Mekarto

Mekarto

Also known as	Macartho
Titles	Fifth king of Swadia
Reign	1146 – 1225
Status	Deceased

Mekarto was only twenty when the dying Kitaras, with no time to choose carefully, named him heir - one of the ambitious young directors of the royal research laboratories, born to a wealthy family that had given him a fine education in administration and trade. He came to the throne in 1146.

For ten years all seemed well; he ruled graciously and continued his predecessors’ work. But darker traits surfaced. Mekarto was ambitious, hedonistic, and impatient, and he did not hesitate to crush anyone who opposed or delayed him. He ignored his counselors and, when they pressed, had them executed - an unheard-of act - then packed the army and government with flatterers and ruled his critics with prison and the headsman.

The Civil War

In 1189 Mekarto made his fatal mistake: he executed a priest of Odin who had dared criticize the king for neglecting the poor. The act ignited one of the bloodiest civil wars the continent had known. It raged thirty years, to 1219, and consumed whole cities - among them Komrak and Levontaine, two towns founded after Raven, burned utterly from the world. The monarchy won, but at terrible moral cost. Aged and exhausted, Mekarto adopted the brilliant young war hero Mithradaitis VI - the soldier who had slain the rebel leader Cyrus - as his heir.

Appendix

See Also

• Kios · Kitaras (predecessor) · Mithradaitis VI (successor)

Sources & Attribution

• Primary lore: content/Books/The Rise Reign and Fall of Swadia.md and content/Kios/Kios.md, author TrueMichato.