The Dominion of the League of the Six Houses for the Wellbeing of the Many Peoples, later the Dominion of the Eighth and Only House for the Wellbeing of the Many Peoples, less formally known as the Sixfold Empire or the Empire, was the largest political entity in the history of the takma species. At the height of its power, in the Steel Era, it ruled over most of southern sekhaa - from the Sea of Twilights in the west to the Dawn Sea in the east, and from Uvuun's Reach in the south to the southern brightness in the north, encompassing the majority of the species' entire population at that time.

Though the Empire fell over eighty cycles ago, after an existence of 180 cycles, its cultural impact has been incalculable; all but the remotest outposts of takma civilization have some knowledge of it, even if only from legend and myth. Its gods, its customs, and even its language, in various forms, persist up to the present day

Although the beginning of the Dawn Era, and therefore of the entire Imperial calendar, was taken by later generations to accurately reflect the founding date of the League of the Six Houses (“Sixfold League”), the predecessor to the Empire, this view relied on accounts of the League's founding that depicted the process as somewhat more orderly than was in fact the case. The League was merely the last and most stable configuration of one of dozens of city-state alliances occupying the middle Sahvarr valley in the last hexatrigesimal or so of the Ancient Era. Although the time at which the League achieved its historical form was apparently indeed in the general vicinity of 1 Dawn - within a few cycles either way - the precise date, if there can be said to have been one, cannot be known with certainty.

The Six Houses for which the League was named were matrilines of rulers of a group of powerful city-states in the broad, fertile plains of lower-middle Sahvarr valley, approximately between the Nentir Highlands and the northern end of the Haatar Range. The Houses were originally known by the names of their native cities: the Charinassar of Charina, the Riishenessar of Riishen, and so on. Towards the end of the Dawn Era, however, they began to be numbered in rough order of military prominence, though the nomenclature was not publicly adopted until well into the Nest Era.

Despite the somewhat hagiographic treatment of the Dawn Era by later historians, referencing strange omens, signal of divine approval, and the jawdropping awe of the other nations of the world, the League in fact remained of purely local significance during most of this time; it accomplished the defense and consolidation of its members' own territory, made some minor conquests, and extracted tribute from its neighbors, but was likely only known in passing very far from its borders - and then only by those in a position to be interested by the international situation.

Some of these belonged to the leadership of the considerably larger Pact of Glory. A militaristic federation of alliances, the Pact had its nucleus further down the Sahvarr and nearer to the Haatar Range, where it had been forged in the need for defense against river pirates operating from the marshy islands of the Sahvarr delta and estuary. On the basis that the Pact shielded the whole of the valley upstream from the pirates' activities, it had begun to enroll new members in that direction - generally through diplomacy and threats, but occasionally through force - so that they could bear their “rightful share” of the costs.

As the Pact expanded further north and west, from 12 to 13 Dawn it began encountering, and demanding membership dues from, city-states already paying tribute to the League. This placed all but the most prosperous in a difficult bind, because it doomed them either to angering one of two strong alliances or risking economic ruin from paying both of them. The defection of Kurij and Merilu to the Pact in 14 Dawn prompted the League to send heralds to both cities demanding an explanation; after the cities' leaders, and the representatives of the Pact, explained the facts of the situation to them, the League immediately made a dual promise - an offer and a threat - to the other cities in the path of the Pact: join the League voluntarily, and be protected; attempt to join the Pact, and join the League involuntarily.

The following two cycles saw minor city-states flock to either side or try desperately to stay neutral, but they frequently suffered indiscriminately regardless. The League and the Pact largely avoided committing forces to direct conflict, but worked tirelessly to bribe, subvert, overthrow, or undermine the administrations of each others' vassal cities. For some time this proceeded uninterrupted and with both sides managing to distance themselves from what were cast as internal affairs, but a clumsy assassination attempt on the matriarch of the neutral city-state of Shorat by a Pact partisan resulted in the city angrily joining the League, along with a number of other former neutrals who now had a public justification for doing so.

