Throne of Broken Tusks

CategoryArtifacts
Typeartifact, minor
Makerunknown
Enchanterunknown
LocationGithil'azrik

In 1206, nearing two centuries of the Horn Tusk Conflict (1023 - 1467), a band of minotaur plunderers made-of with tusks from a sacred burial site of the Elderaunt people. The area was Irastânâz, near the heart of the Izagunbar Region, a place where old and weathered elephants go to die (c.f. Ivory Santity).

A year later, these tusks ended up in the great riverside markets of Merorarg. They were priced beyond the reach of most everyone, only the extremely wealthy or the state could hope to afford them. The state made the purchase, and when the sellers left, they sailed out into Thrawkrall where they fell victim to Ba'lith's state-sponsored pirates.

The real twist of all this was to be found out much later, with evidence coming out in the Third Epoch that proved Ba'lith was behind the "gang of plunders" that robbed Irastânâz. The seller's agent was also on the government's payroll. The pirates and those that would be the sacrifice were also serving the interests of Ba'lith's clandestine department, with aggressive actions, including assassinations at the highest levels, the aptly named Division of Predatory Relations. The selling agent, her team and guards, "the sacrifice" were all killed in the pirate attack. They were the old, those saddled with debt, and those eager to take one for the empire knowing that their families would be richly rewarded.

All part of a scheme to get the people behind the state's objective of taking out the Torgilm Confederacy (1475 - 1719). Every year, Ba'lith was creating news of things that didn't go down the way they said, with the north carrying out acts of aggression against the south. Threatening helpless folk, or soldier's trespassing, stealing livestock, and a host of other accusations. That tusk throne, embedded in glass at the heart of Merorarg's Pentagonal Junction, became a symbol of unity that every year more and more were to get behind.

- from an unsigned intelligence briefing found in the sacking of Ilfongrak

The tusks taken from the burial site were used in the construction of a new throne – the Throne of Broken Tusks. Ba'lith stated goal was the people's current throne, the Broken Horn Throne, would be replaced with a new one when all of Azrik stood proud under one flag. It was a rallying message from the state to the people, war-mongering rhetoric that would lead to growing conflict with the people of Azrik's north, cumulating in the Brothers Enimity War (1697 - 1723) when all of Azrik was brought under the flag of the Ba'lith Empire, and under the one seated on the Throne of Broken Tusks.