While Brage, the first smith, lived in Ürüne Düré, he fell in love with Surtara, a Galéan Queen. Surtara was also an oracle, and tradition forbid her from taking a consort, so they left Düréa and with their followers eventually settled on the island of Khael in the year d577. It was there that Brage created the Book of Dooms for his Queen, 22 brass plates based on images he had seen in Yhera's Celestial Book. Peridia, the daughter of Brage and Surtara, ritually gave up her eyesight to become the next Oracle Queen, and then she lay with her father and bore him a daughter. This rite was repeated with each generation, and in short time the daughters of Brage became known as the greatest oracles of the Known World. This continued until d819, when Achre, due to become the twelfth Oracle Queen, refused to undergo the ritual and be blinded. Always a rebellious girl, she had been tutored in secret by Ariahavé, who had come to Khael in disguise. Achre crippled her father in their battle over the ritual and drove him into the Underworld.
Achre and her followers were exiled by her sisters, and they went to the nearby Pallithane Peninsula, a wild and mountainous land. She brought the native Héskédran barbarians under her rule and in time she slew the Great Dragon of the Pallithane Mountains and bound its spirit to her own with great magics. She bore to the Dragon a child, pregnant for 3 years to bring her daughter Archaia into the world in d933. Archaia received the tutelage of Ariahavé as her mother had, and was a Companion to Adjia Luna on her hunts, along with her half-sisters Dall and Pulma, the daughters of Achre and Thula. Archaia founded the city of Palatia in d977 (which the Palatians mark as p1, the first year of their calendar), and built its Seven Gates. From her consorts amongst the Héskédran princes she bore three daughters, Divinhrada, Vargate, and Baséa, who founded the three Great Houses of Palatia. Achre and Archaia and her three daughters slew monsters, moved rivers, built roads and bridges, and in so doing tamed the Pallithanes.
The great women of Palatia were amongst the first to respond to the summons of Ürüne Düré when it came under siege. Archaia died there in d1109, slain while defending the fallen Hannath Hammergreia, the last great Carrion Queen. The Last Queens ordered the abandonment of Ürüne Düré two years later, and Achre returned to Palatia with her daughter's body. In grief she sealed herself in the earth in her daughter's tomb, and left her granddaughters to rule Palatia.
So began the cycles of the Veiled Queens in Palatia, when the city was in mourning and withdrawn from the world. The Veiled Queens ruled for over 200 years, until the migration of Aurian invaders from the north threatened to overcome their isolation. The Aurians were barely driven off, and later settled on the Danian Peninsula, where they accepted the Divine King and became part of the Middle Kingdoms. The Veiled Queens looked about the Known World then, and saw the rising dangers of Dauban Hess and Nymarga in the south, and threw off their torpor, and became the Black Arrow Queens. The Black Arrow Queens founded the first legions and the first Sea Houses, with which began the great Palatian fleet. They fought Dauban Hess to a standstill, though in truth he thought the city so poor that he could barely be bothered, and were in open warfare with the Worm Kings long before most suspected the extent of the evil at the heart of the Phoenix Court.
After the destruction of Millene and the Winter Century, Queen Audra of the House of Baséa, set sail to Khael, to see for herself the ruins of Oracle City. Even as the Palatian rebuilding of Khael began, she descended into the Underworld and spoke to the last Oracle Queen, to learn if their line continued. Armed with her knowledge, she quested for and found the Book of Dooms, and set sail into the East, and found Ursula, the heir to the throne of Khael, in hiding in the Islands of the Dawn. Audra returned with her and reinstated her as the Oracle Queen in p812.
Audra then embarked on a series of expeditions — to Hemispia, and south to Amora, to Sekeret, the cities of the Déskédran coast, and north past Magara's Land into the Panoch Sea. Her voyages marked the true end of the Winter Century, establishing the network of sea trade that would make Palatia a formidable power. She established the Arsenal of the City, the great dockyards of the Palatian fleet, and created new ships and sail designs unmatched for centuries. Audra is commonly called the last of the Black Arrow Queens, and the first of the Copper Queens.
The early 16th century (by the Palatian calendar) saw the rise of Hamellus of House Devarra, who became a great power in the House of Lords and in the Archaiate, the Palatian Council of War. He led the legions to victory in the north against uprisings amongst Palatia's allies amongst the Lycinians. Though he was not from a Great House, Hamellus was made the Duke of Palatia in p1551 by a dispensation of the House of Lords. Hamellus soon stretched for more power, and in p1553 he declared that since the Queen's throne was vacant and without candidates, he would become King of Palatia, and end the Assassin Cycles. The populace, weary of the bloodshed of the preceding years, accepted his proclamation, and some even whispered that Hamellus had the powers of one of the ancient Dragon Kings. But on the eve of his coronation, one of Hamellus' most trusted lieutenants, Urech of the Sea House of Aiths, led a violent and bloody coup, and he killed Hamellus in the Great Temple of Palatia Archaia. With the help of the legions and the acqueiescence of Hamellus' Grand Vizier, the Lord Mott of the House of Pylon, Urech imposed his own rule over Palatia, and though he was not from a Great House he sat upon the Ducal Throne, and came to be called the Usurper.
With Akkalion still trapped in the Gray Dream, many consider Urech to be the most dangerous man in the Known World, though the Lord Mott — a renowned alchemist and creator of the first Indexes of the ancient texts — is often rumored as the true power in Palatia. In the last 86 years Urech has annexed the cities of Lycinia and the Déskédran coast; fought two wars against the Thessid Empire for control of the Spice Road across the Midlands, the second of which ended with the sacking of the Thessid cities of Daubia, Lephdros, and (most embarassingly for the Empire) Thalos; and signed the Stone Treaty with the Thulamites and fought their enemies, the Lokhite barbarians of the West, to a stand-still. He courted a Thulamite Queen, Nihagen of Desmagria, during Palatia's war with the Lokhites, and she bore him twin daughters before she was slain by assassins. His daughters are being raised amongst the Thulamites, and have never seen their father's city.
