The nation of Espara was a smallish kingdom in the southlands, two generations ago. One generation ago, the visionary leader Carius III led the nation in a series of swift, brilliantly executed wars of expansion. This left Espara as the dominant power of the south, and Carius's son Marcoul I has continued to expand and conquer. Espara is a deeply expansionist empire, and many who oppose it call its constant wars of expansion and its routine use of military force against rebels inside its own borders cruel or evil. Apologists point out that members of the empire enjoy safe roads, clean water, and protection from all manner of threats courtesy of the legions, and that more than one ruler has bent the knee willingly for the sake of the benefits their people would reap.

As is so often the case, the truth is probably somewhere in between.