Lionheart the First

King Lionheart the First, also known as Sparrow, and The Hero of Bowerstone, was a descendant of the Hero of Oakvale who eventually became a legendary hero in his own right, uniting the Heroes of Will, Skill, and Strength against Lord Lucien eventually killing him in the Tattered Spire. After investing in a series of business endeavors after his great quest had ended, he acquired enough money to form his own business empire, Rosen Accords, (named after his sister, Rose) which citizens of Albion nicknamed The New Kingdom due to the fact that his corporation was effectively comprised of every business and real estate property in Albion. Due to Lionheart's actions as owner of Rosen Accords, the economies of various cities such as Bowerstone and Bloodstone flourished under his leadership and he eventually worked with the Guards Association to officially establish a true Kingdom. Once this was accomplished and he was named King of Albion, he was also granted the title of King of many small outlying islands and Kingdoms, essentially making him an Emperor. Though his Kingdom was technically an Empire, Lionheart maintained the title of The New Kingdom for his empire to denote its connection to the Old Kingdom.
== Biography ==
=== Early Life ===
Lionheart, whose birth name was Sparrow, grew up in poverty. His mother died giving birth to him on the cold streets of the Bowerstone Slums and his father, Lionard, returned to Bowerstone from his great expedition to Samarkand only to find that his family had been driven to poverty and that his wife was dead. This caused Lionard to fly into a rage and engage in a suicidal campaign against the bandits of the Bandit Coast. When he found that the bandits, who were known to be the most powerful warriors besides Lionard himself in Albion, couldn't kill him, Lionard was reported to have snapped and plunged his own sword deep in his chest. This caused Rose, his oldest child who was four at the time, to step in to raise her baby brother.
Four years later, Rose and Sparrow, who'd toughed it out on the rough Bowerstone streets for four years, gathered up enough gold to buy a special music box from Mystical Murgo's Caravan. The box was thought to be a fake after it mysteriously disappeared, but that very night Lord Lucien sent an envoy to bring Sparrow and Rose to Castle Fairfax. Tragedy ensued when Lord Lucien killed Rose and attempted to kill Sparrow but Sparrow would survive the gunshot wound and his subsequent plunge from the Castle Observatory. Craving revenge, he trained for years upon end, united the Three legendary heroes under Theresa's guidance, and ended Lucien's reign of terror. These are the well known facts about Lionheart, but what isn't known or widely documented is his adventures and actions after the events at the Tattered Spire.
=== After the Tattered Spire ===
After defeating Lucien and wishing for everyone lost at the Spire and during its construction to be revived, Sparrow, who had now been given the title Lionheart for his brave actions, returned from the Spire a loved but lonely man. Little did he know that before Garth left the Spire, he had left Lionheart a present. Manipulating the Will-energies of the Tattered Spire, Garth managed to broker one more wish from the Tattered Spire and gave Lionheart back his family. His sister and dog were revived and he was happy to receive a note from Rose and to be reunited with his best friend, Cerbrus. In an attempt to locate the newly revived Rose, Lionheart became the apprentice Blacksmith in Bowerstone Market and used the money he gained to hire a troupe of Mercenaries to find and bring Rose to him. When he received a letter from Rose informing him that she was in the Northern Wastes and that she would come to him instead of vice versa, Lionheart disbanded his team of mercenaries and looked to different endeavors.
After running across Barnum (he'd survived the gun shot wound inflicted by Reaver) who proposed a business plan to the now-partially rich Lionheart. After struggling to find the funds to tend to the gunshot wound he received from Reaver, Barnum came up with the idea of insurance. Using Lionheart's funds, they would establish an insurance company that would span Albion and take care of people that needed it. Their plan moved slowly at first but eventually picked up and before either of them knew it, funds were rolling in. On a whim, Lionheart began to randomly purchase properties in Oakfield. Eventually, he had purchased the whole town and in an act of goodwill, he reduced all prices and rent to 0 or as close to 0 as he could go which was mostly 60% off. This left citizens with more money to spend on more expensive things and as a result, the economy in Oakfield experienced a boom which left Oakfield with a five-star economy rating. Incensed by his success, Lionheart used the funds from Oakfield to buy out the Bowerstone Market and in turn his old home Bowerstone Old Town and so on. He began to push for the Guards Association, which was the only semblance of government and also the most powerful military in Albion at the time, to instate him as King of Albion. When the Guards Association refused, Lionheart made it his goal to buy every property in Albion.
Under his leadership, every region ended up with a five-star economy rating and the citizens, in their gratefulness, erected a statue of him in Bowerstone. He began to be called "Mayor" and "My Lord" in towns he traveled to and eventually, he purchased Castle Fairfax. This left the Guards with no choice but to grant him the title of King. After a triumphant march from his childhood home at Bower Lake with his new subjects, he triumphantly seated himself on the throne at Castle Fairfax and proclaimed his Kingdom, the "New Kingdom". Under his rule, the Economy continued to flourish and Albion had once again become a Superpower in the world.
After establishing the rules and traditions regarding his kingdom, such as things like the line of succession and such, King Lionheart I, as he was now known, married a woman from his adventuring days named Poppy and would now be styled Queen Poppy. They had one child, a girl whom Lionheart named Roselia after his sister Rose, before Poppy mysteriously disappeared. When Poppy disappeared, Rose made her return to Albion and was given the title of Princess and was given lordship over the region surrounding Oakfield and Rookridge. Wanting to extend the prosperity of Albion to other nations, Lionheart used his own personal wealth to invest in the outlying territories near Albion like Samarkand, the Northern Wastes, and those such places. When their economies began to boom also, Samarkand officially joined the New Kingdom as an independent territory and gave Lionheart the title of Lionheart, Emperor of the Samarkandian Isles, and the Northern Wastes also awarded him with a title Chief Protector and Guardian of the Northern Wastes, Lionheart. While this technically made the New Kingdom an Empire, Lionheart made it a point to maintain the title of New Kingdom for the Empire to assure that its roots in the Old Kingdom were never forgotten.
