Vorza

EMPEROR VORZA

OF ITARUS, KING OF THE UNIVERSE, RIDER OF MOORDENAAR, THE GREAT UNIFIER, WORLD BREAKER, COMMANDER OF THE DRAGON ARMIES, AND MASTER OF THE STARS!

Vorza of Itarus, often remembered as Emperor Vorza or Vorza the Great, was the legendary founder and first sovereign of the Itarian Empire. Rising from the fractured kingdoms of Itarus during the tumultuous Fifth Cycle, Vorza forged an empire through relentless conquest, political mastery, and sheer force of will. He is widely regarded as the first person in recorded history to establish and rule over a true empire.

Vorza's reign marked the beginning of the Vorzinian Dynasty, also known as the Blood of Vorza, a lineage that would endure for nearly 400,000 years after his death, until the return of The All Father. Under Vorza’s rule, the Itarian Empire spanned the entirety of Itarus, much of the Faoder Sector, and eventually extended across all known worlds within the universe.

Operating from his capital city of Var, Vorza transformed a fractured world into a unified and formidable force. By the age of thirty, he had carved out the largest empire in recorded history, a feat unmatched before or since. His military campaigns were swift, brutal, and decisive. He was never defeated in battle. To this day, he is remembered not only as a ruler but as one of the greatest military tacticians the cosmos has ever known.

Vorza's legacy shaped the course of history for millennia, his name spoken with awe, reverence, and, by his enemies, with dread.

EARLY LIFE

Vorza was born in Dana’Rune, the capital of the Kingdom of Rozenium, during a time of political instability and creeping war. His origins were humble. He was the son of a low-ranking foot soldier in Rozenium’s standing army. His mother, whose name has been lost to history, died while he was still an infant. Little is known about her, though countless myths have emerged to fill the void.

In the centuries that followed his death, a tapestry of legends grew around Vorza’s early life, many of which blurred the line between myth and propaganda. The Scribes of Noplia recorded that field workers in eastern Itarus believed Vorza to be born of the great dragon Moordennaar. Other legends claimed he was the son of The All Father, or even The All Father reborn in mortal form. Scholars and scribes, particularly those writing in the later Cycles, have long debated whether these stories were organic folklore or part of a calculated effort by Vorza himself to immortalize his image as a divine, destined ruler.

Raised by his father within the harsh discipline of military encampments, Vorza grew up among soldiers rather than children. He learned the art of endurance before he learned to read, and he understood war long before he understood peace.

In his adolescence, Vorza was sent to Noplia, a center of learning and philosophy, to study under Prymio, an outspoken Itarian scribe and reformist who believed that knowledge should belong to all, not just the ruling elite. Under Prymio’s guidance, Vorza was introduced to a world of literature, philosophy, and political thought. It was here that he met his best friends: Ezandiar, Freykos, Divian, and Gozan, sons of ancient noble houses whose names were etched into the foundations of Itarus itself. Together, they were educated in the ways of noble youth: riding, swordsmanship, statecraft, and the hunt. Though Vorza lacked the noble blood of his peers, his determination and intellect quickly earned their respect. For the first time in his life, he was treated not as a soldier’s orphan but as a future equal.

At the age of sixteen, the five friends prepared to join the Army of Rozenium. Ezandiar, Freykos, Divian, and Gozan were immediately granted the prestigious title of Commander, their noble heritage opening doors that training alone could not. They were chosen to undertake The Climb, a sacred rite in which the sons and daughters of the ruling class ascended Mount Itan-Russa to claim a dragon egg, a symbol of legacy, power, and status.

Vorza, despite his talents, was denied such honor. With no title and no lineage to elevate him, he enlisted as a common infantryman. But those who watched him march knew even then: there was nothing common about him.

