The Korvan dynasty did not inherit their throne. They took it.
Eighty years ago, Korvan's great-grandfather—a mercenary captain named Theron Korvan—looked upon the fractured human territories and saw opportunity where others saw chaos. The old noble houses had grown fat and complacent, squabbling over ancestral claims while their peasants starved. Theron united the sellsword companies under a single banner and swept through the lowlands like a scythe through wheat.
The campaign lasted three brutal years. Theron burned castles that refused to surrender. He executed noble families who would not bend the knee. He salted the fields of those who resisted and sold their children to slavers beyond the eastern mountains. When the last holdout fortress finally fell, Theron Korvan crowned himself in the ashes of what had been, claiming divine right through conquest—proof, he declared, that the gods favored strength above bloodlines.
His son was crueler still. His grandson refined that cruelty into something approaching art.
Korvan, fourth of his name, learned statecraft at his father's knee. He learned that fear is more reliable than love, that loyalty purchased with gold outlasts loyalty earned through kindness, and that the common people will believe anything if you wrap it in the language of faith.
The Korvan territories sit atop the richest diamond deposits in all of Cordragia. Miles of tunnels honeycomb the earth beneath the capital, and in those tunnels, workers labor in conditions that would shame a prison. They dig until their hands bleed, until their lungs fill with dust, until they die and are replaced by their children. The diamonds they extract fund Korvan's armies, his spies, his endless hunger for expansion.
But the people never see this. The mines are far from the cities, hidden behind military checkpoints and official denials. What the people see instead are the grand temples that Korvan has built in Zunartha's name.
The Church of Zunartha has flourished under Korvan rule. He has declared her faith the official religion of the realm, funding missionaries and building sanctuaries in every village. Her priests speak of purity, of healing through suffering, of the virtue of denial. They preach that wealth is a burden, that luxury corrupts the soul, that the common folk should embrace their humble lives and trust their betters to carry the weight of material concerns.
It is convenient theology for a man who hoards diamonds.
Korvan attends services every seventh day, kneeling before the altar with theatrical humility. He fasts during the holy months, or appears to—his private kitchens, accessible only through hidden passages, prepare feasts that would feed a village. He speaks of sacrifice while wearing robes lined with silk so fine it costs more than most families earn in a decade. The gems in his crown are "borrowed" from the treasury, officially belonging to the state rather than the sovereign.
These are the small lies that make the large lies possible.
In public, Korvan is the model of pious restraint. His throne room is austere, decorated in grays and whites, furnished with hard wooden benches that suggest discomfort is virtue. Petitioners who seek audience find him dressed simply, eating plain bread, drinking water from a clay cup. He speaks softly of duty and faith, of the burden of leadership, of how he wishes he could live as humbly as his subjects.
Behind the false walls, the truth emerges. His private chambers sprawl across an entire wing of the palace, their existence unknown to all but his most trusted servants. The floors are marble imported from distant shores. The walls are hung with tapestries woven from gold thread. His bed could sleep twelve, and often does—he has appetites that his public piety would never suggest. His wine cellar contains vintages older than his dynasty. His vault holds diamonds by the thousands, sorted by size and clarity, counted and recounted by clerks who will be executed if they speak of what they've seen.
Korvan does not want the Crimson Chest for noble purposes. He does not seek to elevate humanity or fulfill some ancient prophecy. He has read the old accounts, the ones his archivists have carefully hidden from public knowledge. He knows what dragon's blood mixed with gold truly represents: wealth beyond measure, power beyond challenge, immortality through the transformation of base matter into something eternal.
He wants it because it is the one treasure in Cordragia that he does not already possess.
The thought of it keeps him awake at night. The dragon's hoard, the legendary gold, the blood of a god-creature mixed with metal until it became something new—it calls to him like a song only he can hear. He has sent expedition after expedition to Hokrish Mountain. None have returned. But Korvan is patient. He has spent twenty years building the largest human army since his great-grandfather's conquest. He has bribed officials in every faction, cultivated spies in every court, prepared for the war that everyone knows is coming.