Lore:Helseth

The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995

King Hlaalu Helseth, a male Dunmer, was born to Queen Barenziah and Symmachus in 3E 376, and he is the older brother of Morgiah. After failing to obtain the throne of Wayrest when his step-father King Eadwyre died, he return to Mournhold on Morrowind with his mother. Once there, he joined King Llethan's court. After a relatively short period of time, King Llethan died, leaving the throne of Morrowind to Helseth. This caused rumors that Helseth had poisoned Llethan, a telling of events that the late King's wife backs up. After becoming King, Helseth quickly started to cement his hold on power by using the Dark Brotherhood to assassinate a variety of targets, including the recently reborn Nerevarine, though according to Helseth this was a mistake. The truthfulness of this is suspect, as there was another attempt on the Nerevarine's life while guarding Queen Barenziah for the new King. Strangely King Helseth tends to play up his habit of assassination, as he was one of the driving forces to publish A Game at Dinner, a book that accuses him of murder. Through his machinations however, he was successful to severely weaken the Tribunal Temple, when both Sotha Sil and Almalexia died under mysterious circumstances.

In a shrewd political maneuver, King Helseth, representing his own House Hlaalu, formed an alliance with House Dres. Subsequently, he renounced the slave trade, setting the remaining Houses of Indoril and Redoran against him in a bloody civil war. Helseth emerged from the war battered, but without the loss of his essential powers, leaving the slave trade generally destroyed, and slavery without a foothold in all of Tamriel, although the practice persists in remote areas away from Mournhold.