August Magnus Donia

August Magnus Donia (February 12, 1946 - July 30, 2010), born Derek Vandyke, was a Lovian socialite, businessman, communist politician, founder of the LCP and patriarch of the Donia Clan. He considered himself a baron and nobleman. In the mid 1980s, he founded the Lovian Communist Party, of which he remained the leading figure. In 2010, he was elected Member of the Congress, and was also appointed head of the Department of Tourism and Leisure. Donia was also a film director; his first film WSFMA will premier posthumously in early 2010. He was nicknamed The Red Baron for his communist sympathies. Throughout his life A.M. Donia had a bitter rivalry and a family feud with Señor Juan Xavi of the neighbouring Castle Felix.

Towards the end of his life, Donia became a rather controversial person in Lovia. He won the 2009 McCrooke v. Donia Trial, and shortly after Donia was temporarily exiled for insulting Pierlot McCrooke. He was also accused of being involved in the failed IGP revolutionary plot but was later allowed to return to Lovia by HRH King Dimitri I of Lovia. His fall from grace led to the baron's later chronic alcohol abuse; he was diagnosed with liver cancer in July 2010 and was not expected to make it through to the next year. This theory proved correct when he died July 30th, 2010. He was found dead in has castle, his skull crushed with a medieval weapon. The exact circumstances are not yet known. In 2010 the biography of the baron was released, The Tragic Life of A.M. Donia.

Biography[]

Early life[]

Derek Vandyke was born in Alabama, USA, into a Southern working class family. He did well at school. It was in the year 1968, when Derek reached the age of twelve, that he discovered the truth about his ancestry, when he got a birthday present from his great-grandfather: a book containing a family tree. Derek Vandyke realized his family tree dated back centuries. One of his earliest known ancestors had been Gerlof Piers Donia, the son of the legendary Frisian freedom fighter Pier Gerlofs Donia. In 1715, the great-great-great-great-grandson of Pier Gerlofs Donia, Ivo Douwama-Jelckama had left the Netherlands for America, accompanied by his wife and six daughters. Back in the USA, Derek began calling himself 'Baron August Donia I'. His family ridiculed him, and his fiancée left him.

Business[]

After dropping out of high school, Derek Vandyke began working as a mechanic. He made a modest living, but saved out his money until he got enough to buy a store. He expanded this store and eventually owned a whole chain. He went into the real estate business and became the landlord of entire city blocks. He later purchased a taxi company. At the young age of 26, Derek was a millionaire, and by the time he was thirty, he already made three million dollars a year. In Libertas, he had invested in the business of Doctor Magnus since the 1970s.

As of 2010, A.M. Donia had promised to invest generously into TINA's SOS (Smart Operation System). The Baron firmly believes money is meant to be spent (geld moet rollen, in his own words).

Ancestry question[]

Derek Vandyke wanted to restore his noble title. After visiting his grandfather in Montréal, Canada, he discovered his family tree dated back further then he had thought at first: it dated back all the way up to the First Crusade.

His grandfather said he had traveled to Palestine once, with a fellow traveler by the name of Abdul Muhammed, a man from Mecca. On their way trough Europe and the Middle East, the two men had come across Turkey, and they where staying in the Turkish province of Hatay for the night. At the city of Antakya, they discovered a family of tall people, their hair was blonde, and their eyes were grey. According to the patriarch of this family, they were the decendents of Ygo Gales Galama, a Frisian knight who had fathered children with a Morish slave girl back in the 1100s. They kept an ancient shield and armor to prove this, the knight had given his shield to the Morish slave girl so she could buy back her freedom. He died in battle the next day.

Derek Vandyke reclaimed his noble titles at the age of 32, less then a year after having heard the story of Ygo Gales Galama from his grandfather. He traveled to Antakya, alone, and there he found Abdul Muhammed and his wife, Aise, who indeed had green eyes as Muhammed had described. The couple had grown old and Abdul ran a small hotel and Aise rented out rooms for guests at home.

Aise Muhammed took Derek Vandyke to her ancestral home nearby, the house of her grandfather in which she was born 71 years ago. The house was inhabited by her youngest uncle, the blind family patriarch. He showed Derek Vandyke the shield of Ygo Gales Galama, after Aise had insisted. Derek stayed for some time, but left two weeks later.

Life in Lovia[]

August went to Lovia in the year 1983. He married Aise Muhammed's granddaughter, a grey-eyed Moorish girl known for her wit and beauty and settled in Lovia. He had Castle Donia built in the Emerald Highlands in 1986 where he lived until his death. He became a rich socialite and businessman. His noble titles however, were not accepted officially in Lovia and only a few people seemed to accept his titles in general.

On Christmas 2009, Donia was convicted of numerous offences. He was exiled from Lovia for almost a month but found a new home in Germany and stayed there quite comfortably until he was allowed to return by the king. Castle Donia is currently subject of a government debate concerning the legal limits of its size, to which Donia responded angerly.

