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And that was all without counting the Ten Dominions and the ceremonial Dominion Titles that signified kingship, personal union, mastery, suzerainty, and overlordship over them. These titles were only used when the Emperor visited the Dominion in question or they could be compiled together with the Imperial Titles to make a full list that would humble even the Targaryens. If the ten Dominion Titles were announced along with the Imperial Titles instead of the summarized collective title of 'King of the Dominions' at every occasion, they would be as such:
High King of Sarnor
Liege King of Lhazar
Great King of Dothrak
Shadow King of Ibben
King of Qarth and Master of the Jade Gates
King of Moraq and Warden of the Cinnamon Straits
Patriarch of Hyrkoon and Guardian of the Bones
Beyond the Sarne and leading all the way to the Bone Mountains and the Great Sand Sea in the Far East were the Ten Dominions in question. Sarnor, Lhazar, Ibben, Dothrak, Qarth, Yinishar, Samyriana, Bayashbhad, Kayakayanaya, and the Cinnamon Isles.
These Dominions were realms in which his father Daemon I, the Velaryon Emperor, served as king, hegemon, overlord, and suzerain all at once. His father held additional titles pertaining to his kingship over each region. In Sarnor for example, he was the High King of Sarnor, King of his other Dominions, and so forth with the rest of the imperial titles. As their monarch, these territories did him fealty and paid him tribute but direct rule was not applied for the most part, with each dominion left to its local elites in the form of regional councils, merchants, nobles, and royals to govern on the Emperor's behalf.
In theory, the only imperial oversight came in the form of the Imperial Legates, though in practice the Conches, the hidden spies that had served as the Emperor's eyes and ears since the days of Corlys I, were always hard at work gathering information and watching for treason not just in the Dominions but in the Empire proper and the rest of the world as well. While the Conches served in the darkness, the Imperial Legates would serve in an official capacity in the light as representatives of the Emperor dispatched from Jacaria across the Empire, proper and dominion alike. They would also have deputies or second officers, Lieutenant Legates assigned to aid them in their duties.
All the Legates were ultimately managed by and answerable to a Legate General who sat on the Imperial Council. It was explicitly decreed that the position never be held by the Imperial Chancellor in order to divide powers and responsibilities and keep a single Imperial Councilor from being too powerful.
Within the Empire proper, the legates and their lieutenants served as the primary administrators, arbitrators, and supervisors over the two hundred and twelve magisters, the direct provincial governors, and their magistrates. They also had the right to suggest individuals to appoint as magister in the magistrates they oversaw to the Emperor but this was only a recommendation and nothing more; all were by right appointed by the Emperor directly or delegated to the Chancellor to decide, further maintaining the balance of power in the Imperial Council between the Chancellor and the Legate General. Furthermore, Legates had no individual powerbase of their own, making regular commutes between offices in Jacaria and the major cities of their assigned legations, which were all regularly rotated.
Within the Dominions however, the Imperial Legates served as the Emperor's main representatives and envoys, speaking with his voice and serving as special advisors in the ruling courts of each Dominion, puppet masters pulling the strings of the Dominion and ensuring their compliance with imperial policy.
In Sarnor, as aforementioned, his father was High King of Sarnor, with his ancestors having long dispossessed the Kings of Sarnath of that title even after the Dothraki Empire had been vanquished. Lieutenant Legates were dispatched to the court of each Sarnori city kingdom and the senior Legate they answered to was attached to the Council of Kings in Sarnath and represented the Velaryon Emperor as High King there.
West of Sarnor, Dothrak was in a similar situation as Sarnor. The nomadic Dothraki khalasars had been all destroyed long ago but their sedentary cousins who had begun farming the steppes had survived. They had mixed and mingled with settlers from Sarnor, including many Dothraki who had settled there during the rule of the Dothraki Empire and had since returned home. Furthermore, cadets of Sarnori royal houses, many of them also possessing Dothraki descent after the rule of the Dothraki Empire, had been granted leave and lands to raise new cities and kingdoms within the region.
