Pteppicymon XXVIII

His Greatness the King Pteppicymon XXVIII, Lord of the Heavens, Charioteer of the Wagon of the Sun, Steersman of the Barque of the Sun, Guardian of the Secret Knowledge, Lord of the Horizon, Keeper of the Way, the Flail of Mercy, the High Born One, the Never Dying King, also known as Pteppic or Teppic, is the son of King Pteppicymon XXVII and Artela and 1398th monarch of Djelibeybi.

His father shocked the country's priesthood by sending Pteppic away to be trained at the Assassins' school in Ankh-Morpork, since he had heard that it gave a very good education; the priesthood were very much against any kind of secular education for someone who would one day be a god. Pteppic's practical education certainly saved Djelibeybi in its hour of need: his aptitude for being an Assassin, which stopped short of actually killing people, was first-class in every other respect, especially in his talent for edificeering. He also learned seven languages including Morporkian, Vanglemesht, Ephebe and Latatian.

At the Assassins' Guild he became a member of Viper House, then on the night he passed his final Assassin's Exam (the practical), his father died. The part of his father that was divine left him at his moment of his death; It then went to find the new king. As a god in the minds of his people, Pteppic briefly became omniscient and semi-divine. He then raced back to Djelibeybi, where he found that time hadn't moved on (in fact, it had stood still for almost 7000 years), and his modern ideas and ideals, such as plumbing and feather beds, were unacceptable to Dios, the High Priest who had presided over each of the 1397 previous kings.

As King, Pteppic commissioned the building of the Great Pyramid, also known as Ptaclusp's Folly, and attempted to modernise the aptly-named Old Kingdom and relax the formality and ritual around him. He found, however, that his subjects were dismayed and frightened by his willingness to approach them, and that Dios, whom everyone continued to look to as the real ruler of the kingdom, would often overrule him, perhaps by "reinterpreting" his commands.

Much went wrong, but when a pretty handmaiden, Ptraci, was sentenced to death, he used his Assassin's skills to rescue her. Together, they fled Djelibeybi to Ephebe, narrowly escaping a trans-dimensional disaster involving the Great Pyramid that wiped the entire valley of the Djel from time and space and encapsulated it in its own dimension. Using the greatest mathematician on the Disc (a camel named You Bastard), Pteppic managed to return to Djelibeybi and restore it to reality. In the process, he destroyed the Great Pyramid and several others, setting the kingdom free to move forward in time.

With Dios having vanished (and presumed dead), Pteppic continued to reign as king for a short period, but soon abdicated in favour of Ptraci, who turned out to be his half-sister, as discovered following a realisation that they shared an ancestral dream featuring cows and trombones (or possibly wimblehorns).

Roundworld refs

Pteppic talks to ordinary people and tradesmen as King George III once did.(p.134 Corgi ed.)