Shelby Elizabeth Sykes was born OTD in 1985

In June 1881, Martha, Dowager Duchess of Westminster and the last surviving aunt of George I, had a meeting with her nephew. The sixty-five-year-old duchess was, like most of Sunderland’s aristocracy, a descendant of the Prussian entourage that followed Louis I to North America in the 1780s. The duchess alerted George of the royal family’s waning German heritage. Despite being a Hohenzollern descendant, George spoke poor German. He had a British mother and a Russian wife. His eldest daughter had married a French prince, France being at loggerheads with Prussia for most of the previous decade. While his second daughter, Princess Grace, married into the German Imperial family, she was shunned in Berlin for her North American heritage. Throughout the early 19th century, German cultural influence had weakened in Sunderland, with American and British influence becoming more prominent. George, who both envied and admired the German Empire as a world power following the Franco-Prussian War, decided then that his eldest son and heir, Prince George Nicholas, would marry a German princess. The following year, George Nicholas was sent to Chartres, France. What appeared to be an educational trip and an opportunity visit to his elder sister, Princess Athena, was in reality a ploy to manufacture an introduction between Georgie and Princess Matilde Marie of Klebelsberg-Thumburg. Maudie, as she was called by her family, had been one of the many potential brides Athena had been tasked with cross-examining on behalf of King George. Other candidates included Princess Viktoria of Prussia, Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine, and Princess Victoria of Baden. Athena was relieved when Matilde Marie made a favourable impression; what had once been her father’s brainstorm was now becoming her responsibility and burden. Athena, who was by this time pregnant with her third child, had spent much of the previous months travailing throughout western Germany—and dealing with the stigma of being a foreigner married to a Frenchman. George Nicholas and Mathilde Marie officially met in Paris on March 12, 1882. Then again at Swabian Hall in May. King George had already decided that Georgie and Maudie should marry, but he wanted to give his son, a debauched playboy with a rebellious streak, the “illusion of choice”. When Georgie returned to Sunderland that August, wedding plans advanced at a breakneck speed. Less than a year later, Princess Mathilde Marie was carted across the Atlantic by the steamship George & Alexandra. The young princess set foot on Sunderlandian soil on April 25, 1883, under a “shower of fanfare and confetti”. She married the Prince of Danforth two days later and was immortalized by her Anglicized name: Matilda Mary.

From her new husband, Matilda-Mary received a gift: a parure of pearls and diamonds. The set of jewelry was dominated by an imposing circlet, a tiara featuring over 1000 brilliant-cut diamonds and weighty circular elements. The Daily Charlatan reported that the princess’s new tiara was the most expensive in the vault. “Fit for the mantle of a future Queen,” Queen Alexandra had remarked. Despite describing the sparkler as “migraine-inducing”, Matilda Mary was photographed in the tiara multiple times, as was her second daughter and namesake, Princess Maud. The tiara, its painful weightiness and imposing size, is an apt metaphor for Matilda Mary’s life in Sunderland. Her marriage with Georgie was not a happy one. Georgie’s infidelities were a constant source of stress for Maudie. By the time Georgie became King Nicholas in 1921, the couple were living “different lives in different houses on different planets.” The tiara disappeared after Matilda Mary died in 1945. While the rest of the parure remained in use within the family, the tiara became a mystery. Answers only came with the 2022 publication of The Jewels of Sunderland, the first authorized account of the history of Sunderland’s royal jewels. The tiara was noted to have stayed with Princess Maud following her mother’s death. Sadly, it was dismantled by King George II after the princess died childless in 1955.

INTRODUCTION - DRAMATIS PERSONAE - FAMILY TREE - LOCATIONS - PART ONE

The third son of King Louis II, and father of King George. Unlike his elder brothers, he was soft-spoken and tender. An amateur composer and dramatist in his adult years, Henry’s life was turned on its axis when he became second in line to the throne. He died of a fever just six months after the birth of his much-adored son, the first male-line grandson of Louis II to be born in over thirty years.

