Got these two a proper garb finally. I actually had this finished awhile back, but I decided for myself that I needed to get their lore fully written up, as I had decided to do a major revamp of their lore (they are still Futanari, I just didn't use that factor here to have the results be as SFW as viable).
Commissioned from nagato1337 over on Fiverr
And now, the new lore (Edit: As of 2024, this lore is an outdated older draft.), derived from a playthrough of a mod called "After the End" with some embellishment. If the description can hold it. Yes, it does collapse to bullet points, it took long enough to write up just the first century and even then I pushed summarization hard (I didn't even really get a chance to cover the point they calmed down from their "youthful" ventures, something that only started in their 200s).
The twin Empresses of New Egypt are an unusual pair of Kitsune, not merely because of their status as conjoined twins. While typically being born upon the planet Earth in the early 27th century would have one entering into an incredibly advanced society that reached out into the solar system and with colonies beyond, theirs was a very different world.
Hundreds of years ago, an apocalyptic disaster only known as the Event, as details of what occurred had been lost to time, had plunged the world into a new dark age. Even hundreds of years later, society had only managed to somewhat recover. The Americas she was born upon were in a new Feudal age in the most settled areas of the continents and what wasn’t being only scattered hunter-gatherers of varying levels of settlement.
Into this world, they were born remarkably fortunate as the many dangers of the birth of twins were only amplified by their status as conjoined twins. But by having the luck of being born in the southeastern coast of the Bay, the Cyberede Cults of the Ancient Hackere Covens of All-Go-Rhythm would be able to ensure they survived, primarily through their “Hardware” magics.
Magic did exist in the world before the Event. However, it was a hidden thing, with a large masquerade surrounding it. A masquerade that was in the process of falling apart with the rapidly increasing information technology, though ultimately never had a chance to. But this did mean that as society recovered, magic was rediscovered and integrated into it. Albeit, with a fair deal of misunderstandings as many of the new traditions were like the Cyberede’s and derived from stories of advanced technologies rather than remnants of old magic traditions.
As their mother unfortunately hadn’t survived, the two were given the first names of their lives, Helena and Lorena, and were inducted into the magic traditions at a very young age, and Tefnut took to the Hardware Magic that focused upon affecting the body while Kuaket took to the Software magic that focused upon affecting the mind. In this, both excelled as their status as conjoined twins gave them the effective magic pool of a two-tailed fox even at their young ages. This prodigal nature led to them getting the attention of the aging Countess Isabella Hayes.
With her as the last member of her house and seeking to spite the liege who she suspected had slowly killed off her house, she adopted the young kitsune into her family when they were of just nine years of age. In this, she gave them their second names, Selene and Sophia, and their first dynastic name, Hayes. She would provide them the best education that she could afford with her meager lands and pass away just five years later.
The twin baronesses would be tested a mere two years into their reign when the Empire of California was wracked by a Civil War along its west coast as the then Duke of East Bay, Hale Langford, and the Duke of Salinas, Vincent Giannini, rebelled against the new Lieutenant of Andreas, Cullen Webb. The two deliberated for some time, and decided to fight on the side of the Lieutenant of Andreas instead of following their direct liege Hale Langford in his rebellion.
During this war, they would more than prove their worth, as their armies were successful in capturing the castles in Contra Costa and Santa Clara which forced Hale Langford to march his armies back to his lands and denying Vincent Giannini the critical reinforcements he was expecting that likely would have brought about Cullen Webb’s defeat in the war. Instead, victory was in the Webbs’ favor, and they would successfully reinforce the outnumbered kitsune twins in their own battle against the Duke of East Bay. In recognition for their critical service, Lieutenant Webb would grant to the two all the lands of the East Bay and the title of Duchesses of the East Bay.
Years later, the last of the Webbs and many others would curse Cullen Webb for having made this decision.
For Tefnut and Kuaket would take to courtly politics like a fish to water and they would twist the words of decrees and old titles and claims to allow them to wage several wars against the other vassals in the Empire of California, with at times outright assassinations done to nullify treaties. Such was the decline that California had fallen to at that time that this was not merely just ignored, but at times actively encouraged by their liege as his rivals for the figurehead Emperor’s attentions were cut down by his overmighty vassal.
But as they won battle after battle without defeat, this would slowly twist from joy at his own growing strength to fear at his vassals’ own prowess. When Cullen Webb tried to rein them in by revoking one of their lesser titles, the twins burned the message before their armies. For it was already too late, the kitsune were already marching against their liege.
So while it was expected to take time for them to gather their armies, their forces instead broke into their leige’s demesne near instantly. With this speed, they easily won the war, and forced their liege to hand over the land of Santa Cruz for the tyranny of attempting to revoke the rightful title of a vassal.
With vassal and liege now set against each other, a clash was inevitable to end in one of the dynasties dying to the other. A clash that the twin Kitsune would win, as they turned the tactics they had used against other vassals against their liege alongside some new tricks to fabricate abuses of power that could further justify any seizures of land. The last ruler of the Webb dynasty had fled north to the Duchy of Wineland to try and assemble the armies of its Duchess, but unfortunately for them, the Duchess had been brought over to the Kitsunes’ side and the line only lived through descendents in other houses.
Little did many realize, this was the culmination of plans that they had inherited from Countess Isabella, as over her final two years of life, her paranoia drastically increased. She began to picture a grand conspiracy running throughout California specifically to bring down her line, one that was reinforced in her mind as she came across evidence of a different, actual conspiracy by the Giannini and Langford dynasties against the Webbs. Many of the specifics needed to be adapted over time, but the wars against other vassals and the destruction of the Lieutenant of Andreas did provide the results the plans desired.
