Kenneth I
Kenneth I, King of the Highlands, was better known as Kenneth the Unlucky. Whereas the long reign of his tough-as-nails father had been an age of peace, the 21 years when Kenneth sat the throne were marked by one conflict after another.
Born in 165 in the capital city of Connor’s Gob, young Kenneth MacMalcolm was a bright kid from the start. And once he came of age and enrolled at Yesterland Academy, he grew only wiser with each passing year. In fact, he might not ever have come home if not for the fact that his wife—whom Kenneth married the year he turned 20—grew homesick following the birth of their two children.
During the summer of 187, Kenneth brought his wife and kids back to Connor’s Gob and took a place on the king’s council. By the end of the year, he was his father’s most trusted advisor, supplanting men thrice his age. And by the year after that, he was acting as the king’s official representative in all matters of international relations.
It was in this role that Kenneth first witnessed the simmering tensions which would come to a boil during his own reign. The easternmost part of the country, which was sandwiched between the Autonomous Zone of Dab Ea and the border with the neighboring Republic of the Reek, was a powder keg that Kenneth couldn’t believe hadn’t exploded already. In the south, the corrupt Lord of the Loch was striking deals with the pirates of Neverland. And in the north, fighting between the Free Cities of Nunya and the Grand Duchy of the Garden threatened to pull the kingdom into the fray.
But though Kenneth’s father was itching for a fight, the goddesses saw fit to deny him one. None of these conflicts came to a head during his lifetime. They all seemed to be waiting for Kenneth instead.
In 201, just days after Kenneth’s coronation, reports arrived from the watchtowers of Dab Ea that the Lord of the East was gathering his forces for an apparent invasion of the autonomous zone. A week after that, following the death of the Lord of the Loch, Neverlandian pirates began raiding the villages of the lake for the first time in a generation. And the month after that, a skirmish at Sleepy Hollow between forces from Nalké and Nunya spilled over the border and resulted in the burning of a small settlement on the Highlands side.
And that was just the beginning. In 207, when the town of Germelshausen made its once-per-decade appearance in the west, the villagers demanded better representation and kidnapped a distant cousin before the town poofed back to its pocket dimension for ten more years. In 215, EdenNet developers attempted to forcibly install radio towers in the mountains. And in 222, just months before the end of Kenneth’s life and reign, a cult worshipping a man claiming to be the long-dead King Hamish descended on the capital to violently press their leader’s claim to the throne.
Kenneth tackled all of these challenges and more, keeping his country safe for twenty-one years. But in the end, aged just 57 years old, his heart just couldn’t take any more.
Oh man, talk about someone too competent for their own good. I definitely know that feeling.
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Too Competent for My Own Good is the name of my next punk album.