Zearos D. S'ahlesius
Zearos is by far one of the oldest remaining members of the military era. Past the first era of the State, Zearos almost always refused to take positions as a commander or guild leader in any military guild, he instead opted to act as an advisor to the heads of the guilds to which he was loyal, and as an ambassador to others. His word was always considered and respected by the wiser of the military leaders.
Pre-Military Era
Zearos began playing in 2009, in the early days of classic, he played on and off for a while, often getting bored and quitting for extended periods of time. He joined and tried out a large variety of guilds during the early years, and unsuccessfully tried to launch a few of his own, as many noobs do.
Early in the same year that the Royal Guard was formed, Zearos found a home in a small guild operating out of Onnet Town, the name of the guild is all but relevant here. After the fall of the guild in the late spring of that year. Zearos changed his name to "The White Knight", he changed his look to the classic white and gold armor and that would become known as the classic Imperian Armor. He spent a month roaming Graal, assisting random players and spending an odd amount of time killing Graal Babies. He did this for nearly two months, until one day he roamed into the throne room of the castle, the re he saw the Royal Guard in their early days. King Harau Bacsey, Link, Jade, and The Wandering Troubadour sat in the throne room. Zearos was recruited by Jade, and a training was set by Link for the next day.
The Royal Guard Era
The day after being recruited, Zearos had a brief, thirty minute training session with Link on the roof of his house. Afterwards, He was promoted to the rank of 'Knight' by the Captain of the Royal Guard, Auel, as all who had been past the initial training were. Unfortunately, at this point, Zearos was still young, stubborn, and a bit foolish. As his name at the time was "The White Knight", he didn't want the word 'Knight' in front of his name, so he requested for Auel to leave him rankless. When this request was denied, a brief argument ensued, which ended with a minor victory on both sides, Zearos' name became "Antralth", and Auel was convinced to make all the ranks of the Knights into 'Sir', as it was more in line with history.
After returning to the throne room and meeting with Auel and other members of the Royal Guard and Royal Family, Auel took a quick liking to the head and armor combination that Zearos wore, and declared it to be the uniform of the Royal Guard, requiring members who could afford to buy the body to do so. Zearos received a brief fifteen minutes of fame for this, but this was only brief, and he quickly faded into the framework of the guild.
About a week into Zearos' time in the Royal Guard, Auel successfully proposed to King Bacsey for a third guild to be added to the chain, The Royal Army. At this time, Zearos' was focused on having power, he wanted to be on the top. So, first he asked Harau if he could also form a chain. The request was declined by Harau, and Auel wouldn't listen to his requests. So, a little angered, Zearos devised a plan and quit the Royal Guard.
Zearos had observed that although idle and often inactive, the members of the Royal Family held an extraordinary amount of power. So, he changed his look and name to "Lord Cavendrum", went to the throne room, and joined the Royal Family. For two days he sat in the throne room, gaining respect of the members of the RG and the RA. Eventually, he talked to the Kentiman, General of the Royal Army, and requested a leading position in the Army. Kentiman recruited him and gave him full powers in the guild, as well as the rank of General, co leading the guild alongside Kentiman.
As a general, Zearos (At this time under the name Kantor) worked very closely and developed a great relationship with Kentiman. At the time, Zearos and Auel got along fairly well, each had a fairly large amount of mutual respect for the other. Zearos met many of the men who became legends of Imperia during this time, this included people such as those mentioned above (Harau, Kentiman, Jade, Link, and Auel) as well as others such as Ryzallion, Occido, Zaer, and Sir Richard.
There were of course other players who had felt unappreciated and unrecognized, and a few of them left to attempt to form rival guilds, most of which would attack the throne room every now and then, but all inevitably fail within a week. It wasn't until nearly a month into Zearos' time in the guild that the first great divide of the Royal guilds came to be. Margrave Auel, leader of all the military divisions of the royal guilds had gained complete loyalty of nearly all the soldiers as well as most of the Royal Family who did not bear the name of the king, Bacsey. With this strong following, Auel realized the leadership skills of King Harau were slipping, so he organized a military coup, driving Harau from the kingdom, followed by those still loyal to him. Harau formed his own guild, The Bacseyian Federation, which quickly faded into obsoletion. Due to this, everyone in the Royal Guard made a fatal mistake of allowing them to fade from their memories and forget that they did still indeed exist.
