This situation continued until, 10 years before the current events, when Emperor Roderus Ademar, who followed the same policy as his predecessors, "mysteriously" died, and his place was taken by his brother Arnold .
Once on the throne Arnold immediately launched a series of important reforms: he increased taxes for the nobles and made a law that prevents them from taxing the territories they administer in turn to compensate, he also brought many prerogatives back into his hands and in those of the senate, taking away power from the governors.
Internationally, it reached agreements with its two neighbours, the Principality of Connelly and the Union of Patria, putting an end to both years of political tensions and the military administration of the borders which fostered discontent and corruption.
As regards slavery, he changed the approach, favoring a utilitarian vision rather than a numerical one: every year the capital draws up a list of the slaves it needs, and the reserves can only produce the slaves that are requested of them.
It can thus happen that years pass without a reproduction campaign being started, furthermore the slaves considered most precious cannot be sold to private individuals or made to reproduce as long as they do their job well (this is why Lori has not yet been sent to the reserves ).
Furthermore, taxes have been increased for the sale and possession of all those slaves deemed useless (such as sexual slaves, those who are too young or pets, remember the auction?).
All these reforms greatly improved the economic situation of the empire and pleased the common population, but created a lot of discontent among the nobles. In fact, a revolt of local nobles has been underway in the east for almost 10 years