King Roland Gesselring

reigned 740-753 vS

King Roland was not as interested in conquering the Kzinti as he was in the privileges of royalty. He sponsored great parties and works of art. Elaborate flower gardens were a favorite pastime of his. He continued to grow the magical capability of the army, as his father had desired, but felt no need to put it to special use. He was far more interested in the leisure aspects of magic than it its potential for domination of the battlefield.

While King Roland was not much of a warrior, he was a vicious and machievellian politican. He played courtiers against each other for his own amusement, and punished transgressions with fiendish creativity. He had an abiding fear of foreign races, and nearly single-handedly drove the paranoia of non-humans in Smeisserand to all time heights. He contracted syphillis, which the druids refused to cure, from one of his many liaisons. King Roland pleaded with the druids for a cure, but the hierarchy refused to see him. In a rage, the king ordered the groves burned and the druids beheaded. Two weeks later, in 753vs (LY 2112), he died of advanced venereal disease.

King Roland Gesselring had sired many sons by different women. The eldest two were considered candidates for the crown. The elder was Wulfram Haansa, the fruit of Roland’s teenage passion. The younger was Johann Gesselring, the first son of Roland’s marriage to Clarisabett Erdermann. According to custom, the decision would have been made by the Great Druid. The leader of the Earth Mother faith, however, could not be found. All of the groves were closed to outsiders.

Both Wulfram and Johann had strong ambitions of rulership, and neither would step aside for the other, or for anyone else. Each felt that his claim to the throne was stronger. The leaders of the martial class suggested a duel. Politically, this was a suggestion that neither claimant could refuse. On the morning of the seventh of Colors, 753vS (LY 2112), Wulfram and Johann crossed blades. The next morning, the Great Druid emerged from seclusion to crown Wulfram Haansa king of Smeisserand and to consign Johann’s body to the earth.

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