Shahanshah Oderion III Pelegon The Patricide

Oderion III, drawn by @mir.afaye on Instagram

6th Shahanshah

V 89 - V 90

Oderion III Pelegon, often remembered as Oderion the Patricide, was the 6th Shahanshah. 

Oderion III was born during the peaceful reign of his grandfather, Pelgos I. A charming and kindhearted boy, he grew into a studious and dutiful (if somewhat uncharismatic) man. Due to his father’s constant revelry, the task of raising the boy fell to his mother, Parvina Goodfellow, and many of his aunts and uncles.

Father and son were always distant from one another, and that distance only grew as the prince came of age. Prince Oderion became the focal point of a court faction called the Peacocks (named for the sigil of House Goodfellow, the house of Parvina Goodfellow, Prince Oderion’s mother, the faction’s leader) who advocated for Oderion II to abdicate and/or cede authority to Prince Oderion due to his misrule. Originally a passive pawn in the faction’s plans, as Prince Oderion came of age and began to clash more and more with his father he transitioned into being an active participant in the conspiracy.

When Princess Vidoria Pelegon rose in revolt in the year 89, Prince Oderion remained loyal to his father and directed the Peacocks to do the same (more likely as a means of preserving his place in the succession then out of any genuine fealty to Oderion II), holding council in his father’s stead at times. Many romantics like to claim that he harbored secret allegiance to Vidoria and wished to defect to her side, but there is no proof of this. 

While dutiful in many respects, Oderion spurned both his father and the wishes of the Peacock faction by marrying for love. Oderion met Roshana, a blacksmith’s apprentice in the employ of the Golden Palace, and the two sparked up a romance. With the civil war against Princess Vidoria raging and court tensions at an all time high, Prince Oderion shocked and scandalized the court by suddenly eloping with Roshana. 

The marriage did not last. Oderion II flew into a black rage upon hearing the news and had the prince and his wife hunted down and taken back to the Golden Palace in chains. Oderion II then made his son watch as he had Roshana and her family drawn and quartered, an event which destroyed Prince Oderion with grief. 

Prince Oderion was kept under house arrest for two weeks before being released by his father on the promise of good behavior. Despite his promise, he wasted very little time after his release in going to his father’s chambers, slashing his throat, and throwing him out of a window, becoming Shahanshah Oderion III Pelegon.

He did not sit the throne for long. Oderion III inherited his father’s civil war, earned near-universal disdain for having murdered his own father, and was still reeling from grief over his wife and her family. He very quickly retreated into private seclusion, leaving the war’s prosecution to his mother and his council. 

Two months into his reign, the forces of Princess Vidoria besieged Arcanopolis. With his reign in tatters, his council in disarray, and the city under siege, Oderion III’s mind fully broke and he drenched himself in oil and leapt from the city walls of Arcanopolis after setting himself on fire. 

While his legal heir was his younger brother, Prince Setherion, Vidoria’s War ended shortly after his death and the Imperial Election of V 90 chose Vidoria I instead.