QUEEN OF THE WINGED HAND
werebat, vampire, would-be queen
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Ht: 6' / Wt: 100 / Eyes: red / Hair: black
Age: 26 / Creed: Chiropteran Vampire / Status:*DECEASED
DESCRIPTION
In human form, Shrakeeris is a beautiful, pitch-haired woman with ivory skin and ruby red eyes. Her almost-naked form is both graceful and feral, girded and draped with bejeweled silver from the vaults of Taath Nahct. Her voice is lush and resonant, adding to her magnetic presence. Her resting state is human-like, but with evident fangs, large ears, and a set of enormous bat-wings that sprout from her back.
THE RISE OF THE QUEEN
When the werebat clan of Mount Chiros took up residence in the ruins of Taath Nahct, the shaded halls and spires of the lost city seemed like an ideal roosting place for the Chiropterans during the day. Few realized that they had been drawn to this place, answering a subtle call that only their kind could hear.
At that time, Shrakeeris was an unremarkable werebat female - a scrawny loner of low status in the colony. However, Shrakeeris heard the whispered call that had drawn them to the city much more clearly than any of the others... and it led her to explore deeper into the eerie catacombs beneath the dead city. When she returned to her kind after a prolonged time away, she was changed. Her ambition was keen, her words persuasive, and her will irresistible. Possessing exceptionally potent pheromones, her influence spread throughout the colony in no time.
Historically, Chiropteran tribes are not especially unified or aggressive, but by emitting a sonic call powerful enough to carry thousands of miles, Shrakeeris lured more colonies to Taath Nahct from afar, and they too fell under her sway.
She spoke to them of the Aesosians, the offspring of the First Men, who had deprived the Folk of the Winged Hand of their rightful place in the world for too long. She preached a coming Sunless Age - an everlasting night when their people would cover the sky like a vast cloud of leathery wings. Their pathetic, flightless enemies would be weak and blind without the sun, and easily destroyed. Before long, she had rallied many colonies to her path... a path of war.
But Shrakeeris, Queen of the Mount Chiros colony, was not quite what she seemed...
THE PATRIARCH
How Shrakeeris came to know all these things was never questioned. Even for this weird folk, the truth was too terrible to countenance. Beneath Taath Nahct slept an ancient evil, unholy and deathless. Answering its call, Shrakeeris had plunged into the labyrinth, and found a crypt - or more rightly, a cradle of steel and stone locked in a shaft so deep, it would take even a man a day to climb out.
This was the resting place of the Patriarch of Taath Nahct, an undead vampire prince from the Mythic Age. Long had he lain there, dormant but conscious, weak but impossibly powerful, waiting for the Sunless Age, when his foul kind could thrive again. His dry, ancient husk called out, and Shrakeeris answered.
When Shrakeeris found the whispering Patriarch, he enticed her into his embrace with promises of power and respect. He turned her into an undead creature like himself, and returned her to the surface to act as his proxy. Now she secretly slakes her thirst on the blood of human captives and undesirables from within the colony. Once they are in her thrall, she brings them to her master so that he may also partake, and gradually rebuild his strength.
ABILITIES
Shrakeeris' shape-shifting powers are versatile and effortless. With flesh-molding craft inherited from the Patriarch, her ability to reshape her form goes beyond the normal constraints of her folk. Claws, spines, and ridges are possible, and even whole new wings grown not from her natural limbs.
Due to her vampiric nature Shrakeeris much more difficult to kill than ordinary Chiropterans. However, in spite of her tremendous physical power, her true threat is in her powers of hypnotism, suggestion, and the ancient Alukah blood arts. With these tools, she has gathered a vast army for her master.
At that time, Shrakeeris was an unremarkable werebat female - a scrawny loner of low status in the colony. However, Shrakeeris heard the whispered call that had drawn them to the city much more clearly than any of the others... and it led her to explore deeper into the eerie catacombs beneath the dead city. When she returned to her kind after a prolonged time away, she was changed. Her ambition was keen, her words persuasive, and her will irresistible. Possessing exceptionally potent pheromones, her influence spread throughout the colony in no time.
Historically, Chiropteran tribes are not especially unified or aggressive, but by emitting a sonic call powerful enough to carry thousands of miles, Shrakeeris lured more colonies to Taath Nahct from afar, and they too fell under her sway.
She spoke to them of the Aesosians, the offspring of the First Men, who had deprived the Folk of the Winged Hand of their rightful place in the world for too long. She preached a coming Sunless Age - an everlasting night when their people would cover the sky like a vast cloud of leathery wings. Their pathetic, flightless enemies would be weak and blind without the sun, and easily destroyed. Before long, she had rallied many colonies to her path... a path of war.
But Shrakeeris, Queen of the Mount Chiros colony, was not quite what she seemed...
THE PATRIARCH
This was the resting place of the Patriarch of Taath Nahct, an undead vampire prince from the Mythic Age. Long had he lain there, dormant but conscious, weak but impossibly powerful, waiting for the Sunless Age, when his foul kind could thrive again. His dry, ancient husk called out, and Shrakeeris answered.
When Shrakeeris found the whispering Patriarch, he enticed her into his embrace with promises of power and respect. He turned her into an undead creature like himself, and returned her to the surface to act as his proxy. Now she secretly slakes her thirst on the blood of human captives and undesirables from within the colony. Once they are in her thrall, she brings them to her master so that he may also partake, and gradually rebuild his strength.
ABILITIES
Due to her vampiric nature Shrakeeris much more difficult to kill than ordinary Chiropterans. However, in spite of her tremendous physical power, her true threat is in her powers of hypnotism, suggestion, and the ancient Alukah blood arts. With these tools, she has gathered a vast army for her master.
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