The only outlying region which didn't join with Albion was the sandy yet sinisterly beautiful Aurora. When Lionheart attempted to invest Gold in the countries economy, Aurora executed his messenger and sent Poppy's head to Castle Fairfax, revealing that they had kidnapped and killed her. After amassing his armies and navies at Aurora's borders and coasts, every citizen of Aurora bowed to Lionheart and begged his forgiveness, giving up their God-King Lecherous I who had killed Poppy and ordered the messengers to be killed.
Lionheart severely beat and seriously wounded Lecherous and had him sent to the Shadow Court. It is unknown what happened to Lecherous after this. After the Aurora event, the new king of Aurora, Lembidus, joined Lionhearts empire and gave him the title of Lionheart, Lord Sovereign of Aurora and sent their best scientist Cadaverus, widely regarded as the greatest alchemist of the age, to be Lionheart's Royal Court Alchemist.
18 years later, Cadaverus requested Lionheart's help in retrieving parts for a certain experiment and after Lionheart, who'd acquiesced to the request out of boredom, retrieved the parts, it was revealed that Cadaverus intended to revive Lady Grey, ancient Mayor of Bowerstone, to be his bride. When the love potion that Cadaverus used malfunctioned, Lady Grey fell in love with Lionheart who took advantage of the malfunction and married Lady Grey, causing Cadeverus to seemingly commit suicide. With Lady Grey as his new Queen, no one could legitimately challenge his rule as King due to an ancient rule from the days of the Old Kingdom regarding marriage to any "surviving scion of the Old Kingdom". Lady Grey's family qualified as a "scion" due to them being in control of Bowerstone 200 years before. Lady Grey bore him his first male heir, Logan, who they knew would be a Hero as soon as he was born.
Roselia, who was now 18, requested that her father build her a special facility. With minimal deliberation, Lionheart built Roselia her own massive personal tower on the plains of Bower Lake and it was named, the Rosen Tower. Roselia revealed to her father the purpose of the tower however it wasn't discovered until later what the true purpose was. All that was known of the tower was that it had an extensive subterranean level and that Lionheart had requested a group of unknown individuals from Aurora to go into the tower with Roselia. Roselia locked herself into the tower with her unknown guests and wasn't heard from again until decades later.
Lionheart, at this time, began to vastly expand his navy and army. Using funds which he'd personally stored over the years, he succeeded in garnering the largest military Albion had ever seen, with over 10,000,000 individuals joining it. Comfortable that his kingdom was secure, Lionheart then began again funding expedition teams. After amassing a team at the expense of 1,000,000 gold, Lionheart set out to find the body of his ancestor, the Hero of Oakvale, in order for him to relocate the Sword of Aeons and to give his ancestor a proper, Royal funeral and Posthumous title. They begun their such at the Tomb of Heroes at Bower Lake but only succeeded in finding the remains of Thunder and Whisper, two ancient opponents of the Hero of Oakvale's. Finding nothing of value in the tomb, Lionheart had it sealed as an archaeological site, only allowing archaeologists from the Albion Royal Institution to enter. Lionheart then learned via a messenger from Theresa where the body was and also revealed that the Hero of Oakvale was her brother and that he'd died by choice when faced with the option for immortality and refusing. She informed him that the body of the Hero of Oakvale naturally resided in Oakvale which meant that the body was in Wraithmarsh. This discovery was made amidst reports of vital trade routes in Brightwood and Bloodstone being blocked off. Traders had begun to be robbed and killed by the suddenly aggressive Bandits in the area which caused Traders to begin using ships from Bloodstone to get to Westcliff which lay beyond the Bandit Coast. Pirates began to frequent the trade route between the two cities and both trade routes ended up blocked. Lionheart served to remedy the problem by personally ending Bandit presence at the Bandit coast, avenging his father, and set up a Naval base and shipyard in the area which would serve as a starting point to launch a campaign against the pirates. Before he could launch his campaign, one of his freelance expedition teams announced that they had discovered a lost bay under the Bloodstone dock. Lionheart entered the bay and after exploring incessantly, Lionheart discovered the Wreckager, the legendary cutlass of the former Pirate King, Captain Dread. Taking possession of the Wreckager, Lionheart took to the sea. When they seen that he possessed the only relic from their ancient former king, the Pirates surrendered to Lionheart, naming him King of the Pirates. Instead of arresting them, Lionheart enlisted them into the army as a new unit of the Navy; the soon to be infamous Guerrilla Fleet who would act as a wandering section of the navy who frequently entered in skirmishes.
Lionheart, once again out of boredom, began to train Guards at the Guard Academy. This resulted in the establishment of the Royal Guard, guards who were trained by Lionheart himself to protect him. Impressed with his skill and determination, Lionheart instated former Elite Guard Walter Beck as the captain of the Royal Guard, a position which also gave him dominion over the actual army. Under the leadership of Walter Beck, the Royal Guard, as the personal military force of the King, conducted many raids against bandits and terrorists, succesfully extending the Golden Age of the New Kingdom.
Category:Monarchs