Swemmel was King of Unkerlant during the Derlavaian War. Swemmel won the crown after defeating his twin brother Kyot in the Twinkings War. (He boiled Kyot alive.)

Swemmel ruled Unkerlant with an iron hand: he deprived the nobility and the government ministers of much of their power, regularly sacking or even executing them at the first sign of incompetence, disloyalty, and often just disagreement; and he enforced draconian rules on the common people with large forces of inspectors and impressers. He had no qualms about sacrificing his own subjects to the murderous "special magecraft" first used against his forces by Algarvians.

So tyrannical was Swemmel's rule that many Unkerlanters, especially Grelzers, welcomed the Algarvian Army as liberators--an impression which the conduct of Algarvian occupation garrisons soon largely forfeited. However, as tyrannical and dangerously unstable as Swemmel was, throughout the war he absolutely refused to entertain the possibility that Unkerlant would be defeated, and his opinions were so widely and suffocatingly disseminated that the morale boost his determination gave his subjects may well have been what allowed Unkerlant to overcome its initial misfortunes in the dark early years of the war.

Literary NoteEdit

Though Swemmel is a monarch rather than a revolutionary leader, he is clearly modelled on Joseph Stalin.

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