WWI Origins Narrative

Lore & Background

The narrative weaves real historical figures into its fabric, presenting them as pawns or players in a larger game. It introduces the ethos of the agency: that true power lies not in weapons alone but in knowledge and moral conviction. After the war Orlando buys the Kingsman Tailor Shop as a front, and the founders each take a codename from the King Arthur legend in honour of his son Conrad.

Reader's Guide

The narrative opens in 1902, near the end of the Second Boer War, when a sniper attack on a British camp in South Africa mortally wounds Orlando's wife Emily; before she dies she makes him promise never to let their son Conrad see war again. Twelve years later Orlando runs a private spy network with his butler Shola and his maid Polly Wilkins. He learns that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was orchestrated by the Flock, led by the mysterious Shepherd, whose ultimate goal is Scottish independence.

Orlando, Shola, Polly and Conrad travel to Russia and, after a gruelling fight, kill the Flock's operative Grigori Rasputin at a Christmas party hosted by Prince Felix Yusupov. Conrad then goes to the front under another soldier's name and is shot dead after a mission into no man's land. In the climax Orlando parachutes onto the Shepherd's mountaintop sanctuary, finds that he is Kitchener's aide Morton, and kills him with Shola's help. Polly recovers the film used to blackmail President Wilson, who burns it and brings the United States into the war.

This victory establishes the protocols and ethos of the Kingsman agency seen in later timelines, proving that gentlemen must rise when the world falls into darkness.

Did You Know?

• This story arc serves as the direct origin point for the modern Kingsman organization.
• Grigori Rasputin appears as an operative of the Flock and a trusted adviser to Tsar Nicholas.