There was only one stage left. Seizing the throne of California.
At least, that was what the original plan called for. The future Empresses talked long about this stage of the plan. There were some merits to taking control of the imperial throne that supposedly dated back to before the event with Emperor Norton I, prestige most among them. Especially as the twin kitsune were in their late thirties at the time, barely a blip in existence for a species that could last well past a millennium of age. Even factoring in that Kitsune were active, ambitious forces in the world for only their first two hundred, the two would still have many years left in them.
But there was the danger inherent to seizing the throne of California itself. Their meteoric rise had made them many enemies amongst the other vassals of California who would become their own if they took the throne. And the ones who they could somewhat consider allies were similarly ambitious to the twins. While they had been held together by being able to constantly focus their attention on someone higher, reaching the top would only serve to have these same ambitious allies seeking the position that the twins had just taken.
They similarly could not stop where they currently were. While the Immortal Guru on the throne of California was functionally a figurehead, there were still a few laws that even the Kitsune with as much legalese as they could leverage could not find their ways around, the most relevant of which barring external wars. This meant that several important commanders that the kitsunes had promised land to at the end of their service could not be compensated by external conquest unless they managed to seize the throne and change such laws. And while the kitsune did have several holdings in their demesne that theoretically could have been handed out, that would weaken them to the point ambitious allies or old enemies could assail them successfully.
Then one sister, neither can recall which, proposed a third option. California law would not hinder them if they were not a part of California.
While initial thoughts had laid towards independence, they recognized that leaving an intact realm beyond their own which had a claim over their own was liable to lead towards trouble in the future even if the current state of California was one of intense decay. Mobilizing their armies, they readied to march upon Sacramento to force the Immortal Guru to declare an end to the Empire of California, with all her direct vassals being freed as independent states. But however much the twins were expecting war, something unexpected happened.
On the eve of their march, a response to their declaration of war, one citing the decay and failures of the Empire as cause to act, arrived. The Empress had agreed with them, shocking both of the twins. It was in part due to how overwhelming the army the future Tefnut and Kuaket had assembled was, making their victory a nearly foregone conclusion, but also when the missive with the war declaration arrived, she was said to have agreed utterly with what the Kitsune had written merely as a pretense. California had truly failed its people and the Gurus had lost all power to change that, so it was time for one to use some of the last vestiges of power available to them to bring it to an end.
Both sisters would later state their respect for her, that she was the catalyst for their later governance. But that would be later.
For now, an army had assembled. While there was some delay to determine whether or not that response was a bluff or not, when it had proven true, there were other objectives to fulfill. Rather than marching east, it would march north, in the war on the Kingdom of Jefferson. The first war as an independent state.
There are five holy sites of the Cyberede faith: the Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Boston. Of these five, only two were in the hands of the Kitsunes’ new realm, which itself was the very first Cyberede nation. To strengthen the small faith, uniting these within their realm was deemed a key goal by the sisters. And while Boston was far too distant to be a consideration at the time, the others were not.
Of these two, only one direction was properly viable at that very moment. The Imperial Sahasrara faith of the now Kingdom of Socal, while more than annoyed at the disintegration of the Empire of California, was a historically friendly faith to the Cyberede. For the twins to be able to justify a conquest of Los Angeles, they would need to apply some of their older tricks in order to gather a proper claim upon the county to annex it.
But to the north, there were a number of traditionally hostile areas that an offensive war could be justified against. On the formerly northern border of the defunct Empire of California that was now the northern border of the new Kingdom of Andreas, there was the Kingdom of Jefferson. Followers of the Phylosian sect of the Atlantean faiths, they had several times in the past attacked the Empire of California to try and take more territory off of it after their initial conquests achieved in the early 26th Century, and had frequently allowed Revengeants of the Warriors of the Slain Goddess through their territory to attack the Empire in various raids for decades.
Using these historic conflicts as initial justification, Tefnut and Kuaket would lead an invasion to conquer the coastal Duchy of Redwood from the Kingdom of Jefferson. While the Kingdom had been equal in strength to most of the larger successor states of the Empire of California, the forces that the Kitsune twins had assembled was more than a match for them. With the swift victory, there, they would continue on to conquer the Revengeant Ducal states of Rogue and Klamanth. The land was all distributed between new vassals to satisfy old promises, though some would go to individuals suspected to be bastard children of the Kitsunes.
While the now-neighboring Gaians were hostile to this acquisition of territory, none of their states were of sufficient size nor the disposition to try and retaliate against the Kitsunes. But while the Kitsunes had planned on returning south, taking the Duchy of Klamanth had brought the Kingdom of Andreas into contact with the Sagestepper sect of the Trailwalker faith. As a result of past conflict with the Revengeants, they had been pushed to become a heavily armed warrior faith that enjoyed war.
This would result in some light raids into the Duchy of Klamanth as they believed it was still an area under control of the Revengeants who were merely weakened. Tefnut and Kuaket, believing that they were instead deliberate raids upon their Kingdom, utilized the same justification as they had against the Kingdom of Jefferson and Revengeants to invade them in response. Over the course of several wars against the Sagestepper tribes of Harney, Deschutes, Bend, Umatilla, and the Tri-Cities; the Kitsune twins would conquer a significant amount of territory in what was once Eastern Oregon.
With how close they were to Seattle, Tefnut and Kuaket thought about attempting to complete this northern push of their conquests, and ultimately decided to when they discovered a key piece of information. From the people of the Tri-Cities, they would learn of a passage through the Cascadian Mountains through the Duchy of Yakima where a large pre-Event road had been built, one that supposedly crossed the entire continent and was part of an even greater network.