EDUCATION

Vorza’s formative years in the city of Noplia proved pivotal to the trajectory of his life and legacy. Within the hallowed halls of Noplia’s academies and training grounds, much of his future vision began to take shape. He immersed himself in the study of Itarian history, particularly The Great Dragon Wars, an era of mythic violence and legendary strategy that fascinated him deeply. These ancient military campaigns would lay the groundwork for his understanding of power and conflict.

Beyond the battlefield, Vorza’s education expanded under the guidance of Prymio. Prymio’s teachings were broad and rigorous, encompassing medicine, philosophy, ethics, logic, and the fine arts. Through this multidimensional instruction, Vorza began to view the world and his place in it, not merely through the lens of war, but through inquiry, reflection, and the pursuit of deeper truths.

It was under Prymio’s tutelage that Vorza’s fascination with the unknown began to flourish. One evening, Prymio revealed a prototype of an Itarian stargazer—a primitive but ambitious precursor to what would later evolve into the modern telescope. The device, though crude by today’s standards, ignited a lasting curiosity in Vorza. For the first time, he truly considered the vastness of the cosmos and the possibility that Itarus was not alone in the universe.

This line of thought was further encouraged by Vorza’s interactions with the Scribes of Noplia, many of whom were beginning to question the traditional view of a singular world. Among them was a young and inquisitive scholar named Kilios, newly appointed as a Scribe of Noplia. Kilios and Vorza spent many nights in quiet discussion, speculating on celestial mechanics, the nature of the void beyond their skies, and the potential for life on distant worlds.

Kilios would later write in his journals that Vorza, though not always the most disciplined student, possessed a relentless curiosity and a sharp, intuitive mind. “Vorza’s heart burned with questions,” Kilios noted, “and though he came to me as a warrior, I saw the soul of a scholar growing behind his eyes.”

This blend of ambition and intellectual curiosity would come to define much of Vorza’s future, shaping not just the man he became but the empire he sought to create.

SOLDIER

At sixteen, Vorza's studies in Noplia came to an end. Though he had learned alongside the sons of nobles and gained a reputation for brilliance and skill, his bloodline remained unremarkable. When war loomed on the horizon, he did not return to privilege or power, but to duty. With little ceremony, Vorza enlisted in the Army of Rozenium as a common infantryman.

Tensions had reached a breaking point between the Kingdom of Rozenium and its long-standing rival, the Kingdom of Jurnad. Border skirmishes had intensified, and rumors spoke of something darker stirring, whispers that the war might spiral into another Great Dragon War. Many feared that a new Dragon War, the likes of which had not been seen since the Second Cycle, was about to engulf Itarus.

As the war ignited, Vorza was assigned to a northern battalion stationed near the Frostward frontier. During the brutal Siege of Kharvad Gate, the Rozenium commander leading Vorza’s unit was slain amidst the chaos. In the face of disarray, and despite having no rank, Vorza seized command. Drawing on instinct and experience far beyond his years, he rallied his scattered forces and executed a daring maneuver that crushed the enemy's flanks. Against overwhelming odds, his leadership turned the tide of the battle. What should have been a massacre became a legendary victory.

The numbers were staggering: 40,000 Jurnadian troops stood against them. Thanks to Vorza’s intervention, 12,000 Rozenium soldiers were spared certain death. His name began to spread through the ranks, spoken first in disbelief, then in awe.

Over the next several years, Vorza retained battlefield command despite lacking formal recognition. His string of victories transformed him from an anomaly into a force of nature. His most famous triumph came during the Battle of Three Rivers, where he orchestrated a sweeping tactical assault that decimated the Jurnadian legions and expelled them from Rozenium territory entirely. It was a victory that effectively ended Jurnad’s northern campaign and secured the borders of the kingdom.

When he returned to Dana’Rune, Vorza was met not with silence but with celebration. He was paraded through the capital’s war-torn streets, a hero of the people. Songs were sung in his name, and old generals who had once scoffed at his rise now stood to salute him.