The mother of King George and Princess Octavia of Glencairn. At the relatively late age of thirty-one, she left her native England to marry the Duke of Glencairn. Following her husband’s death, she was vocal in her belief that her son George should come before the children of King James I and Queen Caroline in the line of succession. Her relationship with her children was strained and often the source of public controversy, but she remained—doggedly, unapologetically—at her son’s side until her death in 1881.

The only sibling of George, the pair were inseparable as children but drifted apart as they grew into adults. Often jealous of her brother’s inheritance, the relationship broke down when George refused to accept Octavia’s choice of husband. Although the pair later reconciled, Octavia never married. George was devastated when Octavia died alone in 1902.

King of Sunderland from 1802 - 1817, and grandfather to George. Sunderland’s second monarch, Louis II is largely known for establishing sovereignty and resisting efforts to turn Sunderland into a Prussian puppet state. In 1807, he changed the family name from Hohenzollern to Warwick, inspired by the country’s largest city. Though a successful king, he was harsh towards his children. His fearsome anger sent reverberations down the Warwick family tree.

George’s Uncle Crown, Prince Louis William Thomas became king in 1817. Holding the throne for an impressive thirty-three years, Louis married twice; one wife he loved and cherished, the other he despised and tormented. His only child, Prince Frederick, died after a long and harrowing struggle with tuberculosis. George was born in the last decade of his uncle’s life and their relationship was distant but cordial. George would remember Louis III as a large and gout-ridden man, always roaring with laughter.

The only son of Louis III and his beloved first wife. Prince Freddy was everything his father was not: tall, dashing, and popular. Although expected to be a great king, his life was cut short by tuberculosis, the spectre that haunted North America throughout the 19th century. Freddy’s death sparked the succession crisis of 1835, prompting a mad scramble from his aging uncles to marry and produce an heir.

The second son of Louis II, James I succeeded to the throne at sixty-five years old, the oldest monarch in Sunderland’s history. James married the flighty and insecure Caroline of Mecklenburg-Stralsund at fifty-three, by then having had 11 children with his mistress. A reformist politically, James’s short but eventful reign is today overshadowed by interpersonal drama. He was cruel to his nephew George, who in turn despised his Uncle Lennox and prayed for his death.

The tormented wife of James I, Caroline hailed from a microscopic German state and spoke little English when she arrived in North America. Upon marriage she be Her marriage produced five children, but only one, the future Louis IV, survived infancy. Over the years Caroline grew shrewd but also paranoid and possessive of her delicate son. She served as regent during Louis’s minority, the only woman in Sunderland’s history to rule from the throne. While competent, Caroline was decisive as Queen Regent, being dismissed by George and his family as Karoline, das kindermädchen.

George’s sickly and vacillating little cousin, as the son of the Duke and Duchess of Lennox, Louis immediately supplanted George in the line of succession. Sheltered and constantly ill, Louis deifed expectations by outliving his neglectful father, becoming king at just sixteen years old. Upon reaching majority in 1859, Louis flung himself into a scandalous and ill-advised marriage with Rosalyn Brair, an American commoner from South Carolina. Louis’s health deteriorated throughout his reign and he died aged twenty, but not before defying expectations again and declaring his estranged cousin his heir presumptive over his infant daughter.

• She has the same birthday as me (September 19, completely random since I use a random date generator to get the birthdays)
• She likes snakes; they are her favourite animals. She also likes exotic birds
• She was commonly called “Princess/Queen Mary” by the public and press. She didn’t like this name and always signed as “Queen Matilda Mary” or “Queen Matilda”. She was known as Maudie within the family so "Mary" was never a name she would answer to.
• Her children called her "Mommydear" and she was very protective of them as she wasn't able to raise them firsthand (Thanks, George and Alexandra)

• Teen to elder
• Base game compatible
• All maps and LODS
• Custom thumbnails + disabled for random