Jacob Winters

Jacob Winters, King of The Realm, was an Earthling refugee who rose from factory worker to royalty in a matter of days. As one of the so-called False Kings, he helped secure a new home for humanity by taking advantage of native Edenians’ belief in the prophecy of “The Promised Return.”

Born near Boston, Massachusetts in the year 1885 of his failed version of the universe, Winters was the youngest of six children. Forced to quit school at 13 to help put food on the family table, he kept his mind sharp by reading voraciously in what little spare time he had.

By 18, he had come into his own as a fantastic mechanic and engineer—as skilled in the practical application of knowledge as he was in the absorption and synthesis of it. Winters seemed to understand how machines worked almost intuitively and eventually found himself climbing through the ranks at a steam-car plant. And yet, there were only so many rungs on the ladder that a poor kid without a high school diploma could reach. Sooner or later, the ambitious young man realized, he would need to strike out on his own.

In the evenings, he began working on the plans for what would become the Model E. Over the course of several years, he devised not only the most efficient steam-powered automobile the world had ever seen but also a reimagined assembly line for building the thing. But when investors in the United States rejected him and his plans as too risky, the never-say-die Jacob Winters was forced to look overseas for funding.

In early 1912, he traveled to Europe to make his pitch to the manufacturers over there. But by April of that year, having struck out all over the continent, he booked passage home. Sadly for Jacob, the ocean liner carrying him across the Atlantic was not nearly as “unsinkable” as advertised. Less sadly, the universe decided to end the evening that vessel struck an iceberg and Jacob—who might have drowned otherwise—found himself transported to the magical world where he would spend the rest of his life.

Together with six other men who had survived the wreck of the Titanic with him, Jacob Winters came to divide up control over the southernmost quadrant of Eden—a placed called Wonderland by the locals. Jacob became king of The Realm, which eventually came to be a sort of buffer between the more “civilized” kingdoms of the west and the more lawless Neverland in the east.

Though he’d been looked up to by his coworkers in the factory, Jacob Winter soon discovered he wasn’t cut out for leadership. His wives did their best to help him, first Phillipa and then Mercy, as did his advisor Merlin—the Sage of Saltgate—but he was no match for the much stronger and more nefarious forces encroaching on him from all sides.

In 116, after he dared to publicly call out injustices being perpetrated by his fellow False Kings, Jacob Winters was killed in a duel with Östen—the King of Neverland—in an event some claim was orchestrated by the aforementioned Mercy, Winters’ power-hungry second wife.