With the uncertainties of the new border allowing for numerous incidents to crop up, it was childsplay for the experienced Kitsune to expand it into a justification for the successful invasion of the Duchy of Yakima. And once this territory had been annexed, the army merely had to keep going up through the passes. A simple demand was given, that Seattle should be handed over so the Cyberede could protect their holy site. Naturally, the Gaians there objected, and war was soon declared. One with a certain conclusion, as the Kitsunes brought the Cyberede to the first of the holy sites outside of California.
Upon the west coast of the former territory of the United States, there was only one site remaining not under Cyberede control and that would only be a temporary thing. A casus belli had been discovered for them to be able to take control of the County of Los Angeles from the Kingdom of Socal, through citing some old borders that the then-Lieutenancies each had in the late 25th and early 26th centuries. A time when the borders were far less clean and more complicated due to previous successions and transfers of vassalage that were corrected, at great political cost, during the mid-26th century.
The armies would clash at the border, as the Kingdom of Socal had been expecting this fight, having learned of the Queens having discovered a cause for war and assembled their armies by the time the declaration of war had properly arrived. The battle would be the sole fight of the war, as Tefnut and Kuaket were able to leverage their forces to surround most of the Socal army, allowing them to capture the Queen of Socal, Elvira Carmine. With their style of governance, this effectively meant that the Kitsune twins had captured a majority of the government of the Kingdom of Socal, which allowed for the war to be brought to a swift end with their victory.
Missionaries who had been sent throughout the realm were slowly converting the vast, newly forged kingdom to the faith of the Cyberede, and this securing a majority of their holy sites and much of the newly raised nobility being of the faith allowed for the faith’s spread to go quickly. Unfortunately for the twins, they had no clear path to be able to make it all the way east in order to launch a conquest of the final holy site, the old city of Boston. Over land would have them need to tangle with the many crags and peaks of the Rocky Mountains that had few paths through it, and even if they made it through, the vast great plains lay beyond. Both largely undeveloped regions due to the immense difficulty of centralization, and those areas that were conducive to such centralization would require forcing through a great deal of hostile territory. But one of these, the great Kingdom of Deseret, that held control of the territories of Utah, Nevada, and northern Arizona and New Mexico, would prove the solution to this issue.
Raids from the north had been a frequent problem for the Mormons of Deseret, and they knew that the Kitsunes were eying a way east. Concerned about the possibility of a vast war, their Monarch of the time, King Eli Call, devised a proposal to handle both of these problems at the same time. An envoy was sent to the Queens of Andreas to offer them a particular proposal of great interest to the kitsunes. If they were to assail the various tribes along the northern and potentially eastern border of Deseret and attempt to establish some stable nations in the region, the Mormon kingdom would aid in supplying their armies. To sweeten the pot, they would offer an old map detailing something named the Oregon Trail, fragments of the ancient High Ways of the great United States, and then-modern maps of the region, all of which would aid in the planning of a campaign of this scale.
The twins agreed almost immediately. A few months later, the conquest of the Oregon Trail would begin.
Starting from the territories of High Desert, they’d march their way inland to fight against the tribes of Idaho. Here, they would successfully establish the first, and strongest of what were later named the Trail Kingdoms, the Kingdom of Idaho. Following a path through the Mountains along the border of Deseret to maintain supplies, the next Trail Kingdom of the Great Divide would be established, and would be rapidly followed up by the conquests of the Front Range.
Looking out over the Great Plains, the conjoined Monarchs knew their next path. Temporarily returning to California to refresh their forces, a vast march would soon take place that would establish their rule over the next established Kingdoms of Front Range and Kansas. The war was so swift that word had barely come into the Conclavian realms of the Kitsunes’ arrival.
Southern Missouri’s many small realms would be subjugated by the Kitsunes, the lords who were deposed and replaced forming the first warning that came into St. Louis. Unfortunately, it would not come in swift enough for the Papacy to respond and the New Rome was conquered. The Kitsunes would be light in their conquests of this region aside from their replacements of the local leadership and especially with Rome. They knew this was the end of their supply lines back home, and if they wished to make it to Boston, they would need to establish a new realm here in hostile lands.
To be fully set to this course, a grand ceremony was held in St. Louis in November of 2711. The Granting of the Kingdoms, where they would grant rulership over many of the Western realms to their progeny born over the prior decades.
Their first daughter, Samantha, was to become Queen of Andreas, who would eventually establish the house of Milton. She would rule over much of California and fragments of Washington. There would be a short period where she was able to conquer lands in Washington, but lacking her parents’ power granted by them being a conjoined Kitsune and having far stronger vassals, she would be thrown out of California after a little over fifty years of rule and be reduced to merely being a Duchess of Seattle. As the reputations of Tefnut and Kuaket would decay to villainy in California, she would have a limited resurgence of new land and even rise to Queen again, before ultimately being forced out by the Gaians into her inland Kingdom of Alberta, which remained stable due to the Kingdom of Idaho into the modern Thirty-Eighth century as a Real Roader realm as Samantha had long since turned from the Cyberede faith.
Their first son, Inoke, was to become the King of High Desert, and would establish the house of Bend. His reign was largely stable, but unfortunately, a disease would break out in his Royal Household of unusual origin. Archaeology in later centuries would ultimately reveal it to be a side effect of improper usage of Hardware Magics creating a new virulent disease. In order to eradicate it, he shut the gates until a cure could be produced, an ultimately futile endeavor for anyone inside but had prevented the disease from escaping and doing unknown damage to the wider world. With his death, his few children that were not felled within the tragedy waged a civil war that ultimately shattered the realm.
