Author's Notes
The Great Empire
The inspiration here is obvious. It's the Roman empire, at its most decadent, with its most insane emperors.
In true Heroica fashion, I've turned it up a few notches. Mistreating slaves is a status symbol, a way of showing "I can afford to waste them". The arena is not just for fights and executions, it's also for public torture of the "enemies of the empire", usually just people who resist being colonized. The elite compete in lavish parties.
The Empire truly sees themselves as above everybody else, and other people are just there to serve them, in every way.
Everything depends on an ever expanding empire, to provide, food, luxuries, and, most important of all, slaves. To achieve this, nothing is too extreme, and resistance is crushed with violence, degradation, enslavement, torture, executions, all done in public to send a message.
For the Empire, cruelty is not a bad thing, it's the way of life.