The intended result had been the blending of Dothraki and Sarnori culture together to form a stable and prosperous vassal realm and it had succeeded wildly. Much like in Sarnor, the rulers of the individual states within the Dominion of Dothraki were called Kings with attached Lieutenant Legates and there was a Council of Kings in Vaes Dothrak where the senior Legate represented the Velaryon Emperor in his role and title as the Great King of Dothrak.
To the south in Lhazar, his father held the title of Liege King of Lhazar and once again each vassal kingdom, principality, city state, and so forth within the Dominion was attended to by a Lieutenant Legate while the senior Legate sat on the Dominion's high council in its capital.
The reason why the entire region was now known as Lhazar and not Ghiscar was because Corlys' ancestors had sought to eradicate the memory of the Ghiscari and their slaving ways from the world and they had destroyed them more utterly than the Dothraki and Valyrians before them had, giving their lands and their surviving peoples over to the Lhazarene they had long enslaved to repurpose into something useful.
In Ibben, Corlys' father held the title of Shadow King of Ibben to indicate his kingship of the dominion, but day to day rule was left to the Shadow Council with an Imperial Legate and his lieutenants as usual to supervise and oversee them.
A similar story was the case in Qarth where Corlys' ancestors had restored the Pureborn to Qarth once the Dothraki had been vanquished and allowed them to manage their own local affairs with the Pureborn Council but once again an Imperial Legate and his lieutenants oversaw that council and ever since the Dothraki Empire had been vanquished, Corlys' forefathers had held the titles, King of Qarth and Master of the Jade Gates, and they had built naval bases all over the region to secure the Velaryon Navy's control.
In fact, this applied to all the Dominions. They were allowed their own regional armies, divided and disorganized as they were, but not their own navies. Only the Velaryon Navy would be allowed to rule the waves.
South of Qarth, Velaryon naval bases similarly dotted the Dominion of the Cinnamon Isles and each of the local vassal kings and governing conclaves had attached Lieutenant Legates and were answerable to the senior Legate who sat at the High Council that oversaw the region as a whole. Corlys' father held the titles of King of Moraq and Warden of the Cinnamon Straits within that Dominion.
Lastly in the Patrimonies of Yinishar, Samyriana, Bayashbhad, and Kayakayanaya, all four descended from the ancient Patrimony of Hyrkoon and located in or near the Bone Mountains, his father and all Emperors since Lucerys the Bonebreaker held the titles of Patriarch of Hyrkoon and Guardian of the Bones. Councils of Great Fathers ruled each patrimony, each with an Imperial Legate and their attached lieutenants representing the Empire.
Some had japed that the Dominions were the Empire's empire and it was an apt analogy. Through its the Dominions, the Velaryon Empire had stretched its influence over all of Essos west of Asshai. Even if Yi Ti and the other peoples in the Jade Sea were not yet Dominions, they still paid homage and tribute to the Velaryon Emperor. And with that influence, Corlys' ancestors had seen to the end of slavery across the entirety of Essos, even in Asshai-by-the-Shadow.
Of course, if one wished to truly understand how the contemporary Velaryon Empire and its Dominions had been created, one had to go back to the beginning, and this was a history that had intrigued Corlys nearly as much as the life of his ancestor the Sea Snake. He wanted to know everything he possibly could about what happened after the Dance of the Dragons and how the world he lived in had come to be. His studies had made him somewhat of an expert on the topic, useful knowledge for a future emperor he would say.
Corlys I, the Sea Snake, had been posthumously crowned as the first Emperor of the Empire of Essos after the Dance of the Dragons, but the true first emperor and the one from whose coronation they dated the Empire's founding was Corlys' son, Jacaerys the Great. The fearless victor of the Dance of the Dragons.
Jacaerys sadly would be greatly plagued by the grief and stress of the Dance and the years leading up to it. He would live and reign for only five and ten years following the Dance of the Dragons, perishing from a great illness, some say a remnant of the Red Death that had almost killed him in the Chimera Cull years earlier, in the year 147 AC, or 54 AZ. He would not even live to see his youngest son Lucerys, named for his deceased twin and born 133 AC/40 AZ come of age. Corlys could not help but think that that was such a sad ending for Jacaerys.
