The kingdom is old, with its roads laid down before the old empire fell and its valleys scoured by rivers that were ancient when the world was young. It's a small land, with cottages dotting the hills and a single great city rising out of the plains, a bustling place where traders from a dozen lands wend their way through the streets and shouts ring from the rooftops. And above it all, a tower rising out of the battlements, strong and proud, like a fist raised in defiance at the sky.

Travelers sometimes ask, when they find their way down the old roads to the center of the city, why the kingdom has its name,

Kingsheart changes, you see, not with the seasons or the tides, but with the flow of soul in the heart of the king, ensconced in the tower above. Some in the city can still remember the golden years, when he and his queen strode through the streets and flags fluttered in the breeze overhead. The sky was blue and clear, and the roads smooth and straight, with the gates open to all.

More can remember the days after, after the queen passed away, when the stonework began to crumble and clouds rolled across the face of the sun. The long winters and quiet, dry summers, with the first shoots of trees again rumbling up through the earth as noble ladies flowed into town in droves when the black banners on the tower were drawn in at last.

The new queen made the streets bloom with gold, glittering on the pavement with flags of rich brocade draped from every lamppost. The air tasted sweet, at least in the memories of those who could tell, and glimpses abounded of the royal couple in every market square.

No one knows exactly what happened, in the span of a night, to bring down the tower and raise a harsh, squat bunker in its place, to ring the streets with barbed wire and checkpoints manned by hard-eyed men in steel helmets and clothes of dusky drab.

Now the black eyes of guns protrude from the battlements, and storm clouds crack across the sky, the king only seen from a distance, huddled with generals in their masses and great armored machines groaning down the old cobblestones out of the heart of the kingdom.

Merchants cluster in dark cellars, anxiously mulling of rumors of war. Shopkeeps and tradesmen and seamstresses finally, desperately agree.

Something must be done to bring peace and joy back to Kingsheart. Someone must slip through the circles of soldiers and steel that armor the king's heart, and, well...

Rumor has it that you're exactly the king's type.

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