In an unprecedented move that broke centuries of Itarian military tradition, the King himself awarded Vorza the official title of Commander, a rank never before given to one of common birth. This act sent shockwaves through the noble class and redefined what power, merit, and legacy could mean in the Kingdom of Rozenium.

From that moment forward, the world no longer saw Vorza as just a soldier. He had become something more, an icon, a symbol of change, and the rising flame of a future empire.

THE CLIMB

Feeling like nothing could stop him, Vorza did something no one anticipated. In open defiance of centuries-old tradition, Vorza undertook The Climb—a sacred and highly restricted rite once reserved only for the elite of Itarian society. For generations, this symbolic event had marked the moment a chosen noble ascended the sacred peak of Mount Itan’Russa to bond with a dragon, a creature believed to be the divine inheritance of royal bloodlines, ancient wealth, or the favor of long-dead ancestors. Commoners were forbidden from even witnessing The Climb, let alone attempting it. But Vorza, never one to be shackled by the old order, ascended nonetheless.

What happened on that summit would become the stuff of living legend. Amid the storms and winds that tore across the icy peak, Vorza did not simply tame a dragon, he awoke one. Slumbering beneath the mountain for thousands of years was Moordenaar, a creature of myth, believed to have perished in the final age of the Great Dragon Wars. In tales, Moordenaar had been a force of pure devastation, a dragon so vast and ancient that its wings could blot out the sun, its roar said to shatter armies.

But Vorza did not fear the beast. Whether by fate, strength of will, or a bond deeper than blood, Moordenaar rose before him…and yielded.

Mounting the creature’s back, Vorza did the unthinkable. Together, man and dragon soared not just over the skies of Itarus but beyond them. In the silence of space, stars glinting like cold fire around him, Vorza saw his dreams given form: Itarus was not alone. The skies were not a ceiling, but a door. In that moment, the boy who had studied crude star-gazers in Prymio’s candlelit chambers became the first of his kind to leave the world of his birth.

Upon returning, Vorza flew Moordenaar to the home of King Rovenza XI, the supreme ruler of Rozenium and the man under whom Vorza had served as a decorated commander. He expected awe, perhaps fear, but not betrayal.

The court did not celebrate him. Instead, he was met with outrage. The nobility, threatened by the implications of what he had done, saw not a pioneer but a heretic. Rovenza XI denounced Vorza publicly, accusing him of blasphemy, sedition, and the gravest sin of all: rising above his station. The Climb had never been meant for someone like Vorza, a soldier, an orphan, an outsider. His bond with Moordenaar was viewed not as a triumph, but as theft.

Guards were summoned. Chains were drawn. But Vorza had not come unprepared.

With fire in his heart and Moordenaar waiting in the skies, he fled Rozenium, hunted by the very kingdom he once served. His fall from grace marked not the end, but the beginning. A fugitive to kings, a myth to the people, and a spark to the stars, Vorza was no longer bound to Itarus.

He was destined to reshape it.

Conquering Itarus

Fleeing the wrath of Rozenium and the weight of a world not yet ready for him, Vorza vanished into the stars. With Moordenaar as his only companion, he crossed the void, uncharted, untested, and utterly alone. Days bled into weeks. His body withered, his mind frayed. The silence of space gnawed at his thoughts. His breath grew thin, his strength faded, and his hope flickered like a dying ember.

Then, in the distance, a shimmer. Not a hallucination. Not a star.

A planet. Its light cut through the darkness like a promise. In that moment, Vorza understood: the universe did not end with Itarus. There were other worlds, other people, and perhaps even other truths waiting beyond his reach. The theories he once whispered about in dusty halls with scribes like Kilios were no longer speculation. They were reality. But before he could begin that journey, he had to liberate his own world.

Reinvigorated by his discovery, Vorza returned to Itarus. He descended not as a fugitive, but as a force of reckoning. With Moordenaar’s wings casting shadows over entire cities, he unleashed a series of calculated, surgical strikes, not upon innocents, but upon those who sat atop gilded thrones built on fear, division, and decay.