Nonetheless, despite his short reign, Jacaerys would live up to his epithet within it. In his final years, he oversaw the Empire expanding its borders to the Rhoyne in all directions, overseeing the vassalisation of Volantis to the Empire and its cession of the west bank of the Rhoyne from Selhorys to Sarhoy and the annexation of Braavos, Lorath, and Norvos in the north.
The annexation of Braavos was particularly noteworthy as it removed one of the last true rivals House Velaryon had to contest its fleets in the sea. With the Arsenal of Braavos under its control and added to the shipyards and arsenals already present in the Velaryon Empire, the Velaryon Navy would grow even more powerful. The Fall of Braavos also meant that the famous Iron Bank and its assets were now in Velaryon hands and Jacaerys did not forget it. He would incorporate the Iron Bank into the Velaryon Bank to strengthen the latter and seized the bank's Valyrian steel collection for House Velaryon as one of his last acts before dying.
Jacaerys' empress, Baela, and his goodsister Rhaena, Lucerys' widow, would both similarly die before their time in their fifties. However, Daeron the Daring and Laena the Lovely would both have an exceptionally long and peaceful life, each perishing in the same year well into their nineties. Both of them expressly refused to take part in any further campaigns or matters of state in the years after the Dance and were intent on enjoying a well-deserved rest from their labors.
Neither of them were done making history however. Like his father before him, Daeron the Daring became a truly capable seafarer with his now famous ship the Dawn Treader after the death of his dragon, and in 150 AC/57 AZ at the ripe age of 56, Daeron the Daring would circumnavigate the world by way of the Saffron Straits, denying his rival Ryon Redwyne who had been exploring the Sunset Sea the privilege of such a historical feat.
Daeron's sister-wife Laena and her dragon Shrykos were flying overhead on that voyage. According to legends, Laena Velaryon had told her brother-husband that they would go to the ends of the world together but she would get there first as she was flying. Many historians insist that this has to be apocrypha however as Princess Laena adored and loved her husband and would not have been likely to rub salt into the wound that was the loss of his dragon with such a quote, beautiful and well intentioned as it might sound.
With his parents, aunts, and uncles all dead or refusing to interfere, none would challenge Corlys II's vision for Essos when he ascended the Driftwood Throne as Emperor upon his father's passing in 147 AC/54 AZ. With his siblings and cousins all fiercely loyal to him, and already having heirs with his cousin-wife Empress Jaenara, Corlys was ready to see the Empire through to a greatness his father and grandfather could never have imagined.
Over the course of his fifty-one-year reign, Corlys II would push the boundaries of the Empire to their greatest height yet. It was Corlys II who crossed the Rhoyne River and conquered all of Essos until the Sarne and the Painted Mountains, establishing the formal eastern borders of the Empire proper. And it was Corlys II who broke the Dothraki Empire in the Great Khal Drogo's old age.
The Zaldilaros Cult had long thrived in the slavery-ridden Dothraki Empire and Corlys II and his house would wage a decades long campaign to break the Dothraki Empire, free the slaves, and establish the Dominions. The reason for their creation was because Corlys II feared that overstretch would be the end of his empire but also believed that the territories had to be freed from the yoke of the Dothraki and thus the Dominion system was created as a stopgap to prepare the territories for full annexation into the Empire of Essos, though none of them had yet been annexed even now. If Corlys recalled correctly, Sarnor and Lhazar were the closest to it.
Piece by piece, Corlys II and his dragonriders destroyed the Dothraki khalasars and installed and uplifted new vassals and elites into the realms they had settled and conquered, many of whom themselves had Dothraki descent but had assimilated into the local cultures and defected to the conquering and liberating Velaryons. By the end of Corlys II's reign, the longest of any Emperor, the Velaryon Empire and its Dominions were on the foothills of the Bone Mountains.
With all the glory and prestige of his conquests and campaigns, Corlys II became known as the Magnificent. But he was not given that name for making war alone. Corlys the Magnificent's reign was prosperous and great in peace as well, as he oversaw the rebuilding of Essos from the Dothraki yoke and centuries of war and chaos since the Doom of Old Valyria. Roads and other works of infrastructure were built across the Empire proper and the Dominions, with great cities rising or rebuilding to reap the profits of trade and safe travels.
