Stoken Majora Royalty

The Royal Family of Stoken Majora

King Sedrick II

The second to his name and the 83rd monarch to sit the throne since Stoken's founding, Sedrick was a a meticulous and paranoid man from birth. Always fearful that his brothers and sisters would attempt to remove him from the line of succession, he began manipulating the by then already corrupt and draconian court of nobles and hangers on to drum up support and diminish his siblings, who until then were content to leave him alone and go about their lives when Sedrick's agents and schemes began popping out ofthe woodwork to interfere with and obstruct them. Within a year, he had personally begun and escalated a feud that cost the lives of dozens of influential figures under publically mysterious circumstances. This only led the court to further decadence and corruption as those who remained went to ever more extravagant lengths to preserve themselves and their close allies.

Inevitably the ruling monarch of the time Queen Nellessa lost patience with her progeny, and disinherited all of them. Or at least she planned to, as an assassin interrupted her with an arrow to the throat before she could name Sedrick as one of those to be denied the right of rule.

While only a technicality, Sedrick was the only one not denounced in front of the gathered nobility, and those who knew the Queen's true intent were either found to be missing, or conveniently ignorant.

The coronation went with little consequence, but the fate of the remaining princes and princesses was clear. They had contested his inheritance and could not be allowed a second attempt. A fact that was not lost on them. So they vanished, one by one, from the public eye, never to be seen again. Their deaths never confirmed or denied.

The reign of Sedrick II went unopposed, as did the corruption of the nobility, for many years, and his heir was taught the same values and lessons as his father. His wife avoided politics with all her might to dote on her children, and balance the paranoid delusions of her husband.

His reign ended 17 years later, a week after his daughter's 15th birthday, with her dagger in his throat as he took an afternoon nap in his study.

First Prince, Kallum of Stoken, Heir Apparent, and Lord of The Western Border.

Young Kallum was born prior to the War of Bitter Shadows - The polite term for the feud between the members of the royal family, and as such his infancy was one spent in constant peril. Kidnapped and held hostage on multiple occasions, he matured quickly - far too quickly - leading to the final attempt to capture and hold him ending in the brutal deaths of all his captors by his own hand, an experience which left him disturbed by what he was becoming.

Owing partially to his mother's consideration over the years, he recovered quickly, and he vowed to never let himself become a murderous and paranoid beast.

The following years he continued his studies under his father's tutelage; Thereafter, slowly gaining control over the backroom politics of the country and using it to solidify his position against further assassinations and kidnappings, ready for the time when he could take the throne and begin paving the way for reforms, albeit using similar methods to his father, as it was still all he knew, and the court was still rife with corruption.

He survives an assassination attempt by his younger sister and escapes into a secret passage leading to a boat. From there he sets off to rally support from all his accumulated contacts to remove his usurper sibling.

Second Prince Asgol, Diplomat to The Kingdom of Herons and Lord of Fiefwater

The second prince was born not long after his elder brother, primarily to provide insurance in the event that he died to illness or his Father's numerous enemies.

Asgol knew he was his brother's spare from a young age - Sedrick practically said as much to his face - but he tried not to let it dishearten him, as his mother the Queen went out of her way to ensure no bias existed in her treatment of her children, and regularly reminded them that they held their own worth.

It did not take long however, for this sense of value to collide with his position. Though less of an attractive target than Kallum, several factions sent him gifts and offered 'friendship' to win him over to their side, inflating his ego and fragile self-esteem ever higher. And unlike Kallum, he embraced it and the luxuries his new position as the second in line afforded him.

Over the years he gained a reputation for hedonism and extravagence at the cost of those less fortunate than him. But he always kept cordial - even friendly relations with the nobility and bureaucrats of the country, a trait which earned him the first acknowledgement of his worth from his Father, who set him to work as a diplomat to pacify Stoken's neighbours.

He met his end at the tip pf his sister's blade after discovering her stood over their father's corpse, and was framed for the regicide in death - though nobody in his extensive network of acquaintances believed him capable of the deed.

Third Prince Tervig, Admiral of The Eighth Royal Buccany

Born near the close of the War of Bitter Shadows, Tervig grew up feeling isolated from the rest of the workd, lacking his elders' wisdom or talent for politics, instead idolising pirates whose exploits reached the capital - despite the fact that the reason those takes ever reached that far was due to the pirates in question having dealt a significant amount of damage to the interests of the city, something a member of the ruling family shouldn't be applauding.