The Itarian Kings, scattered across the fractured realms, were not given the dignity of war. One by one, they fell, crushed beneath the weight of their own arrogance, their strongholds reduced to ash before they could even raise a banner. Their armies, long oppressed and weary of dying for kings who hoarded glory, looked upon Vorza not as a threat, but as a deliverer.

He did not beg for allegiance. He inspired it.

The militaries of the divided kingdoms saw in him the strength of a conqueror and the vision of a unifier. One by one, they swore loyalty. The common folk, long forgotten by their rulers, saw in Vorza a figure who had risen from nothing and defied the divine order, and won. No war was waged, because none could stand against him.

Itarus fell not by blade, but by belief.

With the planet united under his command, the thrones of kings now reduced to rubble, and the armies at his back, Vorza became more than a rebel or a general. He became a symbol. A sovereign not by birthright, but by force of will.

Yet even in triumph, his gaze did not linger long on the soil of his homeland. His eyes, as ever, were turned toward the stars.

Vorza’s Empire

With the Itarian kings dead and their bloodlines extinguished, the old world crumbled. What remained of the fractured kingdoms and forgotten principalities were swept into a singular vision: a new world order forged not by birthright, but by conquest and cosmic ambition. Vorza declared the end of the Kingdoms Era and, upon the ashes of the old, raised the banner of a new dominion, the Itarian Empire.

He named himself Emperor Vorza I, undisputed and absolute.

His first decree was to summon the Scribes of Noplia, those same learned minds who had once debated philosophy and mapped distant stars in quiet halls. Now, they were architects of destiny. Before them, Vorza unfurled his grand design: not merely to rule Itarus, but to spread Itarian glory across the stars, to transform his homeworld into the beating heart of a galactic civilization.

By 444,468 DTLS C5 (During The Long Sleep, Cycle 5), the Scribes, using remnants of ancient theories and Vorza’s own discoveries, completed the first true spacefaring vessels. Massive, angular crafts, these starships became the lifeblood of the fledgling empire. With them, Vorza’s legions left Itarus, and war followed.

The first planets to face the might of the Itarian Empire were:

Di and Ovaseryn: Their leaders bent the knee, and their cultures were gradually absorbed into the Itarian order.
Fargulk, a mountainous world of colossal humanoids, proved far more defiant. The Fargulkians, with bodies like living stone and strength to match Moordenaar’s flames, were seen not only as a threat, but as a prize. In response, Vorza unleashed his Dragon Riders. Cities fell. Mountains split under claw and flame. In the aftermath, the surviving giants were divided: the strongest were drafted into the Imperial military as living siege engines; the rest were shackled, enslaved, and shipped across the empire to build monuments to Vorza’s conquest.
But it was Aoweii, the jewel of the outer rim, that challenged the empire most bitterly.

A world of breathtaking forests, griffins, and elven clans, Aoweii refused to kneel. The twelve sovereign clans, once embroiled in centuries of internal rivalries, did something no one expected: they united. Their warriors fought with impossible precision. What began as a planetary campaign became The War of the Worlds.

The war dragged on for eight brutal years.

Though Vorza could have ended it swiftly by sending Moordenaar to raze Aoweii, he chose restraint out of admiration. He saw in the elves a mirror of Itarus: proud, unified, brilliant. And so he tested them. Let them bleed. Let them prove their worth. But in the end, resistance failed. The elven defenses shattered. The twelve chieftains were captured and publicly executed, their bodies returned to their clans as a warning, and a mourning.

Aoweii became a satellite state, its independence stripped, but its people spared from annihilation. Unlike Fargulk, Vorza sought to preserve the elves for their wisdom, for their beauty, for what they might become under his rule. Scribes of Noplia were stationed across Aoweii to oversee assimilation. And slowly, the elves learned. Their culture blended with Itarian science. Their arts flourished under Imperial guidance.

