If I remember correctly the reason behind aquaman not having an empire is because he didn't complete the initial profile at the beginning of the game (before they were sent inside) so he doesn't have empire or vassals
That's something that was explained in the begining, you probably just forgot.
The game they were playing is a conquest game with many empires. The goal of the game as far as they knew was to develop each empire. Building alliances and wars are part of it. So... Some empires have become slaves and some been destroyed. But there's another reason as well: the start point for the games is a tribe. Some players have never really developed despite not being atacked and have just abandoned or got kicked out of their "empires".
If I'm not mistaken, when they arrived at the game world, those with undeveloped empires got 2 options: go develop your empire now or become some else's vassel.
My guess and hope is: we will eventualy get to see blue guy go back to his empire and develop it with MC's help because his species is needed to conquer the tower.
hiii can someone help clarify, all the Lords are real people right? the vassals and the empire citizens are all npcs? so theres like thousands of empires? why are there some without, like that swimmer guy (sorry i forgot his name...)