Kingpriest

Thorstein Veblen described the earliest elite as warrior and priest. And the Kingpriest is the result of the birth of this early aristocracy. Most incarnations of the Locust King will claim some divine authority. But the Kingpriest marries to divine authority and the warrior caste together in the logical endpoint of this. His claims complete authority over the physical realm and the temporal. Like the War Chief, the Kingpriest is an absolute ruler. But unlike the War Chief, the Kingpriest has a well developed bureaucracy beneath him. Scribes and Priests and Warriors, with ranks and salaries and laws, all mill about doing the Kingpriest’s bidding.

The Kingpriest represents the Empire when it relied most completely upon the Blood Gods of war and agriculture. And the Kingpriest claims a divine lineage directly from Ajhert: the Bringer of Fire. The Kingpriest claims to literally be the son of the sun. He is the bringer of the sun that ripens the grain. He is the fire that prepares the field for sowing. He is the blade, forged in fire, that cuts down the grain for harvest- and which also cuts down the foes of the empire.

The time of the Kingpriest is the time of laws and strict hierarchies. The Mirrored City under the Kingpriest does not always have formal systems of money, but taxes are still extracted through laws requiring tithing and labor for the Kingpriest’s public works. The era of the Kingpriest marks the beginning of the time of the Dead Gods and the Court of the Eternal Summer. Neither has been assembled and cage fully at this point, but the empire is starting to take shape.