for his immortal rule. Alone, he was fighting a war against the world... and seemingly winning.
But against his foes, one by one his castles were conquered, and his servants, fearful, abandoned him. While the other princes of the Outregam didn't signed truce with him, they stopped wagging the costly wars against Damian and his demonic court by the 2266... the civil war continued:
And with the realm ravaged by the infighting and complots, will again descend from the mountains the orcs -secretly commanded by the demon lord, Vortigern, as an agent of the secret demonic brotherhood of Tempo-Katzooine-: they will lay siege to the madness that had become the capital:
Sieged from outside and fighting inside, Damian fortified himself on the cathedral of Raven's Watch: as the orcs stormed into it, they found a scene of carnage and the beheaded body of Damian I at the feet of Bells the succubu at the 2267 a.a.H.
The other kingdoms of the Outregam, learning the fall of the kingdom to orcs bands, marched again into Ester Gate, this time to set a new king:
Once more time, the victorious knights of Outregam will push the orcs back into the mountains: The knights of Outregam choose a noble of the Kingdom of Nersan as the new King of the Easter Gate -taking the name of Jeanauvel II- and they will try to re-settle the kingdom:
but the people, thinking Raven's Watch to be haunted, abandoned the ruins after razing it's walls.
This reconstitued kingdom -that will never be but a shadow of what had been Ester Gate- will last between the 2268 and the 2281 a.a.H, when Jeanauvel II renounced to the throne while he was in the Ecclesiastic State of Nuran: for the last three years he had already ruled from exile, as Ëssther was again a territory of the tribal orcs and peoples of the mountains...
or so the knights of the Outregam thought, ignoring the existence of the Demonic Brotherhood of Tempo-Katzooine.
And what happened to Bells, or who had been this succubus agent of Tempo-Katzooine, the humans never knew.