These territorial additions gave the League the corridors needed to march armies directly to Merilu and Kurij, which it did in 16 Dawn. Upon demanding the “liberation” of both cities along with the withdrawal of the Pact and being refused, it fulfilled its dual promise and conquered both of them.

The beginning of the Nest Era was marked by a ceremonial exchange of daggers, a token of mutual war, between the Sixfold League and the Pact of Glory. The Wars of Righteousness, as Imperial histories remembered them, began with the League being at a theoretical disadvantage; though at the same level of technology, it had both less territory and a smaller population than the Pact, a fact that meant that it could not match the Pact in sheer military numbers even with conscription and levies. Indeed, for the first cycle of the first war, the tide was against the League; Merilu and Kurij were taken back by the Pact early on, followed not long after by Shorat.

But the Pact had its own set of disadvantages, though these were not immediately obvious. The first was organizational; the Pact remained a collection of free city-states and was governed by a large council composed of their representatives. While the larger and more powerful members tended to dominate, these were not a tightly-knit group and were faced with keeping a larger number of weaker members content, especially when some of those nearest the war zone had been reluctant to join in the first place. The second was its very size and population; although the Sahvarr River facilitated transportation and communications, the lack of other alternatives - roads, in particular, were made of packed dirt and prone to being washed out in the frequent rains - limited the ability of the Pact to move troops from one area to a distant one. The third was that the Pact, in addition to sparring with the League, still had to contend with the existing enemies it had originally been formed to fight, limiting the forces that could be diverted in any case.

The League, by contrast, was compact, and its power was more centrally distributed: the Six Houses were militarily dominant, and were able to compel the rulers of new League territories to accept the overlordship of one House or another. The League had also been more pragmatic in its relations with its neighbors - not always friendly, but investing in opportunities for mutual benefit. The territory of the League had therefore become the center of a small network of corduroy roads, built to facilitate both trade and troop movements, which connected it internally and with nearby cities, most of which were inclined to see the League as being at least a reasonable partner, if not a natural ally. Most of them, particularly those closer to the war zone, considered it prudent to support the League over the Pact, even if in many cases the assistance proved more material than military.

By late 2 Nest, the League had retaken the territory lost to the Pact, and “invited” the cities thereby freed into the League, though by this time they were generally willing enough to have the League's protection in exchange for its dominance. There followed a period of undeclared peace as both League and Pact prepared for the next stage of the conflict. This proceeded in mid-3 Nest, when an attempted push until the disputed territories by the Pact was repulsed, and the League forced its way into Pact-dominated territory, from which it could not be successfully dislodged.

The sacking of the major Pact stronghold of Ujaar in late 3 Nest proved a catalyst; even though the League army was forced to withdraw by a Pact relief force after only several vigils, the fact that a well-stocked fortress had been successfully breached and overwhelmed at all caused a certain amount of rethinking among the northernmost Pact members. Many of them had only joined the Pact both relatively recently and under coercion, and saw in the League the potential to regain their independence. Secret negotiations continued through the cycle, and by several turns into 4 Nest, nearly half of the cities in the region that had joined the Pact in the last ten cycles had revolted and allied themselves with the League; many of those that failed to do so found themselves cut off from the Pact's other forces and were forced to either abandon the Pact, surrender to the League, or be conquered.

By 5 Nest, the situation had reached a stalemate; the League, having completed its official goal of fighting off the Pact, could not convince its allies to continue further into Pact territory, while the Pact risked coming apart under the strain of trying to return the situation to the status quo ante. Somewhat reluctantly, both League and Pact concluded the Peace of Ujaar later that cycle formalizing and freezing the the spheres of influence as they stood.

The League's attention turned to administering the territories it had conquered from the Pact, and to relations with the cities that had revolted from it and were now free.