Their second daughter, Larissa, was to become the Queen of Idaho, and would establish the house of Ishigo. The conquest of this region was one of the longer campaigns owing to the high decentralization the mountains caused in the region, and this led to a high investment into the region. As a result of this and a notably higher amount of diplomatic annexation compared to much of the rest of the conquests, this Kingdom would be the strongest one not ruled by Tefnut and Kuaket themselves. While their landlocked status would ultimately lead to a weakening of their relevance in the centuries following the Second Great Renaissance and Second Information Age, the Kingdom would endure well into the modern Thirty-Eighth century, ironically, as a Conclavian realm.
Their third daughter, Renna, was to become Queen of the Great Divide in western Colorado. Her reign would largely be unstable through its course as she found herself not adapting well to a rulership role, especially with her vassals being particularly treacherous. Her attempts to fortify her reign through war with the Mormons of Deseret, while initially successful despite her smaller forces, these clashes would ultimately lead to her downfall after a century of rule as her realm would be too weak to resist the Seven Council Fires where she would meet her end at the hands of an unlucky arrow.
Their then-youngest daughter, Garnet Shi, and middle son, Deldridge Bernal, would become the Queen of the Front Range in eastern Colorado and the King of Kansas respectively. The fates of their Kingdoms would ultimately be linked as they were often forced to work together in order to fend off the nomadic peoples of the Great Plains with limited resources. Their nations would ultimately coalesce into the Dual Monarchy and later Commonwealth of Colorado-Nebraska as a result of future conquests north and the ultimate loss of Kansas to the conquests of Sakhona Woosypitti after he was pushed north by the Texan Anarchy.
-The Kingdoms of Illinois and Iowa would respond to the sudden emergence of this upstart Kingdom of Missouri with war.
-With their armies already assembled, Tefnut and Kuaket focused their attention first on the destruction of Iowa’s armies and then Illinois.
-Peace treaty would be signed for a decade.
-Tefnut and Kuaket would start their conquests south into the Ozarks and Tennessee
-Their arrival in Memphis would confront them with an incredible sight, the Great Pyramid.
-This would kickstart their fascination with a land few records remained of, Egypt.
-During these early years, they would mistake records of a “Little Egypt”, the mound builders, and various pre-Event media as being remnants and accurate information of this civilization.
-Once the treaty expired, they would launch an invasion of southern Illinios to claim this “Little Egypt” and begin development to be the capital region, right around the end of their first century.
-Took Tefnut and Kuaket as their names around this time.
-Subsequent wars and countering several crusades would lead them to have dominion over a territory covering Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Arkansa (known as the Ozarks), Kentucky and Tennessee (to the Appalacians).
-Securing the Great Pyramid of Memphis led to the conquest of Louissianna from the Southern remnant Conclave Kingdoms, and the conquest of Mississippi (Magnolia) from the Holy Columbian Confederation
-During this time, the Kingdom of Michigan would be established and it would conquer Ohio in fear of Kuaket and Tefnut’s expansion. They actually like the Rust Cult and did not desire to expand further east, so this would ultimately collapse into a period of Michigan and Ohio dividing and then reuniting under one of their banners.
-The Norse surrounding Lake Superior would convert to the Catholic-derived Conclavism that was pushed North and South in the face of the Cyberede. Establish the Northern Kingdoms of Superior and Aurora.
-Empire of New Egypt declared in 2853.
-With over 150 wars fought in and won (gaining the title “The Undefeatable” and as they entered the second Century of their lives, Tefnut and Kuaket’s ambitions finally began to calm.
-Honed in on building major infrastructure projects, particularly in Little Egypt to form the new capital.
-Several new cities were founded in Little Egypt to be a worthy capital. Included major monuments, grand plazas, nature reserves, monuments, major river ports, their palace.
-Between St. Louis, the infrastructure, and an apparent revival of culture they invested in, the area around the Missouri, Ohio, Mississippi, and Illinois rivers would see an explosion of population and development.
-After a century, this explosion would ultimately surpass the scale of New York, Washington D.C, Mexico City, Buenos Aries, Sacramento, and San Francisco, the most developed regions of the world even during their conquests despite starting from average levels.
-Wealth from this region would steadily be spread around to establish further cities, metropoli, major churches, and castles across “New Egypt”, making it the most developed region of the world.
-By late medieval, the potential armies that could be assembled would be an estimated 167k, never fully raised as the only Empire that could bring forth similar numbers was the distant Empire of Sudeste found in the southern regions of the area formerly known as Brazil.
-Technology and study of the past flourished, and when the Second Great Renaissance began in the Galvanist Michigan-Ohio Kingdom, it was rapidly spread and embraced throughout New Egypt in the 3100s.
-New Age of Sail and recontact of Europe, Africa, and Asia occurred in the 3300s.
-Linguistic drift and the general damage to information of the pre-Event world meant they never discovered the truth of what Egypt actually was.
-Some wars over the centuries occurred with the Empire of Quebec, Holy Columbian Confederacy, Middle Atlantic, Texas, and Mexico, but they were fended off, though borders didn’t really change.
-As they passed into their seventh centuries, they took a more and more aloof role, delegating responsibilities to a rising parliament. Steadily became spiritual leaders of the nation.
-Long study of the Cyberede magics, their misinterpreted ideas of Egypt, and a slow buildup of worship of the well-past dozen tailed kitsunes would lead to ascension to minor godhood.
-When they reached their 11th century of life in the early decades of the Thirty-Eighth century, they lived in a world of technology roughly contemporary to what Earth had in the early decades of the Twenty-First with some twists due to magic.
