The Limit Protectorate

After the Holy Battle of Oroth in 5146 APC thwarted the plans of the Denizens of the Dark Domains to escape their prison, they launched a terrible and hysterical assault on the Hylacon Gates known as the Dark Scream. This rattling of their cage, was profoundly disturbing but fortunately was unsuccessful. However, it did draw other unwelcome attention from the wider Discontinuum and specifically from the Limit Lands where Prince Rygarde was able to leverage the overflowing psychic and arcane energies to augment his own magic and launch a successful invasion.   Using a Token he had crafted himself known as the Limit Diamond, he arrived at the head of an army of Limiters when the world was weary and weak and he proclaimed himself the leader of a new protectorate. Prince Rygarde promised that he would defend the people against the Dark Domains if in return they would swear fealty to him.   There was immediate and widespread suspicion of the Limit Prince but his initial assault was intimidating and he cowed potential opponents into a more or less universal submission. He immediately began to build the Fortress of Ocroven on an island in the Orothonian Ocean, which stands midway between the Dark Domains and Tinturbean. The first room around which the rest of the fortress came together, was called the Great Gate, a portal to Prince Rygarde's own realm in the Limit Lands. The Great Gate could only be opened for short periods. What the prince desired, was a way to keep it open longer or even permamently.   As early as 5153 APC, a mage named Kindall Skolbraken brought together in secret those agents who were opposed to the rule of the Limit Protectorate and formed a new organisation they called the Loyalist Thaumatic Army Council.   It gradually became apparent that Prince Rygarde had some dark arcane plan for the realm in which it would lose its status as an evolution, its Laws of Form altered to allow for permanent assimilation into the Limit Lands. This would be achieved by assembling six valuable and historically significant gemstones he described as the Fate Stones. Working with them together under the Limit Diamond would allow him to lock the Great Gate open, which would facilitate a deadly spell against the realm to alter the local Laws of Form. In 5154 APC the Fate Snowflake room was built in the Fortress of Ocroven to house the Fate Stones and now the prince turned his attention to acquiring them.   In 5155 APC Prince Rygarde led an army to the gates of Katrapetch and demanded the surrender of the Raja. He publically and humiliatingly broke the Staff of the Raja and took the Succession Ruby as his first Fate Stone, abolishing the Court Circle of Katrapetch almost as an afterthought.   Other stones would follow. In 5158 APC the city of Ralsimoor gave up Etan’s Heart. In 5161 APC, the Lord Mayor of Quarowl, who had inherited the Goolsyn Ice Star from the line of Arch Barons surrendered it to the prince. The Sapphire of Vrandakan (Findil's Charm) was stolen in 5166 APC, whilst the Oasis Root of Klaractazum was delivered to the prince in 5175 APC, by a faction within the leadership who had their own local agenda, caring nought for the wider implications of this act of treason.   This left only the mercurial and deeply weird stone known as Glim's Laugh at Tarris. When it disappeared on midsummer day in 5184 APC, exactly 4700 years after it fell from the sky in 484 APC, suspicion of course immediately fell on Prince Rygarde. By now the Loyalist Thaumatic Army Council had deduced that with all the Fate Stones linked through the Limit Diamond, the prince would have all the magical power he needed to force the Great Gate fully open and to initiate a transformation of the local Laws of Form. Immediate action had to be taken and an expedition which had been secretly prepared for some time was launched to take down the Fate Snowflake, destroy the Fortress of Ocroven, remove Prince Rygarde, end the Limit Protectorate, close the Great Gate forever and restore local power in Magicians' End   This rebellion led, by the Loyalist Thaumatic Army Council concluded with a famous pitched battle known as the Eviction. Ironically, when the fortress was breached it was found that Glim's Laugh had not been acquired by Prince Rygarde and the Fate Snowflake was missing the final gem. The Emerald of Tarris was given a third name, in honour of its tricky behaviour as "the stone that stole itself".   But the Eviction was a great success and delivered everything that could have been hoped for. It turned out, as the Loyalist Thaumatic Army Council were increasingly confident was the case, that much of Prince Rygarde's authority was built on a bluff. That in fact his power in an evolution was weaker than he pretended and had been growing weaker the longer he remained away from the Limit Lands.   So the Limit Protectorate finished with a bang, not a whimper and out of that last battle came the Shard of Ocroven, generated by great arcane clashing energies as the Fate Snowflake collapsed. In years to come, that shard would have more significance than anyone yet knew, but that is a story that belongs to a future age.   A timeline of the Limit Protectorate is available at the bottom of this page.