His crowning achievement however, was the construction of the Imperial City of Jacaria. Built on the northern shores of Dagger Lake to control all traffic on the River Rhoyne and with an architectural motif and layout that reminded many of Tyrosh or even Spicetown of old, the city was named for Corlys II's beloved father, Jacaerys the Great.
Its outermost walls were a semicircle of double walls known as the Corlysian Walls, supposedly inspired by unfulfilled plans Corlys I had had for Spicetown long ago and there were lake walls and piers along almost the entire east-west length of the city where it met the lakeshore in the south, along with a lighthouse to guide any river ships in the night. Within the Corlysian Walls was a great metropolis of manses, markets, monuments, statues, triumphal arches, fountains, libraries, gardens, homes, shops, and so much more, for in the present day the imposing Imperial City had a population that could rival even the greatest of the Free Cities.
No less than three Dragonpits each capable of hosting forty dragons the size of Balerion of old dotted the city, with a fortified Dragonfort surrounding and protecting each of them. The Dragonkeepers which manned these Dragonpits and tended to and protected the dragons within were now well over two thousand strong.
The oldest of the Dragonpits in the Empire, with the exception of the original and small Myrish Dragonpit which had been repurposed when the capital had moved to Jacaria, was the aptly named First Dragonpit built into a small hill right on the shore of Dagger Lake. Its surrounding Dragonfort and the lake walls that protected Jacaria from an attack from the lake gave it strong security.
Across the street from the First Dragonpit and surrounding it were the government buildings housing the various institutions and ministries that ran the empire, including the Velaryon Bank, the Imperial Mints, the Army Headquarters, the Treasury, Chancellery, Legation Ministry, and even Admiralty Hall for the famed Velaryon Navy, though their operational headquarters were by necessity downstream in Volantis. Even the headquarters of the Conches was somewhere in that labyrinth of ministries as well, officially as a building for housing clerks and storing paperwork but all who were aware of the secretive organization knew that the building's true name was 'The Shell.' All of these various government buildings were shielded by an additional single inner wall known as Viserra's Wall.
The First Dragonpit was directly on the right of a road that turned into a great white bridge that led onto the lake in the south. On the opposite side of the Dragonpit on that road was a great and imposing sea-green copper-plated statue known as the Emperor Indomitable which was modelled after Corlys the Sea Snake and meant as the pair to Lady Liberty based on Viserra the Sea Dragon in Tyrosh.
The Emperor Indomitable was right by the lakeshore and served as the warden of a fortified gatehouse betwixt it and the Dragonpit. The gatehouse protected the entrance to the bridge and there was another fortified gate to its side that would allow one to directly enter the Dragonfort and the Dragonpit from the bridge without entering into the city beneath the Emperor Indomitable's eyes.
The great white bridge the gatehouses protected was fortified with battlements and crenellations and raised high above the lake to dissuade attackers from trying to scale it but not so high that a rider on the bridge could not see the crystal blue waters of the lake below clearly. The bridge was adorned with marble statues of Tide Guard, dragons, seahorses, and past emperors and empresses as it led to the seat of the Imperial House of Zaldilaros Velaryon.
In an islet in the lake only a few hundred yards away from the shore stood the castle of New Tide, built in the image and memory of High Tide of old from the preserved plans of the original castle, and its presence in many famous paintings and the recollections of Corlys the Magnificent and his cousins who had had the castle built in the honor and memory of their grandparents.
So dedicated had they been to the project that they had even remodeled and reshaped the islet upon which the castle stood, changing the very shape of the island and the size and height of its hill at great expense and requiring enormous amounts of money, time, and dirt and sand, in order to perfectly recreate the image of their childhood memories. Even going so far as to excavate and build supports for a cave beneath the castle to create a new Dragon Den just like the one beneath the original.
Their work had taken decades but the results were worth it. Even now Corlys IV sat in the parapets atop the highest tower of New Tide, made in the image of the Highest Tide Tower in Old High Tide and overlooking the great city of Jacaria, built at least partially in the image of Spicetown.
Corlys I and Viserra's legendary sacrifice had been honored, High Tide and Spicetown lived again in spirit as the seats of the greatest empire the world had ever seen, and they would never ever be touched by the Targaryens ever again. They would not be desecrated with imposters like the original ruins had been. The so called Red Tide and false Spicetown that the Targaryens had built on Driftmark were pretenders that did not at all resemble the originals. Not like New Tide and Jacaria did.
