King Wilbur Renjino

## Overview

King Wilbur Renjino is a descendant of Renjin and the ruling King of Renaria at the start of the first book. He is the father to Wilhelmina, Wallace, Alejandra, and Jasmine. In his union with his first wife Whitney Alistair, she went through three pregnancies with only Willa surviving. It is said that she died during that birth, and the young king remarried about a year later to a sixteen year old Latsumite named Jessa.

Jessa also had issues bearing his children, but this was mostly for lack of trying. For seven years he was fighting campaigns against Praedium, ceding and gaining territory in ordeals which would ultimately kindle a distaste for war and conflict. In the breaks when he returned to the capitol, he would have relations with Jessa and succeed in impregnating her before some other issue required his in person assistance.

Three years into their marriage, Jessa Renjino gave birth to twins, girl named Jasmine, and a boy named Wallace. Four years later they had another girl named Alejandra. He impregnates Jessa again before going off to fight King Rakem's War in 4,998 F.E. not too long after reclaiming his daughter by his first wife, and having her brought to the capitol in order to acclimate her to court.

## King Rakem's War

King Rakem's war was just the latest in a long line of Holy Wars waged against different factions, sects, and bloodlines. From the point of view of King Wilbur and the Renarians, it was unknown what caused King Rakem to declare war upon them, though the assumption that it was for religious reasons was thought to be a safe bet. Though in recent years much of the Tencurian wars were fought over trade and territorial disputes, there were growing whispers in Rhalasi territories spurred by preaching vagrants and Zzarian emissaries: The era of The Dawn was fast approaching.

### The Dawn

The Kingdoms of Rhalas which have prevailed throughout the history of man were all built on a promise: So long as they offered him worship, and provided him with blood and sacrifice; so long as they kept the holy bloodline of Rhalas the Oathtaker pure, they would rule over a new world liberated from the chains of the false God, Draemor, and turn his world to ashes.

The Rhalasi and Rakem believed that the Dawn was upon them, and they would bring it about through war and bloodshed. Their fury was aimed at the Renarians, who were their closest neighbors who still worshipped Draemor the Lightbringer.

Wilbur had grown very wise and excruciatingly pragmatic by the start of the war, and previous campaigns had convinced him that war was won not with strategy and might alone, but with espionage and alliances. Spies within the Rhalasium informed him of superior numbers boasted by the Rhalasi months before they even approached the border, so his first order of business, with advice from his Prime Minister Lairon, was to reach out to the Praedi of the south to persuade them to head north and attack.

### The Burning Sun Massacre

Knowing that the Rhalasi and the Bloodbonds were the only families who still boasted Blessings from the gods and could easily win at war, he understood that he and his kingdom were forced to be smarter. They turned to alchemy and scientists to grasp an advantage over the Rhalasi and their Blessings, and the foremost practitioners who would be of assistance in that matter were the Kovalinians. Though they had little men to send to assist in traditional ways, they sent weapons and schematics which would prove instrumental in the Burning Sun Massacre which took the lives of the two kings Rakem Rhalasian of Rhalasium, Almerion Riverion of Solitudine, and the cheif general of the ruling family of the Isles of Nurhst Jamie Kartanian.

## The Tencurian Peace

The many years of fighting and bloodshed across the land had jaded King Wilbur and set him down a path which sought the conciliation of the warring factions of nations that made up the Continent known as Tencur. He was only the king of one, and he had no desire to rule over them all, but he did wish to get the leaders of all these nations into one room to put an end to one thousand years of warring in the northern portion of the continent.

It would be an alliance bolstered by marriages between heirs as well as other conditions. War was not his preferred method of accomplishing this, however it was forced upon him by King Rakem before he could take the first steps. It was his hope that by eliminating King Rakem, the path to this peace would be made easier, and that his war would die with him. However his son, Rhys Rhalasian, was pronounced King of Rhalasium in Rhalm in the eyes of God and his subjects at the age of 18, and marched northeast to Renaria to finish what his Father started.

This presented Renaria and King Wilbur with a problem: the alchemy and pyromancy which lit King Rakem and near 7,000 men ablaze in Altur was no longer readily available to them for a littany of concerning reasons: chief among them being utilization of the weapon of mass destruction which fell King Rakem so soon after the first attack would destroying themselves in the blast, as well as blow Renaria off the map and into the Chilly Sea. King Rhys and the Rhalasi, however, still had bloodbonds and blessings.

Prior to his march Wilbur sent an envoy to Rhys with bones said to belong to his father, as well as a sealed letter:

> "It is the hope of myself and my subjects that you listen to reason on the matter of war and bloodshed. We need not lose any more men fighting your father's war. This was his ambition. Let it die with him. We make no outragous demands nor seek cessations of your land. We ask only that you cease aggression on all fronts and take my eldest daughter Jasmine Renjino to wife. These are fair terms which would do a great deal to both heal this great mass and put this contemptable business in the past. Take the first steps in marking a new era of peace across Tencur."
>
>

After reading this letter in the throne room of the Rhalasian Castle of the Night, Rhys tore it up and had his father's bones displayed in the Room of the Ancestors, where he remained in isolation with his sister Lana for almost an entire day. The stubborness of two Rhalasi kings stood in the way of a Tencurian Peace, for they held the interior of the northern continent in Nurhst and Solitudine as vassals. Wilbur had hoped to marry his youngest daughter Alejandra to Amari Riverion in order to strengthen bonds with the vassal king who no doubted harbored malcontent over the death of his father at Renarian hands. To the Kartanians of Nurhst he would offer Wallace to one of their Grand Maidens, though he was less insistent on their acceptance.

## King Rhys' War

King Rhys took up his father's war intent on running things differently. Secrecy within the court became absolutely paramount, and he desperately tried to balance paranoia and cautiousness. Suspected spies were rooted out and strung up outside the Castle of the Night. His advisors and generals were compartmentalized so that only he and his Bloodbonds knew his full and true plans. He called upon Amari Riverion, his new vassal king in Solitudine to bring additional men along with him to the capitol to fight as well. He critiqued his father's strategy and lamented the fact that they did not make full use of their Blessings. "We will strike back again, but this time we will bring blood and death."