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^000088Tyrant Schmitz^000000

In A.W. 511, Walter Von Schmitz became **th king of the Rune-Midgarts Kingdom at the age of 32. His grandfather was Walter Von Eyck, and his father was Walter Von Braham. 
Schmitz's grandfather, Prince Eyck led his soldiers in the Prince Revolt in A.W. 440 by princes of the kingdom that disagreed with the line of succession to the throne decided by the Court. Prince Eyck was defeated and killed by Prince Lakhan and his soldiers while escaping. 

At that time, Prince Eyck had two sons: Augat, and his young brother, Braham who fathered King Schmitz later. 
The Waters family lost most of their power in the Court ever since they were defeated in the Prince Revolt, and were treated as a second-class royal family ousted from the kingly power competition. 

Braham was left as the only son in his family after his brother Augat died from a disease at the age of eight. After his brother passed away, Braham recognized his duty to carry on the family lineage and regain its great prosperity. In spite of his family's fall from grace, he became unrivaled among the other princes in ability and transformed his image from the son of a traitor to a legitimate successor to the throne.

Braham had already restored some of his family's lost honor, but he was still last in the line of succession to the throne and would not rest until he became king. He went so far as to marry twice to bolster his power within the Royal Court. His first wife failed to bear him a son, but his second wife gave birth to his first son, Walter Von Schmitz, when Braham was thirty-eight. When Walter Von Schmitz turned two, Braham had him adopted by the Gaeblogs, a first-class royal family, to bring him even closer to the royal throne.

Prince Walter Von Schmitz was raised by the Gaebolgs, and was recognized as a legitimate successor to the throne when he became sixteen years old. His candidacy was further strengthened by his accomplishments and princely deeds. However, many in the Royal Court suspect that the Gaeholgs and Walters have conspired to promote Prince Schmitz as the next king.

King Ouzel died in A.W. 509, and the Royal Court set to the task of choosing the next king. The first candidate was Prince Gunther of the Leowenburgs, but he was too young to assume leadership of the nation. The second was Prince Max of the Richards, younger brother of the late king, but he lacked the support of the Royal Court. Prince Schmitz was third in line to the throne, son of the influential Gaebolgs, and the most politically powerful of the three candidates. The court ministers and royal families discussed the throne issue for over a year, and finally agreed to crown Prince Schmitz as **th king of the Rune-Midgarts Kingdom in A.W. 511. 

King Schmitz started his reign as an amicable, sagacious ruler, but slowly revealed his true intentions. He embarked in various domestic and overseas business projects, and ousted many faithful retainers from the Royal Court. He filled the Royal Court with his followers that would give him their support, but their flattery would blind him to the reality of state affairs. King Schmitz also built an arena near Prontera to showcase adventurers that would kill demons for sport, thus winning the favor of his people. As more and more followers pledged their allegiance to him, King Schmitz rebuilt his palace, and wantonly spent money from the Kingdom Treasury to finance daily banquets and parties that caused financial difficulties for the Royal Court.

It was open secret amongst the Royal Court that Braham Von Walter was the king's biological father, but King Schimtz did not learn about this until Braham died. When he realized the secret of his birth, King Schmitz began to harbor mixed feelings for the Gaebolgs and Walters which escalated into an insane killing spree against the Leowenburg family. The Leowenburg family had an honorable history of siring many wise kings, but they suffered King Schmitz's wrath since one of their kin, King Lahhan Leowenburg, killed his grandfather, Walter Von Eyck. The Leowenburgs that were spared from death were banished from the Rune-Midgarts Kingdom. 

Then King Schmitz then took great pains to restore the Walters, his biological family, to the heights of power. He dismissed the committee of high ranking nobleman that usually chose who was elected to the Royal Cabinet and Royal Court, allowing him to empower many members of the Walter family by placing them in the Royal Court. He also established the right for the king to choose his next successor. Although he showed special favor to the Walters, he was strangely unsympathetic towards the Gaebolgs that had raised him.

The king's erratic behavior worsened, and he soon grew displeased with the Prontera Palace. King Schmitz ordered his people to erect a giant castle three times larger than his old one in Glast Heim, right below Mountain Mjolnir. The Prontera Palace had housed royal families for more than five hundred years, and although it had been recently been rebuilt, the Court was forced to collect more taxes from the people to finance this immensely expensive project. The new Glast Heim Palace was completed in five years, and King Schmitz immediately moved there, living an isolated life of decadent pleasure that was financed by taxes paid by citizens and adventurers.

Clearly an insane tyrant in his twilight years, King Schmitz sacrificed humans to demons in hopes of attaining immortality. He was finally overthrown in A.W. 529 by his cousin, Grenholm Von Gaebolg, that led a coup de etat against him. Grenholm's rebel troops defeated the royal army, and advanced unopposed to Glast Heim Palace. Upon entering Glast Heim Palace, Grenholm's soldiers encountered a demon army that King Schmitz had summoned from hell. Many of Grenholm's soldiers perished in the violent struggle, but they eventually triumphed over their enemies. They saw the extent of King Schimtz's lunacy when they finally captured him in a small tower in Glast Heim Palace: his body was mutated and misshapen since he had experimented on it in his quest to attain the immortality enjoyed by demons.

The ward captain entered the captive king's room a few months later, and found that Schmitz had vanished. There was a large scale investigation, and it was discovered that the king used a mysterious demonic power to hide in his room's mirror. Schmitz was finally desposed, and Grenholm claimed the crown. His first action as king was a return to tradition, moving the royal family back to Prontera Palace.
