The Priest King of Vestra ruled over the lands of Ventria, Rhythnor, Tyr, and Rhowen. Legend claims that in the years before the coming of Love and Reason, the Priest King became afflicted with an inexplicable dissatisfaction, and that in his loneliness and his despair, he joined with the stone and moonlight and water of his hunting grounds of Rhythnor to create a daughter, the sorceress Isdanor. Legend also states that he later became a follower of Love and Reason, waged war on and destroyed the Priest King of neighboring Pandrell, and then, overcome with remorse, abandoned Vestra to wander the earth, eventually reaching the tip of the Chalycidican peninsula at Trethvys, where he achieved Dissipation.1
Many of the Priest King's Stewards, however, survived the Fall. Twenty-five years after the liberation of mankind by Love and Reason, the Vestran Stewards, now converted to Wisdom's cause, returned to Vestra to determine just what their role should be in this new world. Isdanor, who had remained alone in Vestra since her father's disappearance, fled from their approach, but returned when she was assured of amnesty by the Stewards' leader, Phrandor, who wed her shortly thereafter.
Recognizing that they had been hopelessly compromised by their previous positions within the Theocracy, the Vestran Stewards decided that the only acceptable role for them in the new world of Love and Reason was one of gentle encouragement of the self-determination of their formerly subject peoples. They therefore resolved to remain isolated in Vestra, leaving the people to the guidance of Love and Reason and involving themselves as little as possible in their affairs, but watching over them, prepared to intercede should the Theocracy ever return to subjugate humanity. To this end, they founded the Cholaeic Council of Vestran Stewards, a body dedicated to the protection of the peoples once ruled by the Vestran Theocracy. Members of the Council vowed to forswear all use of magic, unless and until it should be needed to fight the Demiurge's return.
1In Cholaeic lands, the Priest King of Vestra seems to have been conflated with the God Emperor Himself: the Vestran King's conversion story bears remarkable similarity to that of the God Emperor, and some of the early writings exhibit a marked confusion over whether Tympanor was a servant of the God Emperor or of the Priest King of Vestra. This inconsistency has been explained by the Church as merely indicative of the universal nature of the Holy Cycle. [back]
