The Dread Emperors and Empresses of Praes, while basically more or less completely ineffective over the centuries, nevertheless, have style, in the best sort of moustache-twirlingly, joyfully diabolic way.
Take for example, Dread Emperor Traitorous:
- who not only led several rebellions against himself, but ended his reign by assassinating himself and managing to frame a hundred of his rivals for it. That takes STYLE.“I’m not saying all your closest friends are shapeshifting devils I sent to spy on you after having the originals murdered, but I’m certainly implying it very heavily."
—Dread Emperor Traitorous
“Gentlemen, there is no need to worry: our plan is flawless. The Emperor will never see it coming.”
—Grandmaster Ouroboros of the Order of Unholy Obsidian, later revealed to have been Dread Emperor Traitorous all along
“My dear friends, I have a confession to make. Some creative reframing of the truth may have taken place during the planning of this coup.”
—Dread Emperor Traitorous, addressing the Order of the Unholy Obsidian upon successfully usurping the throne from himself
Or Irritant I, the Oddly Successful:
The quotes are the start of the chapters are some of best bits...!“Oh, I get it. The real treasure was the people I had executed along the way!”
(Conversely, the whole thrust of the series is the current mob trying to shift away from that narrative of flying fortress and invisible sentient tiger armies. (Yes, really.) And I say "narrative" specifically because that's what it IS; stories have actual power and that's (in their eyes) part of the problem.)