I wish there was more material on the progression of the empire into the heaving chaotic horror of the monster empire.
I get the sense chaos taints amongst Lunars were unusual up until the dragon rise? Like they were happy to use battlefield chaos magic, but left actual direct contact with chaos to the specialists.
But if the Lunars followed the progression of the 1st age illuminates when they found themselves losing to Arkat, at some point Lunars would have started being less fussy about who or what supplied the power they craved to win battles. At some point perhaps ordinary soldiers and commanders started increasingly partaking personally of the strengthening corruption?