Falki Ice-Crown

==== Early Life and The Ironreach Band ====
Falki Ice-Crown is of an ancient Winterlander culture due to historical reasons involving his dynasty. His career began when he and two men, Glyn Wyllod and Anthony Boarhead decided to make an independent mercenary group, which unlike the Ivory Cross, was entirely neutral. Falki assumed de-facto leadership of the faction as time went on, as he assumed more and more responsibilities of leading men and taking jobs. Early on he naturally began seeking a closer relationship with Hallengard, his neighboring kingdom and benefactor. This resulted in taking a job from Cataline Alarie, Queen of Hallengard, to retrieve Jaroslav from captivity. Falki marched on the gates of Aedwin, and stood camp there until he learned Jaroslav died in captivity. Seeing both kingdoms as responsible for Jaroslav's death, Falki began to conduct official, and personal relations more neutrally, as from his perspective no kingdom in the Hales is worth a damn enough to fight for. Not for honor, anyways. 
As time went on, and relations with both kingdoms normalized again, he began taking more jobs. He assisted in destroying remnants of Hallengardian resistance, and began building his mountain keep, which he finished construction of later on, after some time.
Falki ran into a problem when a off-and on brigand Cameron assembled a bandit group and began picking off his men, and most importantly one of his blacksmiths. With the help of Aedwin, he defeated and executed him, ending the threat.
Later on, Falki decided to make Ironreach a client-state of Hallengard, which he later ended the agreement. But after that, he became more closely intertwined with Halesman politics. Enough so to be invited to a feast and tournament, with both kings. Unfortunately, said feast and tourney was actually a staged murder of the Aedwinian king.
Through all this time, Falki assembled a large group of men. His debtors, Hallengardian escapees from the old regime and brigands of all sort joined him, and his group grew in size as time went on. This was an appealing factor to Aedwin, when they decided to hire him and make him commander of the entire Aedwinian army. Which he promptly accepted, after convincing King Leo to go to war with Lauchette.
= The Siege of Aedwin and the Aftermath =
The siege of Aedwin resulted in a near total loss of everything Falki gained in his mercenary career. He lost many of his friends, during and after the battle, including Stavon Quaberg, whom he grew fond of working with. After nearly being crushed by the same stone that eviscerated Stavon, he decided to take his pay, distribute it among his remaining men, and once again become a neutral band of warriors. But fate would have him seek a different path through life.
During the ensuing power vacuum, Falki decided to take the reigns of rulership in Aedwin, which was willingly given to him by the regent. Although at first Falki thought of it as a simple power grab, nothing more, he soon realized that the reason he led himself down this path, was because he wished to repay his lost friends, by preserving their memories and what they fought for. As soon as he took power, Falki converted and began restructuring the government to be more democratic like the empires of old. But he failed to find any decent contenders for rulership and assumed control for some time. In that time, he fostered a new and reformed military, and tried to rebuild as best he could. He also grew much closer to the culture and religion of Aedwin, and after rebuilding the city, he rebuilt himself, Andophizing his House and his very own name. He also began scholarly pursuits into all he could, spending much time reading on ancient history and modern sciences.
Category:Chapter 1