Vestia Ambrose

Born as the fourth child of Morrigan Ambrose, she was not seen as the natural heir to the throne. Her elder siblings were seen as perfect heirs. Powerful, aggressive, and experienced in warfare, few people imagined they wouldn't take Morrigan's place. However, as Morrigan grew old and Vestia grew up, her difference from her siblings proved to be more valuable than anything.   As she grew up, she was always caught in the crossfire of her siblings' battles with each other. While they bickered and battled, she turned them against each other quickly and made sure she was left alone with the real prize. She was not meek however, she couldn't afford to be. When her siblings battled against her directly, she would meet them head-on. She could outshout them and outthink them.   As she and her siblings grew into their own, she was the only one to not focus on the military. As they went out to take control of their own armies and master their own martial arts, she focused at home. Mastering the arts of diplomacy and conversation she did her best to run through the bureaucracy of the empire and take over the administration her mother had abandoned.   During her time here, she met a man named Hiraku Amako. He was a scholar who taught mathematics at in the city. They met when she needed a better way to manage the taxes of the empire's holdings, and over the course of four years, slowly came to fall in love. They both were high minded and understood the scope of what was needed to make the empire succeed. They married to no one's surprise in the city.   As her mother's time waned, the competition heated up. Morrigan had come to see her own failings, however, and immediately feared most of her children would simply repeat her mistakes. That was when Vestia stepped forward. Morrigan had created a mess of her administration, growing the empire many times over. It was only through the ability and effort of Vestia that the empire didn't buckle under the expansion. So against all odds, Vestia was chosen as the heir.   With her mother ensuring her siblings were put in their place, Vestia was able to reorganize the empire in a storm of activity, completely rewriting the bureaucracy of the empire to not only handle the issues of their new conquests but to prepare for future conquests. Hiraku was able to reorganize both the tax system and the account books of the empire to be more efficient and balanced, and Vestia was able to manipulate and manage most of the neighbors without lifting a sword. It was through this manipulation that she was even able to convince many of these kingdoms to turn be so afraid of their smaller neighbors that they joined the empire peacefully. That's not to say she never used her military, but that often they were her last choice in expanding.   She reorganized the ruling system of the various states within her empire, turning them into Satraps. She gave them more internal freedom and ensured their voice would be heard and taken into account in the actions of the larger empire. This system eventually was formed into the Daimyou Hyougikai, the council of lords.   Unfortunately for her, her greatest failure was her lack of suitable heirs. Her first son died of a sickness while he was young. Her second had an accident and was made paralyzed from the waist down. Her third proved to be a completely ineffective ruler and eventually retired to the priesthood. Her fourth was the only one who proved to be able to take her place, but had difficulty finding a wife and likewise was only eligible by shortly before he was thirty.   With her retirement, she focused on ensuring that the empire would continue growing and adapting beyond her life. She died while writing her treatise that would predict the formation of the Teikoku Gikai.