Elemér Sethanos

Elemér Sethanos, Second of his Name, could never be called a humble man. Indeed, Elemér’s chief virtue was his utter lack of humility. His arrogance rivaled that of the Laurë when it came to his bloodline, for he was the last scion of a dying name. When the Emperor invaded his lands, his clan name was put into a kindly extinction, intermarried into the Laurëan family. To say that there was no Laurë blood in him would be a lie. But his close kin were unique, for they refused to forget their name. His father and his mother, and their close retainers hid in the wilderness, maintaining their name as Arthad in pure spite of the Laurë. But it was not to last, and when they were found by the Laurëan Reya of their former lands, they found themselves hanging from the gallows in the capital. All except their only son, Elemér. He was taken and raised in the court of the Laurëan Reya of the Arthadë.

Elemér was renamed Elemenon, raised as a prince of the Laurë, and intended for marriage to a Laurëan noblewoman of low-standing. Instead, he proved a wild, independent child and he would frequently leave the safety of the Laurëan Edon for the company of his countrymen. Elemér found three good friends and these friends would be his adopted brothers.

And when he won his crown, he won it with the most ruthless grace. It was worthy of Valén himself. He fled the court into the wilderness, trying desperately to find the fierce tribes, Adanë and the remaining exiles of his clan. Under the infamous “Bloody Banner” he gathered the “Band of the Exile” and started a mercenary company that fought under the Reya of the Rëlines. They fought as the Adanë of old, in the shield wall with skilled line-breaking troops. The brave among them even continued to worship their Old God and Elemér adopted many of the rituals of the Adanë into his Ecclesia. Over the years, he gathered six thousand armsmen and determined to return to the Reyan he had left. He then proceeded to raid the Laurëan colonies and to win the loyalty of native villages by giving them the products of the raid. He gave gifts in the fashion of the old kings and gained a massive following. Elemér had conquered much of the country-side through diplomacy, bribery, and strategic savagery.

An army was sent to deal with him but he determined a plan that would drive the enemy from the land, he fled from them into the wilderness until winter. Then he returned and rushed into his loyal villages, and led the inhabitants into a mass exodus. They burned their villages behind them and soon, the occupying Laurë found themselves the rulers of a wasteland of starving people. The Arthadë entered the lands of their former employers and began to bleed it dry. Naturally, the Rëlines attempted to stop this. But Elemér’s Band of desperate rebels fought like starving wolves, carefully attacking the phalanxes in the woods with raiders and in the open field with vicious skirmishers, isolating them. By the time an open battle came, he had trained up his people into a vast phalanx of light infantry that employed the shock tactics of the Adanë.

The six battles that followed were spectacular, but mostly led to a stalemate until the final battle: The Battle of Kernon, where five thousand Laurëans fell in a spectacular last stand. The Reya was captured but instead of executing him, he made his opponent into a monk. Elemér became known simply as Sethanos (crowned) and he would eventually be made a saint after he retired from public life to become a monk and miracles were ascribed to him constantly.

-       The Life of Saint Elemér, Saint Panna of the Grey