Goal/Ideology: Preservation of Rein's vision of a world-spanning rule.

Symbol/Colors: Several variations exist in order to identify the various forces of the military governors, but all are based on the flag of the First Army, the original Red Faction: a black pair of wings against a dark red background, bisected by a violet sword.

History: The Red Faction became the Dragina Empire two years after the Battle of the Apocalypse, when Rein's last coherent words for a century were "If godhood will not be mine, then I will take another mantle. Dilosia is dead and gone. Go, my warriors, and when I wake tell me the world bows before me."

Strife, the Grey Samurai, remained on the isle of Peldane in order to oversee the construction of the fortress that would one day be Verooth. Terror the White, along with the man Rein had appointed as Supreme General of the Red Faction Army, Mandorah Ghendros, set out to make Rein's words reality.

Twenty years passed. Verooth was already defensible enough to rival Tergata, and the Red Faction Army had been split into seven. The First Army remained the Red Faction, but its duties were more and more ceremonial: defense of Rein's palaces, destruction of high-grade rebellions, and other such things. Meanwhile, the other armies had been divided among the four continents and the Great Ocean. Strife emerged from Rein's chambers and spoke for the first time in those twenty years, saying "Know that the Dragon Emperor is pleased with what you have done. It is his will that the armies remain in the foreign lands, there to maintain his vision until such time he decides they be assigned elsewhere."

Decades passed without much in the way of expansion. The Seven Armies consolidated their positions and defended their borders, and slowly the armies began to seperate once more. More and more, the armies were divided into a beauracratic division and a military division, and when the two began to clash with one another the last of the Supreme Generals, the dwarven Hagg Irithok, took action. He divided the beauracracy and military officially, and set the majority of the military under bearacratic control. However, he also set an elite caste above the beauracracy, capable of countermanding any of the various governors, based on the Five Orders (The Silver, Crimson, Emerald, Azure, and Violet Knights) that had served Rein so ably in the early stages of the War of the Apocalypse. This alteration in the chain of command persisted largely through the watchful efforts of the Violet Order, whose function as the secret eyes and ears of Verooth made them feared throughout the half of the world that even then bowed to Rein.

Little happened for nearly a century. The Supreme Generals gave way to the Voices of Rein, who pursued beauracratic goals in their tepid search of the simple peace of slow decay. Armies grew restless, and once in a while the local Knight Templar of the local Order would lead the armies out on the conquest of another nearby city-state that was already Rein's in all but name anyway. Roads were built, taxes were raised, politicians became more corrupt, and impressive public works projects were made as part of a process as old as the first tribal council.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, came Rythe.

To describe his rise through the ranks of the military beauracracy as swift would be to miss the opportunity to use the word meteoric. To describe the ends his enemies met as mysterious would be to miss the opportunity to say supernaturally bizzare. To describe what he did to the empire as revitalization would be to miss the opportunity to say he grabbed it by the balls and squeezed.

As his first act as the Voice of Rein, the title that had long since replaced Supreme General as the one given to the most capable among Rein's servants, Rythe restored the long-defunct Weapon Project to its former glory. Within a year it was again producing marvels of magic and technology that were hailed by the military governors as miracles and cursed by those who faced them as perversions of the Will.

With these dark marvels in hand, Rythe set about the bloody business of solidifiying the Empire. The Voices before him had let much of the empire decay, largely abandoning entire military districts along the borders. Before long, the Dragina Empire was again synonymous with the Red Faction Army, as the Voice sent out his legions to reinstate order where it had been forgotten, to bring peace to areas that had been left to their own wars, and to bring death to the cities that had begun to break free. It was from this violent ten-year period that Rythe took another name for what had once been Dilosia: the Red Empire, crimson both with the gleam of armor and the sweet stench of blood.

Neither Rythe nor the rest of the world has forgotten the devastating role the Weapon Project's airships played in the lightning-fast series of "correctional" atrocities of the Reunification. The Red Faction troops frequently arrived at cities that had not yet heard of their allies' fall, and before long learned to laugh whole-heartedly at the assurances of vengeance heaped on them by the people who had almost forgotten Rein. It is thought by many scholars that it was only through a mass defection of the goblin engineers at work on developing new airships that the Reunification ever stopped, but even that is the subject of heated debate, for almost immediately following the Reunification came Rythe's next plan.

For twenty years now, the Dragina Empire has been funding the creation of massive, fortresslike temples to each of the five elemental gods, serving as both command centers for the Five Orders and ornate public works projects. Red scholars have been known to say these indicate that Rythe intends to atone for the bloody Reunification, or simply guarantee a similar thing may never need to happen again. Many scholars outside Red borders, however, point to the sinister falls of those who have blocked the paths of both Rythe and the Dragina Empire in the past, and contend that the temple-fortresses are to be used for some unspeakable purpose. These are also fond of noting that the Weapon Project has announced no new successes recently, and such a silence can only bode ill for the nations that still stand free of Rein's influence...

Rein, the Red Dragina.

Political status: The Dragina Empire defines clout in the world of Fou Lu. The kingdoms it recognizes as existing flourish. Those it does not recognize tend to die swift, flashy deaths. Over half of the world bows to Rein, and a fair-sized minority of those that don't in name are bound to him through more subtle methods. Not a single government on the face of the planet dares defy the Red Empire, or even attempt to expand beyond a certain size. The most recent exceptions to this school of thought are the Seeker Houses, (Rythe has as of yet refused to acknowledge High Seeker Asmodean Nyruvial as the representative of all five of the Houses) and even now there are rumblings in Verooth towards adding them to the long list of those who have stood directly against the will of Rein.

Government: The Dragina Empire's lands are divided into military districts, with each district ruled by a governor closely advised (and often controlled) by a military appointee. Military districts are ruled from the local Order's command center, frequently a city conquered by Rein during the War of the Apocalypse. The local Order's leader reports to their Knight Templar, and the five Knights Templar report to Rythe. In theory, Rythe reports to Rein, but Rein has become largely superfluous to the running of his own empire.

Territory:
80% of the Psychic Isles
50% of Andriath
30% of Valanthus
60% of Ercus
20% of Deisach (and the majority of the surrounding islands)

Leader(s):
Rein, Dragon Emperor of Dilosia
Rythe, Voice of Rein

High-Ranking officers:
Terror the White
Strife the Grey
Deloss, Violet Knight Templar
Mirage, Azure Knight Templar
Tucheras, Silver Knight Templar
Keldris, Emerald Knight Templar
Kristoff, Crimson Knight Templar
Sairangar, Chief Mind Breaker
Daerus Vergrath, Chief Weapon Project Scientist
Kordak, Hand of Rein (sub-one)
Kharn Baneblade, Hand of Rein (sub-two)
Lanklar, Hand of Rein (sub-three) (Part-time)
Melody Baneblade/Eve Strife, Hand of Rein (sub-four) (in training)

Strategy: Under Rythe, the Red Empire has been slow to react to any threats, but when its response comes it is both lightning-fast and devastatingly powerful. Its use of multiple generals commanding diverse forces under the Knights Templar has resulted in that most terrifying of foes to face on a battlefield: an army with no traditional strengths to foil and no traditional weaknesses to exploit.