Highguard
“The Empire is our destiny”
The Highborn are a proud people and that pride is rooted deeply in the belief that they are the architects and guardians of human destiny. The history of Highguard is the rejection of corruption and the pursuit of virtue. As a consequence the Highborn have been instrumental in forging the Empire, they hold themselves to the highest ideals, to epitomize Imperial Virtues, to reflect the noble obligations of leadership and thereby to embody the very spirit of the Empire. Their destiny is to drive the barbarians from the land and unite all humankind; they will accept nothing less.
The chapters, the great stone settlements in which most Highborn dwell, are scattered across the plains that lie between Urizen and the Bay of Catazar. Many are built on holy sites; places that resonate with virtue, or sites of great battles in the historic wars that wrested control of the land from the Barbarians. All are heavily fortified, with granite quarried from the southern mountains, for the Highborn will brook no expense to protect what is theirs. “Wood burns, stone endures” is an old Highborn aphorism that says much about their perspective.
Although the First Empress put aside her nationality when she united the Empire, the Highborn consider their nation the proud parent of the Empire, and themselves to be its founders, tutors and guardians. They protect the Empire with their armies, guide its hand in the Senate and guard its soul in the Synod; perhaps most important of all, they keep the Imperial Histories to record and tell of the deeds that make the Empire great.