The vast peninsula of Loran is an ancient land, covered in great mistbound rainforests where the primeval trees rise higher than any mortal monument, where axes have never cut nor seeds been sown. There are sacred stones and burial-bogs older than all the histories of man, where things that came before gave worship to forgotten spirits of the wood.
The scattered monastery-kingdoms of Loran are not so venerable. They are poor, fractious and sparsely populated, dwarfed by the endless untamed forest that surrounds them. Even the eldest and most populous coastal kingdoms are little more than corsair outposts compared to the great merchant cities of realms further south, and the youngest are little more than ascetic communes living wild in the woods. The Loryat have long been lesser vassals to greater men. First they were ravaged by the nomadic tribes of the northern steppe, cruel shaman-warriors that fought with terrible sorceries from the Old Road. The petty clans that still dominate Loran are descended from those conquerers. Then they were subjugated by the imperial army of old Azai, forced to pay tribute in jade and malachite ransacked from their sacred temples. Then when Azai fell they were dominated in turn by the rapacious merchant companies of Rukhovia, tearing up the sacred forests in search of furs and the powdered bones of their sacred beasts.
Centuries of humiliation. Centuries of sacrilege. When a new Messianic cult promised liberation from their foreign oppressors, the monastery-clans set aside their age old feuds and embraced its unifying creed. An eldritch blood-ritual taught by mysterious liche-sages from the eldest clans was performed before the mortuary statue of a legendary ancestor-king, an ancient marvel wrought in jade and malachite, obsidian and gold. It was prophesied he would return in Loran's darkest hour to save them.
As the rivers of blood dried and encrusted the chiseled stone grooves of the ancient altar, a great power suffused the statue. The Loryat believed their summons had been answered. The Loryat believed the nameless spirit of the Jade King had returned to lead them from the other side. The truth was far worse.
It came from the stars.
They had unknowingly partaken in the forgotten arts of exomancy. The dark intelligence they had bound into the material world was nothing human, though it masqueraded as the messiah-king they had prayed for, the better to manipulate its jailors into releasing it from this earthly prison.
From that day a legendary power was reforged, a reunited empire of Great Loran, the disparate and divided clans corralled under an alien will. It taught them the secrets of the art that had bound it so they could create more abominations to aid them. In truth the lesser astral entities they summoned into bog-preserved corpses served only the thing that wore the stone face of the Jade King, for he whispered into the minds of these hateful spirits that they too would only be free from this matterbound plane if they fulfilled his plan.
To the common clansmen of Loran, the cult of the Jade King has delivered them. Rukhovian expeditions and steppe raids vanish in the woods. The corsairs and slavers from Azai disappear off the misty coasts. The foreigners that ruled the Loryat in all but name have all but fled the land in superstitious terror. But the Returned King they serve so loyally desires nothing but their ruin. He strengthens Loran only to make it his fortress. He raises up the Loryat only so they might serve his secret intent to destroy the material world - the only sure means of escaping it.
But for a time, at least, Loran will be proud again. Its master is a higher intelligence from a higher realm - it is subtle, and patient, and it does not yet rule openly, or allow its nascent army of horrors to march in daylight. When foreigners hear the accursed Loryat speak of their Jade King on an Obsidian Throne, they think it just another of their primitive superstitions. They see only the same petty clans and their ineffectual rule. But this time they are wrong.
It came from the stars.
The warriors of lost pre-clannic realms are dredged up from ancient burial bogs, their naturally preserved bodies the perfect substrate for binding the lesser spirits of the outer dark, once their bones have been studded with jade and carnelian, their skulls hollowed and filled with molten silver. The Loryat think they control them with their primitive rituals, but these alien monstrosities are truly thralled only to the Jade King, who has promised them a means of escaping their matterbound servitude.