Worried that his son would flee to join one of these sea-faring bandits when he came of age - And then promptly be held to ransom - King Sedrick and Queen Jennifer in a rare unity of purpose, came up with a plan. Instead of discouraging the young man and thus causing his passion to inflame and give him cause to rebel, they suggested, gently and persistently, that he'd be able to derive as much enjoyment from testing his wits and might against them in service to his country as a Pirate Hunter.

Eager to please his parents and to see pirates in action first-hand, he accepted. Whilst he never managed to eradicate the pirate threat, the home shores of Stoken Majora were safer for his presence, in spite of the Prince's occasional extortion of the ports and merchant vessels.

Tervig died in a brothel, after the whore he hired slit his throat in exchange for freedom from her debts to the Brothel Mistress, at the youngest Princess' goading.

Fourth Prince Salden the Impotent

The youngest son of King Sedrick, Salden is a pathetic wretch of a man who spends most of his days in the palace library studying tomes and essays on magic, desperate to awaken the Spark in him to a higher power than that of the common folk, but is met with constant failure, lacking any talent or imagination to make proper use of it.

He takes his frustrations out on himself, his surroundings and any unfortunate servant of low standing who is unlucky enough to be in the vicinity of his latest failure, and is regarded even by his Mother with the bare minimum of respect, as his temper restricts him any real authority and his beating and molestation of the women serving girls - some of whom were lesser nobility in their own right - leaves the prospect of marrying him off untenable.

He meets his end at the hands of several servants incited by the princess to take revenge whom he has raped or scarred, who throw him from the top of the palace with a rope around his neck to dash against it's wall with his cock ripped off and shoved down his throat.

Princess Desamine

As a child, Desamine was lonely. The forced compassion of her mother was no comfort, and the closest sibling to her in age was Salden, who had already started to show signs of having inherited their father's instability. It was clear to her that they would never be able to get along for as long as he was obsessed with finding power that he didn't have. Her contact with others, as her brothers before her, was strictly controlled by her paranoid father, despite the Queen's protests.

In a similar fashion to the Second Prince, Desamine was viewed primarily as a resource by the King. While Asgol was able to build his own web of contacts off the back of bribery offers as the next in line should Kallum be otherwise become indisposed, Desamine was doomed to be nothing but an ornament to be cashed in for political favour from birth. Her brothers could marry the women of influential families, but in the present times, most eligible candidates had little power of their own, and those who did had little interest in binding themselves to the King or his family in so intimate a manner. Desamine however, had, by virtue of her gender, a much larger pool of prospective husbands who wielded influence. The question that she found herself asking was when, and to whom.

Pressure from her father and her tutors, along with her isolation from social interaction left the Princess feeling disconnected from her life, but in time, as she continued to grow and observe the people who called themselves her family, apathy slowly turned to disgust, and disgust with her circumstances and the corruption of those controlling the country and her life became the driving force of her new desire for freedom for herself and the destruction of the corrupt leadership that forced their expectations and wishes on her.

Quietly studying from her room during the night, she educated herself with as much knowledge as she could get her hands on.  She reached out to those servants who had been mistreated by Salden, used and abused by Asgol and those manipulated to their detriment by Kallum. Through the servants, she gained a connection to the outside world, and slowly, but quietly gathered information and sympathisers.

On her fifteenth birthday, she enacted her plans, and usurped the Throne for herself, leaving the rest of the royal family dead.

Queen Jennifer, formerly of Clan Kusph

Jennifer's family were influential and wealthy landowners in the west of what is now known as Dren. And despite their diminished status and the forced exodus of their lands, the majority of their assets were tied up in other locations, mostly in investments in the Capital. Thanks to that, the survivors formed a close-knit clan using the name of the main family and began to build a new life for themselves.

Eventually Jennifer, the eldest daughter of the then clan head, was traded in as a bargaining chip. In exchange for her hand in marriage to First Prince Sedrick, the family would enjoy a number of concessions, immunities and reductions in their business dealings. The royal family would also gain preferential treatment from the clan in their transactions as a bonus.

Though initially excited to be marrying a prince, her fairytale dream was slowly broken down as Sedrick's jealous tendencies and paranoia became steadily more prevalent, and she realised he held no love for her and what affection he had shown was an act to ensure her obedience in producing his offspring. Though she felt violated and betrayed, she made the decision to remain firm for the sake of her children, on whom she doted in an attempt to balance out her husband's influence and apathy. So that they too, could be her support.

It became clear however, that the harder she tried to give her offspring support, the further many of them drifted away. She was killed with a gentle poison as she took tea with her daughter, as a final mercy and as proof of her conviction.