The+Second+Empire+of+the+East

The Second Empire of the East
After being defeated by slave revolts, the drow regrouped. No one knows how long passed between the empires, but it is thought to be a few generations only. They once again spread their power across the continent, this time using slave armies and taking more direct control of the land. Never again gaining the total power and level of magic that had marked the first empire, they ruled now with help from the Shadow Plane. The Second Empire is marked by more use of enslaved beings and planar and undead creatures and was even crueler than the first. The influence of the Shadow Plane continued to grow and corrupt the empire. It lasted about 1000 years before it too fell to slave revolts, mostly through the influence of Ardneh. The Great Swamp was a center of their control, but also became the center of the resistance. Having lost control of the land, they had the orcs dam up the rivers and flood the valley making it the swamp it is today.

The latest information seems to show that the Shadow Plane beings used the collapse of the first empire to usurp power in the Eastern Empire. A Shadow Hel began to give power to the clerics of Hel who followed her corrupted practices while those who tried to follow the earlier practices of Hel (not knowing really that two dieties were involved) were shunned and later eliminated, further weakening Hel's power. The Questers Guild, Vecna's elite researchers and explorers, seems to have been at the core of the shift. By the time the Empire recovered and began it's expansion again, the clergy were now all worshipping and being powered by the Shadow Hel. Hel herself, fed only through secret worshippers in the West, became a minor diety, while the Shadow Hel slowly began to corrupt and change the cultural and religious practices of the East into those of the Shadow beings and slowly destroying any evidence of previous practices.

//(Since the Quester's Guild was at the core of the usurpation of power, is it possible that Vecna was not defeated after all? Did he also became a shadow being? My guess now is that Vecna's life was saved by the Shadow beings in exchange for his conversion and/or usage of his guild to begin their conquest of this plane by gaining control of the East. In other words, both Hel and Vecna lost, and the Shadow won.) //

On another side note, during the rebellion that ended this empire, in an attempt to trap the growing Ardneh, the East lured him into a room using The Manual of the Planes as bait. This room today is in a ruined city that still lies in the swamp and is a worship site for both the Eastern Empire and the West. They trapped him, but he was able to use the book and the power within himself to create his own portals and escape. This episode fully awoke him to self-awareness and his own godhood. He continued to fight the Eastern Empire and helped bring about it's downfall in a great slave revolt.