Mando al-Gaib

I am the Shadowed Sovereign, keeper of this realm's memory, and I have seen many strangers arrive at these gates, but never one who came from so far beyond them. He was a Mandalorian, a warrior of a distant world, cast out from his people and sworn to a single purpose: to find the Darksaber and win back his honor. His ship fell through the sky over a land already at war and burned down toward Casterly Rock, and the realm, which had known invaders from Essos and the dead from beyond the Wall, had never before seen a soldier from the stars. He came with no allies and no army, only a vow, and he would make the realm answer to it.

Of the early days I speak as one recalls a dream, for the houses were still wandering and none yet knew who they were. The outsider earned his place the way the realm understands best, by trading with a cunning that frightened his rivals, and he reached the final in his first season, only to watch the running back he had bought for glory rest as a healthy scratch while the First King took the crown. He swore he would return with vengeance, and in the year of the plague he did. He sent the running back away for two first-round picks, built a company of firepower around Lamar Jackson and Alvin Kamara, and on Christmas Day Kamara ran into the end zone six times. The realm calls it the Kam-erry Christmas still. The Mand'alor became the Second King, and found at last the Darksaber. With the winnings of his reign he forged the first sigil for every house and played the first hype video before the live draft, and every house looked upon its banner and began to believe, for it was there that the lore began. Then came the Legacy Year, and the Kingslayer took the AFC Championship from him with a late touchdown by six after he had led by twenty-six, and of what became of that year, I keep in shadow.

The second cycle began in Arkansas, where he and the Assassin he had once defeated founded the Iron Cup, the golf contest the houses play to this day. The season itself was barren: forty-nine trade offers sent and every one refused, and for the first time he missed the playoffs. The next year duty took him across the sands, where the life he lived and the lore he carried grew strangely alike, and he lost the AFC Championship to the White Walker by four points, decided by a kicker, a position he despises. He took a new name, Mando al-Gaib, a creature of the sand, and swore he would return. He did, and in the year that followed he beat the White Walker by nearly sixty points in the first round of the playoffs, before the Kingslayer, now Thanos, stopped him on his way to a second crown. To close out the Legacy Year, Mando is looking to take back the throne he once held and to wield the Darksaber again. The season is still being played, and its story is not yet written, but I am always watching, and for those eager to claim what he has claimed, This Is The Way.