Ethar Aster

King Ethar I was the ruling monarch of Pallas from 1230-1240. He was known as an incredibly charismatic and strong king, and was widely beloved by both the nobility and commonfolk of the kingdom. He ascended to the throne as Kyotai completed their conquest of Viscovy and as Libertia began to intrude upon Pallatian territory in the Iceridge Mountains once more, and in a stance of opposition to the weak rule of his father, Willem I, Ethar began to raise an army of trained soldiers to defend Pallas. For the first time since Unification, Pallas stood behind their king with true, undying loyalty, as Ethar prepared his people for war.   War soon broke out, though it was Ethar who struck first. Rather than attack the Libertian soldiers incuring upon the Iceridges, he took his new Royal Army south of the border and attacked Libertia directly, while the levies of his vassals struck north at the occupying Kyotese army in Viscovy. Suprisingly, the forces of both Libertia and Kyotai were routed by the smaller force, and the fever of pride in both the kingdom and the king swelled in Pallas to a fanatical degree. Ethar was an icon and symbol of Pallatian strength in a world that threatened to end them.   The Great War would be the bloodiest in living memory and consumed the west of Karthica for years. It was in 1240 that everything came to a head. Kyotai and Libertia had formed an alliance as Pallas continued to easily dispatch the two nation's armies on the battlefield, and in a new grand campaign, the joint forces of the Empire and Republic pushed into Pallas. Ethar was recouperating in the ruins of the city of Volk when news came of two great hosts from the north and south heading around his armies in the Farmlands and Riverlands. He began to move his host west to rejoin the rest of his forces, but it was too late. The Libertians from the south forced the King of Pallas up into the great canyon that would soon become known as 'Last Stand'.   What transpired in that canyon is known only to the small handful of survivors - most of which were so far away they could not have known what terrible event happened there. All that is known is that as King Ethar the Lion made his last stand with his finest army, a monumental explosion consumed the canyon and everything around it for miles and miles. Over ten thousand souls were lost. And the remainder of this cataclysm - the Maelstrom - has hung over the canyon ever since.   Ethar lived as the greatest leader of the Pallatian people and died in tragedy. There are very few in Pallas, even in Libertia and Kyotai, that do not respect King Ethar the Lion. Such was his magnitude as king that even years after his death and the collapse of his kingdom, toasts in his name are still given over evening meals, prayers for his blessings are uttered in churches and even belief in his eventual return remain strongly in Pallas. But Ethar is nonetheless gone, and with him goes the strength of the united Pallatian people. A twisted, dark, evil storm swirls around his resting place... his final tombstone a mockery of all that he was.