As far as possible, the insides of New Tide had been carefully replicated to match those of High Tide, with many of the original castle's famous treasures, paintings, tapestries, and other furnishings having been saved and placed in the counterparts to their original positions as far as could be remembered, with new ones added to the collection as well to show off the imperial wealth and grandeur the house had since attained.
There was one notable exception, the rightful place of which all remembered for sure unlike the other furnishings, and yet it was not placed there. The Driftwood Throne. While the throne was still perfectly preserved and intact, having survived the centuries and the journey from Driftmark to Myr and then from Myr to Jacaria, it no longer had its rightful place in the throne room of House Zaldilaros Velaryon as the official throne of their house. It now served as the Emperor's seat in the Imperial Council room instead. And the reason for this was simple. It had been replaced with something even greater and grander.
With his father's conquest of Braavos, and his own conquest of Volantis and all Essos unto the Bones, Corlys the Magnificent had gained possession of an enormous collection of Valyrian steel that dwarfed utterly all others in the world, even that which their house had possessed before the Dance of the Dragons. And thus he had decided to forge something that would enshrine his own legend for all time. The symbol that represented his rule over all of Essos. The Sea Dragon Throne.
It was a great chair forged entirely out of Valyrian steel and adorned with silver, gold, and jewels, and cushioned with feathers and wool sheeted in blue velvets and sea-green silks. The throne itself was shaped in the form and motif of a sea dragon, with its armchair rests resembling sea dragon heads, its legs sea dragon claws, and its backrest sea dragon scales. It was the perfect throne for the Emperor of Essos and the perfect companion to the Three Great Crown Jewels that Jacaerys I had had forged in his own reign.
All of these great artifacts and accomplishments added to the magnificence of Corlys II's reign and it was why he was generally considered to be one of if not the single best emperor the Empire had had to date despite the fame and legendary deeds of his father and grandfather. Yet despite his greatness, all men must die and Corlys the Magnificent was no exception. In 198 AC/105 AZ, having outlived his eldest son Crown Prince Jacaerys whom had been named for the Great, Corlys II would be succeeded by his grandson, Daeron, whom history remembered as the Dauntless.
Daeron the Dauntless proved every inch his grandfather's heir. He acquired his epithet in his youth for his fearless mastery of magic, even with the risks and dangers, and how he had used his mastered magic to venture into and explore the depths of Sothoryos including Yeen and return to tell the tale. Daeron the Dauntless would go on to establish the Anogrion Academy and the Mages Guild in Jacaria during his grandfather's reign to finally fully assimilate all the magical lore of Gogossos and begin improving and advancing on it and teaching it to the Zaldilaros Velaryons and their trusted servants for the service of the Empire and its goals.
It was Daeron the Dauntless who created the first chimeras in the world since the Chimera Cull, wholly under the control of Imperial Mages and bred to serve as sacrifices in blood magic, with their part-human blood and flesh serving as acceptable substitutes for true humans, ensuring that the Velaryon Empire would not go down the dark path that Valyria had.
Daeron's advances in blood magic led to treatments and cures for many diseases, ailments, and injuries, especially when combined with advancing medicines and surgical methods, leading to a population boom within the Empire. It also led to the curing of the Butterfly Fever, allowing for Naath to be annexed directly into the Empire and made a magistrate.
Paradoxically enough despite the dark magic he mastered, Daeron the Dauntless was also a fervent and zealous believer in the Zaldilaros Creed. He took part eagerly in the wars against the Dothraki and slavery that his grandfather had carried out and when he became Emperor he continued them, expanding the Empire and its faith to new territories and establishing Dominions over Ibben and the Cinnamon Isles.
He was also the Emperor that ended the religious tolerance that had been the norm within the lands of the Empire proper since the days of Old Valyria, decreeing that from his rule onwards, the only recognized faith within the Empire of Essos' formal borders would be the Zaldilaros Cult. By some wisdom that had prevailed in his council and perhaps the forceful convincing of his family members, Daeron would not enforce this decree on the Dominions as well like he had originally intended, instead formally proclaiming that they may still keep their freedom of religion since they were more loosely under Velaryon rule.
