Frederick III

Frederick III, King of Yesterland, served for so many years as a stand-in for his grandfather and father that he is perhaps better known for his role as “The King’s Representative” than for the twenty-four years he spent on the throne. A fiercely independent man, he never married—though that didn’t stop him from siring dozens of children throughout Eden. That said, it was only once he wore the crown of Yesterland that he legitimized any of them. And even then, he only acknowledge one of his many biological children: George II.

Born Frederick Switzer in 182, he was raised in the castle at Old Ludditon by his mother and, for a time, by his great-grandmothers Queen Gwendolyn and Ella of the Ashes. He saw very little of his father, Frederick II, who was nearly always in his laboratory, and even less of his grandfather, Frederick I, who seemed to always be on tour.

Once he came of age in the year 200, he was asked to stand in for his grandfather (now King Frederick) at an event his father couldn’t be bothered to attend. Fred III proved such a charismatic and amiable host to the visiting delegation that he was soon asked to stand in at another event, and another. By the time his father took the crown seventeen years later, it was so expected that Fred III would represent the kingdom that his aging father only appeared in public at weddings and funerals—and only then if they were to celebrate the nuptuals or passings of immediate family.

Drunk on the adoration which came his way at every place he traveled to, Frederick III had lovers in nearly every city in Eden. Sometimes they were high-ranking members of society. Sometimes they were sex workers like Siorsa Spriggins. But whether they lived in the highest towers or in the sleaziest of brothels, he treated all of them with respect and sent money regularly to any who bore his bastards. He may have been cold and forever distant, but he was not heartless.

In 229, when he ascended the throne, the public panicked over who the bachelor king’s heir would be. The pragmatic Frederick, who’d kept a careful financial accounting of all of the places he’d been sending money over the years, found the first child he’d sired who was also a citizen of Yesterland—the aforementioned George II—and named the young man as his successor. And then he got right back to living and ruling the way he had, either in his own name or in the names of his predecessors, since the day he turned 18.