Commissioned from nagato1337 over on Fiverr
And now, the new lore (Edit: As of 2024, this lore is an outdated older draft.), derived from a playthrough of a mod called "After the End" with some embellishment. If the description can hold it. Yes, it does collapse to bullet points, it took long enough to write up just the first century and even then I pushed summarization hard (I didn't even really get a chance to cover the point they calmed down from their "youthful" ventures, something that only started in their 200s).
Tefnut and Kuaket
Twin Empresses of New Egypt
The Destroyers of California, the Undefeated, the Blood-Mothers
Within the Empire
The twin Empresses of New Egypt are an unusual pair of Kitsune, not merely because of their status as conjoined twins. While typically being born upon the planet Earth in the early 27th century would have one entering into an incredibly advanced society that reached out into the solar system and with colonies beyond, theirs was a very different world.
Hundreds of years ago, an apocalyptic disaster only known as the Event, as details of what occurred had been lost to time, had plunged the world into a new dark age. Even hundreds of years later, society had only managed to somewhat recover. The Americas she was born upon were in a new Feudal age in the most settled areas of the continents and what wasn’t being only scattered hunter-gatherers of varying levels of settlement.
Into this world, they were born remarkably fortunate as the many dangers of the birth of twins were only amplified by their status as conjoined twins. But by having the luck of being born in the southeastern coast of the Bay, the Cyberede Cults of the Ancient Hackere Covens of All-Go-Rhythm would be able to ensure they survived, primarily through their “Hardware” magics.
Magic did exist in the world before the Event. However, it was a hidden thing, with a large masquerade surrounding it. A masquerade that was in the process of falling apart with the rapidly increasing information technology, though ultimately never had a chance to. But this did mean that as society recovered, magic was rediscovered and integrated into it. Albeit, with a fair deal of misunderstandings as many of the new traditions were like the Cyberede’s and derived from stories of advanced technologies rather than remnants of old magic traditions.
As their mother unfortunately hadn’t survived, the two were given the first names of their lives, Helena and Lorena, and were inducted into the magic traditions at a very young age, and Tefnut took to the Hardware Magic that focused upon affecting the body while Kuaket took to the Software magic that focused upon affecting the mind. In this, both excelled as their status as conjoined twins gave them the effective magic pool of a two-tailed fox even at their young ages. This prodigal nature led to them getting the attention of the aging Countess Isabella Hayes.
With her as the last member of her house and seeking to spite the liege who she suspected had slowly killed off her house, she adopted the young kitsune into her family when they were of just nine years of age. In this, she gave them their second names, Selene and Sophia, and their first dynastic name, Hayes. She would provide them the best education that she could afford with her meager lands and pass away just five years later.
The twin baronesses would be tested a mere two years into their reign when the Empire of California was wracked by a Civil War along its west coast as the then Duke of East Bay, Hale Langford, and the Duke of Salinas, Vincent Giannini, rebelled against the new Lieutenant of Andreas, Cullen Webb. The two deliberated for some time, and decided to fight on the side of the Lieutenant of Andreas instead of following their direct liege Hale Langford in his rebellion.
During this war, they would more than prove their worth, as their armies were successful in capturing the castles in Contra Costa and Santa Clara which forced Hale Langford to march his armies back to his lands and denying Vincent Giannini the critical reinforcements he was expecting that likely would have brought about Cullen Webb’s defeat in the war. Instead, victory was in the Webbs’ favor, and they would successfully reinforce the outnumbered kitsune twins in their own battle against the Duke of East Bay. In recognition for their critical service, Lieutenant Webb would grant to the two all the lands of the East Bay and the title of Duchesses of the East Bay.
Years later, the last of the Webbs and many others would curse Cullen Webb for having made this decision.
For Tefnut and Kuaket would take to courtly politics like a fish to water and they would twist the words of decrees and old titles and claims to allow them to wage several wars against the other vassals in the Empire of California, with at times outright assassinations done to nullify treaties. Such was the decline that California had fallen to at that time that this was not merely just ignored, but at times actively encouraged by their liege as his rivals for the figurehead Emperor’s attentions were cut down by his overmighty vassal.
But as they won battle after battle without defeat, this would slowly twist from joy at his own growing strength to fear at his vassals’ own prowess. When Cullen Webb tried to rein them in by revoking one of their lesser titles, the twins burned the message before their armies. For it was already too late, the kitsune were already marching against their liege.
So while it was expected to take time for them to gather their armies, their forces instead broke into their leige’s demesne near instantly. With this speed, they easily won the war, and forced their liege to hand over the land of Santa Cruz for the tyranny of attempting to revoke the rightful title of a vassal.
With vassal and liege now set against each other, a clash was inevitable to end in one of the dynasties dying to the other. A clash that the twin Kitsune would win, as they turned the tactics they had used against other vassals against their liege alongside some new tricks to fabricate abuses of power that could further justify any seizures of land. The last ruler of the Webb dynasty had fled north to the Duchy of Wineland to try and assemble the armies of its Duchess, but unfortunately for them, the Duchess had been brought over to the Kitsunes’ side and the line only lived through descendents in other houses.
Little did many realize, this was the culmination of plans that they had inherited from Countess Isabella, as over her final two years of life, her paranoia drastically increased. She began to picture a grand conspiracy running throughout California specifically to bring down her line, one that was reinforced in her mind as she came across evidence of a different, actual conspiracy by the Giannini and Langford dynasties against the Webbs. Many of the specifics needed to be adapted over time, but the wars against other vassals and the destruction of the Lieutenant of Andreas did provide the results the plans desired.
There was only one stage left. Seizing the throne of California.