He would not budge however on the Empire proper. All direct Imperial subjects would be Zaldilaros faithful by the end of his rule he swore. And so it would be, regardless of the dissent it caused to make it so. When Daeron had taken the Sea Dragon Throne, the Zaldilaros Cult had long since become the dominant majority throughout the Empire proper as a whole due to the massive fervor of loyalty to the ruling Velaryons for their liberation of the slaves and the various economic and political incentives and advantages to conversion, such as the religious tolerance tax that had been in place since before the Empire had even been founded.
Nonetheless very sizeable minorities of other religions had still existed, especially in the Summer Isles and Braavos which, without slaves to proselytize to in the beginning, had been far more resistant to the encroaching Zaldilaros faith. Religious revolts and dissent broke out over the course of Daeron's rule due to his decree with clashes and fights between Imperial authorities and Moonsingers, Bearded Priests, Black Goat Priests, Priests of Love, Red Priests and Shadowbinders, and so many more, but in the end the Dauntless could not be stopped as the Zaldilaros Cult and the Zaldilaros House both had grown too strong.
Many with the means who did not wish to convert moved to settle in the religiously tolerant and still sparsely populated Dominions to the east but the remainder of the population was converted, willingly or not, to the Zaldilaros Cult. By the time Daeron's reign had ended, the entire population of the Empire of Essos proper was, officially at least, an adherent of the Zaldilaros Creed.
This single religion and its fanatical devotion to the ruling House Velaryon had thus been and was to this day a powerful unifying force that brought together many languages, cultures, and races into a single Velaryon Imperial identity and culture and helped further the continued propagation of High Valyrian, already the language of trade and diplomacy, as the common and official language of all Imperial subjects both within and without the Empire proper.
The Zaldilaros Cult had also long since spread beyond the Empire proper. As aforementioned, many of the lands of the former Dothraki Empire had come to boast large numbers of Zaldilaros faithful due to the Dothraki yoke and even with the influx of immigrants from the Empire proper that were of other religions due to Daeron the Dauntless' decree, each of the Dominions still had the Zaldilaros Cult as either a plurality or a simple majority within their population and the number grew every year. As soon as the entire populace within a Dominion had converted it would be ripe to incorporate into the Empire proper some had proposed.
But even beyond the borders of the Empire as a whole, the Zaldilaros Cult had spread into Yi Ti and the other lands east of the Bones and the Great Sand Sea, gaining greater and greater numbers. The adherents of the Creed could not be persecuted or restricted unless the rulers of those realms desired the ire of the Velaryon Empire but at the same time those faithful were by their very religion more loyal to the House of Zaldilaros Velaryon as the Supreme Defenders of their Faith than their home countries, greatly strengthening the influence the Velaryon Empire had over those regions.
Perhaps in the future Sarnor and Lhazar might be incorporated into the Empire proper and Yi Ti or N'ghai might become Dominions with the Jogos Nhai vanquished just as the Dothraki had been. Only time would tell.
Regardless of his controversial reign and methods, Daeron the Dauntless' contributions to the Empire's success and unity could not be understated and he was in many ways as capable as the three emperors that preceded him even if he had been far more faithful and pious than any of them had been. Daeron the Dauntless would reign for thirty-nine years until 237 AC/144 AZ.
He would be succeeded by his son Lucerys, known as the Bonebreaker. Upon becoming Emperor, Lucerys would expand the Empire further and form Dominions over the three Hyrkoonian patrimonies of Samyriana, Bayashbhad, and Kayakayanaya in the Bone Mountains and the Great Sand Sea, adding them to his already existing control over Y, hence the reason for his epithet of 'Bonebreaker'.
He took for himself and his heirs the Dominion Titles of Patriarch of Hyrkoon and Guardian of the Bones within these three patrimonies in addition to Yinishar which had been under Dothraki rule and liberated by his great-grandfather, the Magnificent. His armies took advantage of the local culture of only the strongest men, the Great Fathers, being allowed to further their bloodline, to lay with many of the local women and according to legend Lucerys the Bonebreaker partook in this as well though it has never been proven conclusively either way.
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