The Continuing Conquests

With Aoweii subdued and woven into the tapestry of his empire, Vorza did not rest. His ambitions stretched ever outward, driven by a vision of a unified cosmos under the Itarian banner. What followed was a relentless era of conquest, the Great Expansion, as it came to be known by the Scribes of Noplia.

Following the fall of Aoweii, Vorza and his forces brought eight more worlds under imperial dominion: Gorkon, Pugart, Yres, Nyla, Jargun-Ba, Hanroh, and Rashalon.

By the end of his expansionist campaigns, Vorza had woven fifteen planets into the Imperial fold, spanning across two Star Systems, each adding to the might, mystery, and diversity of the Itarian Empire.

The Last Years of Vorza

As the centuries passed, Vorza grew increasingly distant, both from his subjects and his own bloodline. What had once been a visionary mind, aflame with the idea of uniting the universe beneath Itarian brilliance, began to darken. Legends say it was the toll of too many voices, too many worlds, and too much power borne by a single soul. Others whisper that Moordenaar, ancient and enigmatic, whispered thoughts into Vorza's mind that no mortal should hear.

Years following the conquest of Rashalon, Vorza began to trust no one. He dismissed his advisors, exiled his own court, and even began executing scribes for "conspiracies of disloyalty" if they questioned his decisions or historical interpretations. His once-gleaming halls on Itarus became quiet and hollow, echoing with paranoia.

It was during this time that Vorza launched one of the most brutal and least understood campaigns in the history of the empire: the Invasion of Epau.

The Tragedy of Epau:

Epau was a moon-sized, storm-lashed world, located between the Zamox and Rayon Prime Systems. It was home to the Epaurians, often called harpies by outsiders; avian humanoids with wings like silk and a matriarchal society centered around song, memory, and sky rituals. The Epaurians had never shown hostility to the empire; in fact, they had never made contact at all. Isolated, peaceful, and technologically primitive, they had no defenses against what was to come.

Vorza descended upon Epau with an overwhelming force, ten legions, three dragon armadas, and Moordenaar himself. For reasons no one fully understands, whether a vision, a prophecy, or simply the need to extinguish a perceived threat, Vorza ordered total annihilation. The skies of Epau turned red with dragonfire. Mountain-roost cities were razed. Generations of memory-singers were lost in a single week.

In the aftermath, Vorza ordered the very crust of the moon to be reshaped, its mountains carved into defensive spikes, its oceans drained into artificial trenches. He renamed Epau to Vor Ran’du, "The Emperor’s Last Sanctum" in Old Itarian, and declared it the new capital of the empire, abandoning Itarus itself.

The Scribes of Noplia, shaken and divided, reluctantly obeyed. From the surviving archives, it is said Vorza spent his final years sealed within the Black Spire of Vor Ran'du, a towering fortress constructed at the heart of the moon’s storm-laden equator. Surrounded by elite guards who were forbidden to speak unless spoken to, Vorza poured over star charts, ancient scrolls, and long-forbidden texts. He rarely slept. He no longer addressed his people. His only companion was Moordenaar, who circled the skies above Vor Ran’du like a shadow of doom.

Some say Vorza died alone, seated on a throne, eyes open and unblinking toward the stars. Others say he vanished, riding Moordenaar into the void for a final pilgrimage. The official Scribe Codex states only this:

“The Emperor’s flame flickered, then dimmed. Thus ended the Reign of Vorza the First, in the year 444,652 DTLS C5.”

Upon his death, the empire passed to his son, Rozenvar, who became the Second Itarian Emperor. So began a long imperial bloodline—four cycles of Vorza’s descendants, each ruler further entrenching the empire’s influence across the stars. Some would expand it. Others would fracture it. But none could match the myth of Vorza, the conqueror who began as a heretic and became the architect of a universal empire.