At least, that was what the original plan called for. The future Empresses talked long about this stage of the plan. There were some merits to taking control of the imperial throne that supposedly dated back to before the event with Emperor Norton I, prestige most among them. Especially as the twin kitsune were in their late thirties at the time, barely a blip in existence for a species that could last well past a millennium of age. Even factoring in that Kitsune were active, ambitious forces in the world for only their first two hundred, the two would still have many years left in them.
But there was the danger inherent to seizing the throne of California itself. Their meteoric rise had made them many enemies amongst the other vassals of California who would become their own if they took the throne. And the ones who they could somewhat consider allies were similarly ambitious to the twins. While they had been held together by being able to constantly focus their attention on someone higher, reaching the top would only serve to have these same ambitious allies seeking the position that the twins had just taken.
They similarly could not stop where they currently were. While the Immortal Guru on the throne of California was functionally a figurehead, there were still a few laws that even the Kitsune with as much legalese as they could leverage could not find their ways around, the most relevant of which barring external wars. This meant that several important commanders that the kitsunes had promised land to at the end of their service could not be compensated by external conquest unless they managed to seize the throne and change such laws. And while the kitsune did have several holdings in their demesne that theoretically could have been handed out, that would weaken them to the point ambitious allies or old enemies could assail them successfully.
Then one sister, neither can recall which, proposed a third option. California law would not hinder them if they were not a part of California.
While initial thoughts had laid towards independence, they recognized that leaving an intact realm beyond their own which had a claim over their own was liable to lead towards trouble in the future even if the current state of California was one of intense decay. Mobilizing their armies, they readied to march upon Sacramento to force the Immortal Guru to declare an end to the Empire of California, with all her direct vassals being freed as independent states. But however much the twins were expecting war, something unexpected happened.
On the eve of their march, a response to their declaration of war, one citing the decay and failures of the Empire as cause to act, arrived. The Empress had agreed with them, shocking both of the twins. It was in part due to how overwhelming the army the future Tefnut and Kuaket had assembled was, making their victory a nearly foregone conclusion, but also when the missive with the war declaration arrived, she was said to have agreed utterly with what the Kitsune had written merely as a pretense. California had truly failed its people and the Gurus had lost all power to change that, so it was time for one to use some of the last vestiges of power available to them to bring it to an end.
Both sisters would later state their respect for her, that she was the catalyst for their later governance. But that would be later.
For now, an army had assembled. While there was some delay to determine whether or not that response was a bluff or not, when it had proven true, there were other objectives to fulfill. Rather than marching east, it would march north, in the war on the Kingdom of Jefferson. The first war as an independent state.
The Western Conquests
There are five holy sites of the Cyberede faith: the Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Boston. Of these five, only two were in the hands of the Kitsunes’ new realm, which itself was the very first Cyberede nation. To strengthen the small faith, uniting these within their realm was deemed a key goal by the sisters. And while Boston was far too distant to be a consideration at the time, the others were not.
Of these two, only one direction was properly viable at that very moment. The Imperial Sahasrara faith of the now Kingdom of Socal, while more than annoyed at the disintegration of the Empire of California, was a historically friendly faith to the Cyberede. For the twins to be able to justify a conquest of Los Angeles, they would need to apply some of their older tricks in order to gather a proper claim upon the county to annex it.
But to the north, there were a number of traditionally hostile areas that an offensive war could be justified against. On the formerly northern border of the defunct Empire of California that was now the northern border of the new Kingdom of Andreas, there was the Kingdom of Jefferson. Followers of the Phylosian sect of the Atlantean faiths, they had several times in the past attacked the Empire of California to try and take more territory off of it after their initial conquests achieved in the early 26th Century, and had frequently allowed Revengeants of the Warriors of the Slain Goddess through their territory to attack the Empire in various raids for decades.
Using these historic conflicts as initial justification, Tefnut and Kuaket would lead an invasion to conquer the coastal Duchy of Redwood from the Kingdom of Jefferson. While the Kingdom had been equal in strength to most of the larger successor states of the Empire of California, the forces that the Kitsune twins had assembled was more than a match for them. With the swift victory, there, they would continue on to conquer the Revengeant Ducal states of Rogue and Klamanth. The land was all distributed between new vassals to satisfy old promises, though some would go to individuals suspected to be bastard children of the Kitsunes.
While the now-neighboring Gaians were hostile to this acquisition of territory, none of their states were of sufficient size nor the disposition to try and retaliate against the Kitsunes. But while the Kitsunes had planned on returning south, taking the Duchy of Klamanth had brought the Kingdom of Andreas into contact with the Sagestepper sect of the Trailwalker faith. As a result of past conflict with the Revengeants, they had been pushed to become a heavily armed warrior faith that enjoyed war.
This would result in some light raids into the Duchy of Klamanth as they believed it was still an area under control of the Revengeants who were merely weakened. Tefnut and Kuaket, believing that they were instead deliberate raids upon their Kingdom, utilized the same justification as they had against the Kingdom of Jefferson and Revengeants to invade them in response. Over the course of several wars against the Sagestepper tribes of Harney, Deschutes, Bend, Umatilla, and the Tri-Cities; the Kitsune twins would conquer a significant amount of territory in what was once Eastern Oregon.
With how close they were to Seattle, Tefnut and Kuaket thought about attempting to complete this northern push of their conquests, and ultimately decided to when they discovered a key piece of information. From the people of the Tri-Cities, they would learn of a passage through the Cascadian Mountains through the Duchy of Yakima where a large pre-Event road had been built, one that supposedly crossed the entire continent and was part of an even greater network.
