21st Shahanshah

V 295 - V 324

Sethon I Pelegon was the 21st Shahanshah. He was renowned as a good and just Shahanshah, but was overthrown and murdered by his sister Abba I.

Sethon was a scholarly and pious man. Sethon was born sickly and malformed. He had a clubbed foot, a hunched back, greatly lopsided shoulders, and a misshapen face. He lingered near death for much of his infancy and into his toddler years, requiring near constant care from the Imperial physicians. His father was distant to him, though scholars debate as to whether Pelegon VI was distant to his son due to hatred, embarrassment, worry that he might die, or a combination of all three. Either way, these seeds bore bitter fruit, and Sethon and Pelegon would have an icy relationship until his death at the Battle of Red Sands. Sethon was primarily raised by his mother, Shahanshah-consort Cecilia Scelza. Pelegon frequently referred to Sethon as “that useless boy” and made it clear that he intended to send him to the priesthood. However, Cecilia refused to allow Sethon to be sent away until he was old enough to understand what he would be signing up for as a priest. The issue, therefore, remained open until Sethon ascended the Golden Falcon Throne.

While his father was a warlike man, Sethon was peaceful, and quarreled with his father as he grew older. While his sisters were martially inclined and bullish, Sethon preferred the company of learned scholars and priests. With the blessing and funding of his mother, he maintained a circle of learned people who tutored him and taught him in various subjects. An admirer of his grandfather, Adrastus I, Sethon used him as a model for behavior and scholarship, and was known to maintain apartments in the House of Wisdom to allow him to have easy and quick access to the knowledge kept there.  

When his father and elder sister died in the Ba'hram Desert, Sethon unexpectedly became Shahanshah. Immediately upon becoming Emperor, the fourteen year old Sethon called the Council of Karnbor to negotiate an end to Pelegon's Folly. This angered many of his vassals, who saw his agreed terms as submission and defeat, but succeeded in ending the conflict and drawing the lands of the Med'ny closer to the Imperium through the marriage of Princess Lydirna Kushoros and Pelegon Kushoros. 

While Emperor, he continued his grandfather Adrastus I's policy of religious tolerance, contrasting his father's rollback of Adrastus' laws. As a show of good faith, he funded the construction of a great Goodhouse of Beld in Arcanopolis.

A trained and well-known scholar, Sethon sought to govern his realm with the quill rather than the sword. He named various scholars and priests to his councils, and