King Oleb XVI

King Oleb, Sixteenth of his name, is the ruler of the Kingdom of Drinax. A 105-year-old Human male of Solarian descent, he’s also, as he puts it, the ‘bumpty-umpth Emperor of Sindal, Lord Admiral of the Star Guard, protector of the whatsit and duke of the other thing’. The only titles that Oleb really takes pride in are his awards for boxing and swordfighting.

The King was a wild man in his youth, and spent years as a freebooting adventurer and sometime pirate before returning home to take the crown. Anagathic drugs have preserved his youth, but not his figure; the courtiers politely refer to the King’s ‘imposing frame’ or ‘vigorous presence’. The King is more direct about this – ‘I may be fatter than a gas giant, but I am still the godsdamned King’.

King Oleb delights in drink, in women, in food, in flying with his hawk men, and in conquest, but given the state of his faded kingdom, the last pleasure is denied him. The forces of Drinax are too diminished to conquer any other worlds, and the Aslan threat is growing. Others may dismiss the King as a buffoon, but he is actually a cunning statesman and can be diplomatic when he has to be. He just doesn’t enjoy it half as much as shouting and blustering.