With the uncertainties of the new border allowing for numerous incidents to crop up, it was childsplay for the experienced Kitsune to expand it into a justification for the successful invasion of the Duchy of Yakima. And once this territory had been annexed, the army merely had to keep going up through the passes. A simple demand was given, that Seattle should be handed over so the Cyberede could protect their holy site. Naturally, the Gaians there objected, and war was soon declared. One with a certain conclusion, as the Kitsunes brought the Cyberede to the first of the holy sites outside of California.
Upon the west coast of the former territory of the United States, there was only one site remaining not under Cyberede control and that would only be a temporary thing. A casus belli had been discovered for them to be able to take control of the County of Los Angeles from the Kingdom of Socal, through citing some old borders that the then-Lieutenancies each had in the late 25th and early 26th centuries. A time when the borders were far less clean and more complicated due to previous successions and transfers of vassalage that were corrected, at great political cost, during the mid-26th century.
The armies would clash at the border, as the Kingdom of Socal had been expecting this fight, having learned of the Queens having discovered a cause for war and assembled their armies by the time the declaration of war had properly arrived. The battle would be the sole fight of the war, as Tefnut and Kuaket were able to leverage their forces to surround most of the Socal army, allowing them to capture the Queen of Socal, Elvira Carmine. With their style of governance, this effectively meant that the Kitsune twins had captured a majority of the government of the Kingdom of Socal, which allowed for the war to be brought to a swift end with their victory.
Missionaries who had been sent throughout the realm were slowly converting the vast, newly forged kingdom to the faith of the Cyberede, and this securing a majority of their holy sites and much of the newly raised nobility being of the faith allowed for the faith’s spread to go quickly. Unfortunately for the twins, they had no clear path to be able to make it all the way east in order to launch a conquest of the final holy site, the old city of Boston. Over land would have them need to tangle with the many crags and peaks of the Rocky Mountains that had few paths through it, and even if they made it through, the vast great plains lay beyond. Both largely undeveloped regions due to the immense difficulty of centralization, and those areas that were conducive to such centralization would require forcing through a great deal of hostile territory. But one of these, the great Kingdom of Deseret, that held control of the territories of Utah, Nevada, and northern Arizona and New Mexico, would prove the solution to this issue.
Raids from the north had been a frequent problem for the Mormons of Deseret, and they knew that the Kitsunes were eying a way east. Concerned about the possibility of a vast war, their Monarch of the time, King Eli Call, devised a proposal to handle both of these problems at the same time. An envoy was sent to the Queens of Andreas to offer them a particular proposal of great interest to the kitsunes. If they were to assail the various tribes along the northern and potentially eastern border of Deseret and attempt to establish some stable nations in the region, the Mormon kingdom would aid in supplying their armies. To sweeten the pot, they would offer an old map detailing something named the Oregon Trail, fragments of the ancient High Ways of the great United States, and then-modern maps of the region, all of which would aid in the planning of a campaign of this scale.
The twins agreed almost immediately. A few months later, the conquest of the Oregon Trail would begin.
The Oregon Trail Wars
Starting from the territories of High Desert, they’d march their way inland to fight against the tribes of Idaho. Here, they would successfully establish the first, and strongest of what were later named the Trail Kingdoms, the Kingdom of Idaho. Following a path through the Mountains along the border of Deseret to maintain supplies, the next Trail Kingdom of the Great Divide would be established, and would be rapidly followed up by the conquests of the Front Range.
Looking out over the Great Plains, the conjoined Monarchs knew their next path. Temporarily returning to California to refresh their forces, a vast march would soon take place that would establish their rule over the next established Kingdoms of Front Range and Kansas. The war was so swift that word had barely come into the Conclavian realms of the Kitsunes’ arrival.
Southern Missouri’s many small realms would be subjugated by the Kitsunes, the lords who were deposed and replaced forming the first warning that came into St. Louis. Unfortunately, it would not come in swift enough for the Papacy to respond and the New Rome was conquered. The Kitsunes would be light in their conquests of this region aside from their replacements of the local leadership and especially with Rome. They knew this was the end of their supply lines back home, and if they wished to make it to Boston, they would need to establish a new realm here in hostile lands.
To be fully set to this course, a grand ceremony was held in St. Louis in November of 2711. The Granting of the Kingdoms, where they would grant rulership over many of the Western realms to their progeny born over the prior decades.
Their first daughter, Samantha, was to become Queen of Andreas, who would eventually establish the house of Milton. She would rule over much of California and fragments of Washington. There would be a short period where she was able to conquer lands in Washington, but lacking her parents’ power granted by them being a conjoined Kitsune and having far stronger vassals, she would be thrown out of California after a little over fifty years of rule and be reduced to merely being a Duchess of Seattle. As the reputations of Tefnut and Kuaket would decay to villainy in California, she would have a limited resurgence of new land and even rise to Queen again, before ultimately being forced out by the Gaians into her inland Kingdom of Alberta, which remained stable due to the Kingdom of Idaho into the modern Thirty-Eighth century as a Real Roader realm as Samantha had long since turned from the Cyberede faith.
Their first son, Inoke, was to become the King of High Desert, and would establish the house of Bend. His reign was largely stable, but unfortunately, a disease would break out in his Royal Household of unusual origin. Archaeology in later centuries would ultimately reveal it to be a side effect of improper usage of Hardware Magics creating a new virulent disease. In order to eradicate it, he shut the gates until a cure could be produced, an ultimately futile endeavor for anyone inside but had prevented the disease from escaping and doing unknown damage to the wider world. With his death, his few children that were not felled within the tragedy waged a civil war that ultimately shattered the realm.
