Greetings, friends and foes! I am the spirit of Rudolf IV, who was roused from the dead a little over a hundred years ago when my son, Rudolf V, nearly died in a drunken frenzy the night before his coronation. You see, one of the bottles of wine from which he drank had been drugged by his brother and longtime enemy, Black Michael, who was actually his half-brother with blood connections from me. Rudolf, being younger, smarter, handsomer, and more dignified than his older brother, was further separated from Michael in the way that his mother was a princess and Michael's was not. It had been a twist of fate that a distant relative of my family, a Rudolf Rassendyll from England, had been traveling in Ruritania to do some serious fishing, and had it not been for him, Michael might have become king and disgraced his family name. Not that it would have bothered the brute, I'm sure. You must be confused at what I'm trying to say, so please click on the picture below for an eloquent description of how my story came about.