One day, a new player named Xinke, a fairly recent recruit to the Royal Army, caught the attention of Zearos. Xinke's interest and loyalty to the guilds were outstanding, and Zearos gave him several promotions over a one or two week period. Partly due to this rapid rise through the ranks, partly due to Kentiman's disapproval of Xinke, he quickly caught the attention of Auel, and was taken under his wing.
One day, Auel private messaged Zearos, at this time, the Royal chain of guilds had reached their limit of allies, but Auel wanted to continue to expand. He told Zearos his plan to form a new chain of guilds, but by the name base of "Imperial" rather than Royals. The Royal guilds would remain intact for the most part, the exception being the Royal Family, the Imperial guilds would act as an extension of the Royal Guilds. Auel had respected Zearos accomplishments as a co general, and offered for him to command his own guild in the Imperial chain, leaving Kentiman to handle RA alone. Zearos accepted, creating the "Imperial Army", and allied many of the other guilds being formed for the first Kingdom of Imperia.
The First Era of Imperia
Imperia grew very quickly, The Imperial Army as well as many of the other branches in Imperia had wild success. Some of the branches did not do as well, but the strength of the other guilds carried them through. In these early days, there was very little drama, Zearos became friends with many of the other guild leaders, notably Xinke, Kentiman, and Zaer. The nobility of Imperia was fairly obnoxious, and Zearos received his only ban during this time by calling Duchess Jade by many uncouth names.
This was also when Zearos befriended two underrated members of Imperia and State history, Senlock Wehlet (Later known as John) and Occido. Both of these players were incredibly intelligent and became good friends of Zearos. They spent a large amount of their free time in Graal searching for secrets of the game, looking into the many hidden rooms and doors that seemed like they were either password accessible or to be released soon. They called the group that seeked out these secrets "The Society" after a building of such sorts that used to sit in south Swamp Town. They remained close friends over the many years they played, all loyal to Auel and his guilds.
Despite the immense success of Imperia, Auel one day logged off and did not return for 13 days. During this time Imperia crumbled without his guiding hands, many of the guild leaders and nobility made futile attempts to save Imperia. Unfortunately they could not, and thus the first era of Imperia ended. The behaviour of disappearing and allowing guilds to crumble, only to come back with plans for something new was something Auel would never break the habit of doing, the only difference is he grew less appologetic of the fact after dozens of times.
Trailblazing
After Imperia fell, Zearos spent a large amount of his time on Graal doing something with other Imperians that would quickly become one of the favorite activities of Imperia and eventually the State, killing Graal babies. This was before any adoption center was set up, so the babies at the time all sat crowding the streets of Graal City. Zearos and the others spent endless hours trapping, tourturing, killing, and generally harassing the Graal babies.
A week and a half after Imperia had crumbled, Auel returned, he had some made up sob story of why he had to leave, and an idea for a new, business focused guild called Shinra.
Shinra
Shinra was a short lived, business oriented guild under the lead of Auel. Not much eventful happened during this time, however Zearos (still going by the name of Kantor at the time) did receive the first of Auel's graphics works at this time, in the form of a battleaxe shield (waraxe_shield.png is the code for those interested). Shinra had a decent amount of activity at first, but ended when Auel once again disappeared. His gap was not as long this time, and he returned with plans for a new Imperia.
The Second Imperia
Auel's second Imperia launched to a great start, Kentiman once again lead the main army branch, Xinke lead the knights, and Zearos lead the Imperian Cavalry. While the cavalry didn't have the large numbers of the other guilds, Zearos still gathered a decently sized grouping of players and trained them in the way of mounted combat. Training cycles would be fairly extensive for the cavaliers. Zearos' training sessions would divide the trainees into two groups and have a series of exercises training for how to fight against both foot soldiers and other mounted players while on a horse. Zearos' unit while small was well trained quickly and had extraordinarily proficient cavaliers. Unfortunately, the second Imperia died after roughly a month, and many of the members of the cavalry did not return in the future renditions. No cavalry guild since has been able to meet the widespread success of the Imperial Cavalry, and Zearos himself eventi