Their second daughter, Larissa, was to become the Queen of Idaho, and would establish the house of Ishigo. The conquest of this region was one of the longer campaigns owing to the high decentralization the mountains caused in the region, and this led to a high investment into the region. As a result of this and a notably higher amount of diplomatic annexation compared to much of the rest of the conquests, this Kingdom would be the strongest one not ruled by Tefnut and Kuaket themselves. While their landlocked status would ultimately lead to a weakening of their relevance in the centuries following the Second Great Renaissance and Second Information Age, the Kingdom would endure well into the modern Thirty-Eighth century, ironically, as a Conclavian realm.
Their third daughter, Renna, was to become Queen of the Great Divide in western Colorado. Her reign would largely be unstable through its course as she found herself not adapting well to a rulership role, especially with her vassals being particularly treacherous. Her attempts to fortify her reign through war with the Mormons of Deseret, while initially successful despite her smaller forces, these clashes would ultimately lead to her downfall after a century of rule as her realm would be too weak to resist the Seven Council Fires where she would meet her end at the hands of an unlucky arrow.
Their then-youngest daughter, Garnet Shi, and middle son, Deldridge Bernal, would become the Queen of the Front Range in eastern Colorado and the King of Kansas respectively. The fates of their Kingdoms would ultimately be linked as they were often forced to work together in order to fend off the nomadic peoples of the Great Plains with limited resources. Their nations would ultimately coalesce into the Dual Monarchy and later Commonwealth of Colorado-Nebraska as a result of future conquests north and the ultimate loss of Kansas to the conquests of Sakhona Woosypitti after he was pushed north by the Texan Anarchy.
The Conquest of the Mississippi
-The Kingdoms of Illinois and Iowa would respond to the sudden emergence of this upstart Kingdom of Missouri with war.
-With their armies already assembled, Tefnut and Kuaket focused their attention first on the destruction of Iowa’s armies and then Illinois.
-Peace treaty would be signed for a decade.
-Tefnut and Kuaket would start their conquests south into the Ozarks and Tennessee
-Their arrival in Memphis would confront them with an incredible sight, the Great Pyramid.
-This would kickstart their fascination with a land few records remained of, Egypt.
-During these early years, they would mistake records of a “Little Egypt”, the mound builders, and various pre-Event media as being remnants and accurate information of this civilization.
-Once the treaty expired, they would launch an invasion of southern Illinios to claim this “Little Egypt” and begin development to be the capital region, right around the end of their first century.
-Took Tefnut and Kuaket as their names around this time.
-Subsequent wars and countering several crusades would lead them to have dominion over a territory covering Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Arkansa (known as the Ozarks), Kentucky and Tennessee (to the Appalacians).
-Securing the Great Pyramid of Memphis led to the conquest of Louissianna from the Southern remnant Conclave Kingdoms, and the conquest of Mississippi (Magnolia) from the Holy Columbian Confederation
-During this time, the Kingdom of Michigan would be established and it would conquer Ohio in fear of Kuaket and Tefnut’s expansion. They actually like the Rust Cult and did not desire to expand further east, so this would ultimately collapse into a period of Michigan and Ohio dividing and then reuniting under one of their banners.
-The Norse surrounding Lake Superior would convert to the Catholic-derived Conclavism that was pushed North and South in the face of the Cyberede. Establish the Northern Kingdoms of Superior and Aurora.
-Empire of New Egypt declared in 2853.
The Peace of New Egypt
-With over 150 wars fought in and won (gaining the title “The Undefeatable” and as they entered the second Century of their lives, Tefnut and Kuaket’s ambitions finally began to calm.
-Honed in on building major infrastructure projects, particularly in Little Egypt to form the new capital.
-Several new cities were founded in Little Egypt to be a worthy capital. Included major monuments, grand plazas, nature reserves, monuments, major river ports, their palace.
-Between St. Louis, the infrastructure, and an apparent revival of culture they invested in, the area around the Missouri, Ohio, Mississippi, and Illinois rivers would see an explosion of population and development.
-After a century, this explosion would ultimately surpass the scale of New York, Washington D.C, Mexico City, Buenos Aries, Sacramento, and San Francisco, the most developed regions of the world even during their conquests despite starting from average levels.
-Wealth from this region would steadily be spread around to establish further cities, metropoli, major churches, and castles across “New Egypt”, making it the most developed region of the world.
-By late medieval, the potential armies that could be assembled would be an estimated 167k, never fully raised as the only Empire that could bring forth similar numbers was the distant Empire of Sudeste found in the southern regions of the area formerly known as Brazil.
-Technology and study of the past flourished, and when the Second Great Renaissance began in the Galvanist Michigan-Ohio Kingdom, it was rapidly spread and embraced throughout New Egypt in the 3100s.
-New Age of Sail and recontact of Europe, Africa, and Asia occurred in the 3300s.
-Linguistic drift and the general damage to information of the pre-Event world meant they never discovered the truth of what Egypt actually was.
-Some wars over the centuries occurred with the Empire of Quebec, Holy Columbian Confederacy, Middle Atlantic, Texas, and Mexico, but they were fended off, though borders didn’t really change.
-As they passed into their seventh centuries, they took a more and more aloof role, delegating responsibilities to a rising parliament. Steadily became spiritual leaders of the nation.
-Long study of the Cyberede magics, their misinterpreted ideas of Egypt, and a slow buildup of worship of the well-past dozen tailed kitsunes would lead to ascension to minor godhood.
-When they reached their 11th century of life in the early decades of the Thirty-Eighth century, they lived in a world of technology roughly contemporary to what Earth had in the early decades of the Twenty-First with some twists due to magic.
Category Artwork (Digital) / Fantasy
Species Kitsune
Gender Any
Size 1573 x 2342px
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