All hail the new Pharaoh! Ra’s representative on this divine Earth. Greetings, My Supreme Lord…He Who Walks The Land of Men as a God. This humble servant of yours is called Archios and it is my esteemed and honored duty to take you through the annals of time to the rise of the glorious Sun Empire!
The history of our people is long and proud, Your All Mightiness! For thousands of years, the Pharaohs guarded the lands and continued the saga of greatness that our forefathers had created. They created Great Dynasties and Great Kingdoms.
As you know, your mightiness, Egypt is the cradle of human civilization. This is where the Gods once walked on Earth and from their blessings sprang forth the race of Men. At first survival was difficult. Many died in the harsh deserts of our beloved homeland. Some migrated to far off lands, while some stayed back to brave the challenges the Gods had thrown them. They made rudimentary tools and using these they made their shelter and hunted the bounty of the desert. They survived…but barely. Then from the folds of the tribes there rose a true believer, a man who would later become known as the saviour of Man. He embarked on a long and difficult trek to find the home of the Gods. As he lay dying of thirst and hunger in the unending sands, his eyes clouding with the divine mist, it is said the God Osiris appeared before him. On seeing the suffering of his children, he let his tears fall into a sacred bowl, which he handed to the Believer, who would forever be immortalized as the first Priest Immohotep, blessed be his name! Returning to his people, he poured the tears on the scorched ground and from these tears formed the thrice blessed river – the Nile – the very source of life itself.
The life sustaining waters of this mighty river led to the rapid development of a great civilization. These Chosen Ones, the original Egyptians, used their ingenuity to plough the fertile lands of the Nile to make food, leading to the first farms. They built great cities, roads and a language that would survive the test of time! Led by the representatives of the Gods, the First Pharaohs, they were the greatest epitome of what man could achieve – the Golden Age of the Sun, also known as the Old Kingdom, which lasted for more than five hundred years.
However, all was not always well. Despite the divine guidance of our Pharaohs, dark times befell our lands. Famines, plagues, rebellions and foreign invasions took a toll on the Kingdom. These led to long periods of strife, known in history as the Intermediate Periods, when the Gods withdrew their chosen representatives and the legions of Set played havoc with our people.
However, after each of these Intermediate Periods, our resilient people recovered and rebuilt the Kingdom. This led to the emergence of the Middle & New Kingdoms, which between themselves lasted for almost a thousand years and gave rise to the great Ramesside Period – the eleven glorious Pharaohs that took the name Ramesses. This was a time of relief from the tides of darkness. It seemed there was hope at last. It was a great time to be an Egyptian. Those were good years...
Alas, this period of prosperity was not to last. Years of invasions by the Hyskosians, Water People and Assyrians impoverished the land, weakened the power of the Pharaohs and led eventually to the sacking of the glorious city of Thebes. This weakness was seized on by the evil Persians, who in their infinite greed, conspired to conquer our bountiful lands and take what was ours by force. Despite a heroic struggle, our forces fell to the armies of the East. Thus began the Era of the Persian Satraps.
We were finally liberated from the tyrannical rule of the Persians by the Makedonians, led by their brave new King Alexander, who went on to conquer the known world. However, he died at a young age and his mighty Empire was divided into many squabbling successor states. The Makedonian General Ptolemy, who had been selected to rule Egypt against the wishes of its rightful people, now took advantage to consolidate his own power and declared the beginning of a Ptolemaic Dynasty, which he hoped would rival the rule of the Pharaohs. He declared himself a God! Oh, the blasphemy of this unbeliever!
But there is always light in the darkness. For, during this dark time, there emerged from amongst the nobility of Thebes a young man named Harchus. Descended from one of the most ancient families, Harchus, like all other true Egyptians, seethed under the rule of the blasphemous false Pharaoh. For his refusal to accept the rule of the false monarch, he was exiled and assassins were sent to take his head. By the blessings of the Gods, he survived and traveled the lands of the Kingdom, gathering an army of loyal men. Taking advantage of Ptolemy’s involvement against the rising power of the Seleucids to the north, Harchus bided his time until the war ended with a victory for Egypt. Then he marched north with his newly assembled army to capture the unguarded city of Alexandria. After many months of bloody battle between the loyalist and rebel forces, he met Ptolemy in the holy valley near Jerusalem and defeated him in single combat.
Alas, the noble Harchus himself died in the battle, but not before proclaiming his son, Hekhemmut, the new God appointed ruler of Egypt. Thus started the emergence of the glorious Thirty First Dynasty – and its line of strong Pharaohs who would go on to conquer the known world and forge the greatest and most glorious Kingdom the world has ever seen or ever will see – the Immortal Kingdom of Egypt.
These are the heroic and divine men from whom you are descended My Great Lord and it is their tales that I shall tell. So it has been said. So it shall be done!
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