Valendor I Steward
Valendor I ascended the throne as the winner of the Second Imperial Election after the bloody fall of the Renders. He took over an empire shaken by a dynastic purge, with empty provinces, broken trust between families, and uncertainty as to whether the empire could still hold itself together. Instead of major conquests, he focused on administration, calming the situation and building a system that distributed some of the responsibility to lower levels of power. His reign was less flamboyant than that of some predecessors, but all the more important. It was under him that the empire learned to function as a state again, not just as a court and an army.
Dynastic Information
The winner of the election, who first had to clean up the debris
Valendor I ascended the throne not as the heir of the old order, but as a man who had risen from a bloody breach. After the massacre of the Renders, the empire was left without a ruling dynasty, some provinces without administrators, and many families had to decide again what they actually expected from the emperor. The new monarch thus faced a different task than the conquerors or reformers before him. He didn't need to gain more territory. He needed to prevent what was left from falling apart. The very first steps of his government showed that he understood the danger of the moment. He decided to rework the structure of the temple and set new roles in it so that it would be not only more efficient, but also safer. This move clearly had a deeper motive. Valendor knew well how easy it was to remove the previous emperor, and how dangerous an empire was, in which the very center of power lacked enough protection or internal order.
An empire handed over to the lower levels of power
The greatest strength of Valendor's rule was that he did not try to keep everything in the hands of one court. On the contrary, he understood that long-term stability requires a clear division of responsibility. He left the provinces with their governors, the cities with their mayors, and the villages with their elders. Governors were given greater powers and responsibilities, including oversight of local security and administration. The police organization went in the same direction. Valendor wanted every city and village to have at least a few lawmen, but decided that their funding and specific deployment should not be decided by the emperor himself. He handed over this duty to the deputies. The nobility thus received greater autonomy, while the emperor himself retained oversight of the laws, the capital, his own states, and the main army. It was this system of divided responsibility that helped the empire function more flexibly and calmly again.
Tax reform and a downsized military
Valendor also reshaped the tax system. He did not want all layers to be burdened in the same way regardless of the actual scope of their activity. Therefore, he began to monitor the economic activity of individual population groups more closely and provided certain reliefs to hard-working people. At the same time, he reduced the share of taxes paid directly to the emperor and left more room for the local administration, which, however, had to bear more direct responsibility for the order and running of the province. His rule meant not only the growth of the administration, but also the reduction of some older excesses. The main army was gradually reduced from twenty to fourteen battalions for economic reasons. This move may have appeared as a weakening, but in the context of his rule it was more of a rational adaptation to the possibilities of the state. Valendor didn't want to maintain greatness just for the sake of an image of power, if that would drain the coffers and destabilize the country again.