I've been interested in the idea of creating some canon historical characters for this furry universe of mine for some time, and have finally done so. So here's the background on this fellow here:

King Talionis
6 February 1819 – 7 March 1837
(Reigned 2 January 1835 – 7 March 1837)
Preceded by: King Nicodemus (father)
Succeeded by: Queen Sepulveda (sister)

Talionis was hatched in 1819 to King Nicodemus (1766-1835), of the draconic House Nor, and his consort Queen Rhea (1795-1840), in the Rose Palace. Upon his birth he immediately became first in line to the throne of the Kingdom of Kyrth, ahead of his elder sister Princess Sepulveda (1816-1840) due to male primogeniture. He was classically educated largely by the royal recorder Gregorio Nobile-Ferretti (1796-1878) whom he later dismissed upon his ascension to the throne, for being “tiresome and mediocre”. By most accounts Talionis enjoyed a spoilt upbringing, save for the canings the young dragon-prince and his sister would occasionally receive from his paternal grandmother, Queen Dowager Octavia (1743-1846), for which he was rumoured to later resent her.

Prince Talionis’ accession to the throne came on 2 January 1835, when his father passed away from an illness of the bowels at the age of sixty-eight. It was decided by the royal council that the boy-king did not require a regent as he was only a month away from his sixteenth birthday, which was considered his coming-of-age. As though to underscore this, the new monarch chose this date (6 February 1835) for his coronation. He almost immediately removed his ninety-one-year-old grandmother Queen Octavia from the Rose Council, arguing that male dragons should not accept counsel from females, especially when they were “old, decrepit, slow and senile”. However, Queen Octavia had a reputation for being sharp and shrewd still, and there was much mirthful private gossip that the young king was in reality still sore from the aforementioned canings. Around the same time, he also removed his uncle Prince Arcturus (1775-1848) from his powerful position as First Lord of the Council, a position the venerable dragon had held for over twenty years under his elder brother Nicodemus. Instead, Talionis gave the position to his maternal grandfather, Lord Osmund Brux (1770-1838). This move was also universally viewed as being motivated entirely by Talionis' personal antipathy toward his uncle, with whom he was known to have an even more adversarial relationship than with his grandmother Queen Octavia. In the view of Sister Beatrice Fleet (1793-1850), writing in her posthumous biography of the young monarch, "The Life of King Talionis" (1840), "His Majesty could could never abide the advice of his elders, which he found an affront to his authority. Therefore, he surrounded himself with those who, he knew, would not presume to give him any, substituting such for only unquestioning obsequiousness. The rotund, amiable Lord Osmund, who had always been naught but indulgent to his royal grandson, seemed to him the perfect fit."

As king, many of Talionis’ practices quickly began to raise eyebrows, including his habit of compelling subjects to kiss his feet to demonstrate loyalty. Even his most senior advisers were not exempt from this degrading practice. The notoriously vain young monarch also spent a great deal from the crown treasury on portraits and sculptures of himself. “He liked his own image best of all things”, Abbot John of Greathearth later observed. Another factor which contributed to his unfavourable popular image was the rumoured incestuous carnal relations with both his mother Queen Dowager Rhea and his sister Princess Sepulveda (the complex and dysfunctional relationships he had with both dragonesses has been the cause of much historical debate).

In the summer of 1836, the seventeen-year-old monarch held what he called the Royal Games, an event he intended to hold every four years during his reign (though the second Games planned for 1840, by which time he would have been twenty-one if he had still been alive, would ultimately never come to pass). The Royal Games revived the kind of gladiatorial spectacles not seen in the realm for centuries, some involving convicted criminals fighting feral beasts for a chance at freedom, resulting in many gruesome deaths. The most infamous event came on 18 June 1836, when Talionis, who fancied himself a fine athlete, personally engaged in a wrestling match with his cousin Prince Alexis (1811-1848), the son of Prince Arcturus. This was supposed to be a friendly affair simply to show off the tall, strong young king’s fighting prowess, but ultimately ended in tragedy when the adolescent monarch performed a recklessly ambitious move on his cousin which broke Alexis’ back, nearly killing the twenty-five-year-old dragon and leaving him paralysed from the waist down for life. Rather than showing contrition for the harm he had caused, Talionis blamed the physician responsible for his cousin’s care, Hugo Rolle (1790-1836), who committed suicide by poisoning soon after under mysterious circumstances. It was widely believed that the king had coerced him into doing so.

In February 1837, tensions with his sister Princess Sepulveda came to a head after Talionis became angry with her “lewd and drunken” behaviour at a ball the king held to celebrate the occasion of his eighteenth birthday. Sepulveda was unapologetic, and in response he ordered her imprisonment in her own bedchamber in the Rose Palace, and did not permit his mother or grandmother to visit her, refusing to see his sister even when she relented and asked to see him, leading to fears among many members of the family that he might be considering her banishment, or even execution.

On 6 March 1837, Talionis was taking a bath in his personal spa when he was bitten on his right big toe by a large (and reportedly “hideous”) worm which was hidden in the hot water. The worm itself was soon caught and killed by his guards. The young king did not initially realise the seriousness of the bite, but when shown the flattened worm, his doctors “grew white in the face” and informed Talionis that the bite on his toe was extremely venomous and would surely kill him if the toe in question (which was already becoming extremely swollen and inflamed) were not amputated at once. The vain king, being proud of his fine feet, was outraged and refused outright, demanding they find another treatment. Many hours had passed before Talionis, becoming afraid and desperate as fever began to seize him, finally consented to the amputation of his whole lower leg, which was by this time turning black and necrotic. However, by this point the royal doctors knew it was simply too late, with the venom having spread throughout his body, and they told the king as much. Prince Arcturus, who was present, later recalled with satisfaction the expression on his hated nephew’s face “when he realised he was destined for an early grave”. In the early hours of 7 March 1837, King Talionis, delirious, racked with pain and consumed by fever, fell into a faint and expired shortly thereafter, at the age of only eighteen years.

As he died without issue, King Talionis was succeeded as monarch by his sister Sepulveda, and received a full state funeral on 15 March 1837. His death was widely viewed as an assassination, though it was never discovered how the deadly worm had found its way into his bathtub. Historians widely believe that one or multiple members of Talionis’ own family (many of whom had clear reasons to resent him) may have been involved. Certainly his uncle, his crippled cousin, and his grandmother were all noted for being dry-eyed at his funeral, though his mother and Queen Sepulveda herself did "shed some tears".