As the only LCP member running for MOTC, Donia was elected with 8.1% of the votes as congressman. He had hoped to get more LCP'ers into the Congress at the mid-term elections. A.M. Donia was appointed Secretary of Tourism and Leisure after the 2010 Elections and was inaugurated in February. However, he latwer resigned as MOTC.

Donia was befriended to IGP member Brenda Young. Despite their differences from the past, Donia regarded her as a personal friend. He admired her bravery and her daring exploits and he loved the novel The Insight into Lovia: The Despotic King, a novel the Baron described as his "favourite Lovian novel ever written".

The newspaper Hurbanova Novine declared the Donia Clan and August Magnus (the Red Baron) nearly bankrupt, based on an anonymous and mysterious letter. The baron denied this news.^[1] The Novine as well as The Noble City Times^[2] dedicated articles to Donia's lack of popularity in certain regions of Lovia.

To improve the health of the Lovian youth and elderly, Donia launched his Milk is good for everyone media campaign in March 2010. It was designed to make Lovians consume more milk for a better diet and health. The campaign proved to be very successful and made Lovian citizens aware of their bad eating habits.

August Magnus Donia was the chairman of soccerclub FC Magnus Réal Sportas, originally founded by his long-time friend, the late Dr. Magnus. The club originates from Libertas and has been successor in the Lovian competition of 2010.

Health[]

Strength[]

For most of his life, the Red Baron was a healthy man, a firm man of robust stature with a healthy tanned complexion. He has been known for his tremendous physical strength and stamina; he once challenged Lovia's 1989 wrestling champion to a friendly match and defeated him, seemingly with ease. According to Donia in his 2010 Milk is good for everyone-campaign, it is the milk he consumes that makes him so strong. As he said: "As Popeye has his spinach, I have my milk". ^[3]

Cancer[]

In 2001 however, the baron was diagnosed with lung cancer after smoking cigarettes and cigars since he was 12 - he successfully underwent treatment and recovered within months, however. In July 2010 the doctors diagnosed Donia with liver cancer caused by chronic alcohol abuse following his exile and fall from grace in 2009. The baron is expected to die within a year and in his last year on earth he wishes to "set the record straight" and "erase some mistakes from the past". He hopes to stay alive long enough to see the NLS win the next elections and will work for the NLS until his very last breath.

Religion[]

Religious views[]

August Magnus Donia was known as a deeply religious man, believing "Christianity is the one and only true religion in the eyes of the Lord in heaven." He also had a deep interest in the occult and was known to be a collector of mysterious items.

Donia prayed three times a day at every meal, and also prayed before going to sleep every night. He then prayed "for the sake of his family, for their happiness, success, health and fertility." He attends church every Sunday. He greatly dislike Church choirs, however, and reportedly hates gospel music.

Donia always wore an amulet containing a piece of what he believes is the true cross of Christ around his neck. It also contains a hair of his beloved daughter Maria, who died at the age of four.

Monastery[]

Donia is known to have spent several years in a monastery from 1989 until 1992. He said he enjoyed the peaceful and quiet life of a priest. According to one of his sons, Donia seriously considered joining a monastery after retiring from politics. He would then have handed over the estate to his eldest son and heir and "live an idyllic life as a monk helping the poor."

In 2012 an unidentified source close to the family claimed the Baron may still be alive, living a quiet life as a monk somewhere in Lovia, under a new name and identity. According to the source, Donia was now known as "Padre Alonso" and traveled around Lovia helping unfortunate people wherever he went.

Donia's period as a monk is described in the June 2013 book The Lustful Father August.

Family[]

August Magnus and his wife Dalia Muhammed (born 1965) have six children:

1984: Ygo August Donia - communist son, prominent celebrity
1985: Maria Elizabeth Donia (suddenly died in 1989)
1986: Bernd Donia
1989: Ivo Carlton Donia
1991: Dalia II Donia - modeling daughter, shortly married to Pierlot McCrooke
1993: Linda Donia

Donia had nine granddaughters, four of whom from his eldest son Ygo August, one from his son Bernd and one from Dalia. He had six grandsons, his daughter's son Ricky Donia and the five sons of his eldest son. He described himself as a "family man who loves nothing more then to spend time with his family".

Donia, Sr. had some rather old fashion views on marriage which were considered rather controversial in Lovia. The baron, for example, was an advocate for arranged marriages, having arranged the (unhappy) marriage between his eldest daughter and McCrooke without her approval, and also arranged marriage between his son Ygo August and a rich heiress.

August Magnus Donia reportedly had 14 children born out of wedlock, most of which outlive him. The latest was born in 2008 to a female employee of the Donia Castle museum. Another son born in 1979 was made curator of this museum in 2009, and others used to have high ranking positions in the former LCP-party. These 14 extramarital children, in total, had 26 children so far. Most of them where acknowledged by their father and provided for. They carry the Donia-name, making the Donia family on of Lovia's largest families.