The Reign of King Romidor "The Golden" Sunjoy

Prince Romidor Sunjoy was born to Prince Alvarus and Princess Tanwen on the first day of Lucernius, during one of the worst droughts Cornay had seen in decades. The heatwave was so severe that many believed the babe would perish within the first days of his birth from dehydration or exposure to extreme temperatures. Fortunately, Romidor Sunjoy pulled through, whereas his mother, the Princess, did not. However, it was the blessing or curse of such conditions that led Romidor to develop the markings of The Flamekeeper —something viewed as unnatural and unholy in the eyes of the followers of the White Pantheon of Cornay. Romidor, born to parents with coal-black hair, had golden locks and matching eyes. Perhaps it was the vigour associated with The Flamekeeper that allowed the infant to survive the hottest year in history, or perhaps it was the servants who toiled to keep the babe cool with baths of water and servings of milk and honey. Either way, Romidor grew through his childhood to be a tall and strong lad of golden hair and rosy skin.

Romidor grew up during the reign of his grandsire, King Gregor III, serving as a squire for the king's councilman, Ser Weland Graves, Sword of the Fields. Under Ser Weland, Romidor trained in the ways of the knight—mastering the sword, lance, and spear throughout his teenage years. By the age of seventeen, Romidor could unmount his knight-master in a joust every turn. Ser Weland knighted the young Prince during a tourney at Bearport, the knight's ancestral seat, after an altercation between Prince Romidor and Ser Killian Warren, an anointed knight and heir to Stormberg.

Ser Killian had challenged a young squire to a duel, a duel he knew he would win brutally. The squire, too young and inexperienced to stand a chance against the half-giant Ser Warren, had frozen in fear on the spot—awaiting the blow from Ser Killian's sword that would likely cleave him in two. Instead, Prince Romidor stepped in front of the cruel giant—offering to fight on behalf of the young squire. Had this been any other knight of the realm, the duel would have ended there—to draw a blade on a Prince is to secure one's own execution—but Ser Killian had the fury of the giants of old flowing in his veins and the young Prince had stepped between him and his bloodlust.

Ser Killian drew his blade and agreed to the Prince's terms, meeting Romidor on the melee ground in his tournament armour. Prince Romidor favoured the use of the one-handed spear, an eccentricity he had picked up from his knight-master, and lifted a rounded shield in his offhand—allowing him greater reach and movement than Ser Killian's sword and heater. After a heated duel, the Prince outmanoeuvred the Knight and sliced both the backs of Ser Killian's calves—causing the duel to come to an end. Ser Weland had been watching from the melee grounds' edge and called the Prince over just as Ser Killian called for his squire to fetch him a physician. Fearing reprimand, the Prince hurried to the call of Ser Weland and removed his helmet immediately—but his knight-master was far from disappointed in him. Ser Weland took the Prince to the chapel on Bearport's eastern cliff and knighted him then and there, seeing his protection of the squire as the final test in acquiring his knighthood.

During the reign of his grandsire, Prince Romidor served as one of the throne's household knights. The Prince became known for his unusual combat techniques, still favouring the single-handed spear and lighter armaments of his former knight-master over the traditional shield and sword of many of the country's knights. He fought on his grandsire's behalf in two wars before he reached the age of thirty, once in the North against House Holton and House Krane and once in the West in a failed attempt to conquer the nation of Agaar. During this war against the Agaarians, Prince Romidor's father and heir to the Cornayan Throne, Prince Alvarus, was killed by an arrow through the brain. Soon after this, a white peace was declared between the two nations due to both sides having lost more than one of their heirs to the conflict. Without his mother or father before him, no siblings to his name, and his ageing grandsire, Prince Romidor was forcibly retired from the field of combat to serve as the sole heir to the throne.

Having previously put off marriage in favour of martial pursuits, the Prince was swiftly married to a foreign Agaarian noblewoman—a show of goodwill between the nations and a means to secure the peace that had escaped the nations these past six years. His new wife, Lady Makena of Dalthos, was an intelligent and courtly woman who spent her time training the now home-bound Prince in the art of statesmanship and diplomacy. This training could not have come at a better time, as months after the Prince's thirty-fifth birthday, the King passed away. Prince Romidor was swept from his home at Oldreach and brought swiftly to the capital city of The Skyhold, where he was named

"King Romidor Sunjoy, the First of his Name, Emperor of the Grand Imperium of Cornay"

during his coronation.

Beginning his reign at thirty-five, King Romidor selected a small council of experienced lords and ladies to advise him on the affairs of the state. He named his former knight-master Ser Weland Graves as Sword of the Fields, Lady Helena Darlynton as Sword of the Forests, Lady Gwendolyn Starwick as Sword of the Skies and Lord Glyn Holton as Sword of the Rocks. Controversially, he did not ask the Lord of Stormberg back to sit the council as Sword of Rivers—instead extending the offer to Lord Harinor Asterland, a descendant of the same family the King's ancestors had usurped the throne from. King Romidor believed in keeping the rich and influential House Asterland close, potentially to sway away any idea of rebellion.

This council ushered in twenty years of peace, a miracle by recent standards, in which the realm was allowed to grow and develop in ways it never had under King Gregor III. The development of the river routes of Oakenshire was among many of the developments made under King Romidor. The commonfolk began styling their monarch as "The Golden" due equally to his head of blond hair and to his reign being one of financial and cultural boom. The new trading routes along the rivers of Oakenshire helped support bountiful harvests, which in turn led to a larger number of feasts and tourneys—the gentry of Cornay ate well, and the commonfolk were paid handsomely for it. The King's private life matched the feel of the people, with four baby boys and two girls born to Lady Makena throughout the golden age. The eldest boy was named for his late grandfather, Prince Alvarus, while the eldest girl was named Malika for the first Princess of Agaar.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. King Romidor passed away at the age of sixty-five while travelling to visit his son at their home at Oldreach. The cause of death was ruled to be sickness of the heart, potentially caused by the King's diet of almost exclusively hunted game in his later years. His reign ended with the realm in a state of financial security unlike any had seen before, leaving his son, King Alvarus Sunjoy, First of his Name, to rule over a garden rather than a battlefield.