I’ve just realized that the Seventh Emperor only takes the throne after … 408 years.
Which means the first six emperors ruled for an average of 68 years each.
So either there’s a semi-immortal emperor in there at some point, or they had some kind of supernatural life extension techniques. Or the empire started as a republic, Roman-style, and the emperors only emerged later.
I like it. The unrealistic timescale lends a mythic quality to the early emperors. Maybe the first emperor lived hundreds of years?
Or maybe that’s what people think because the “2nd emperor” was actually the 6th and established the political fiction that the previous emperor he killed in a coup never officially held the position and he was the founding emperor’s direct successor.
I tend to “well actually” my own lore about the early empire. When they found some hieroglyphics in an ancient tomb, I mentioned that the first emperor invented the written alphabet, but then immediately explained that no, actually, he paid scholars to standardize writing systems used by the empire and the rest is hagiography.
Yup, our Lorekeeper decided to go with the ‘unreliable records’ solution to create space for other black ops Legion antics predating the nominal foundation.
Cat, that’s a really good catch. It’s intentional!
I wonder if the Emperors were on a quest for immortality ^_~ And if that was part of a touchstone to even greater power 
And if maybe it may have eventually led to the Breaking…