Each of the seven rulers specialized in a single school of rune magic and possessed a mighty weapon which not only served them in battle, but also became a symbol of their rule. Over the course of time, the runelords corrupted these into what modern scholars understand to be the 'great sins of the soul,' abandoning the positive aspects of each and embracing the negative connotations of each (greed, lust, boastful pride, gluttony, envy, wrath, and sloth) as the rewards of rule. The Virtues of Rule (generosity, love, humility, temperance, charity, kindness, and zeal), passed down from the goddess Lissala and First King Xin himself were seen as the benefits of power, and each of the runelords was drawn towards one of the seven. In -6420 AR, the runelords assassinated Xin and subjugated those loyal to him-including his own son, who became a puppet emperor-while each plotted within his or her own lands to become ruler of all Thassilon. The mightiest of these were the runelords, seven of the most skilled (and power-hungry) wizards in Thassilon, if not all of Golarion. As the empire grew beyond the bounds of Xin's ability to control, both militarily and administratively, he appointed powerful wizards as governors to oversee his lands.

Thassilon was founded in -6530 AR by First King Xin who had been exiled from his homeland of Azlant for promoting heretical beliefs. Each runelord was a powerful wizard tied to a particular aspect of sin magic. The seven runelords of Thassilon each ruled their own realm in the centuries before Earthfall.

Pathfinder trilogy