Ikselam/Pyre
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The Pyre of Unrepentant Vanity
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Background
The Pyre of Unrepentant Vanity is fairly well-known in the North, but is not particularly feared. Although flighty and condescending, she doesn't appear bent on conquest or destruction, and actually seems rather benign when compared to the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears or the Bishop of the Chalcedony Thurible. Her forces have even been known to ally with those of Whitewall and Gethamane to repel Fair Folk and icewalker attacks. All in all, the Pyre seems to be the lesser of a great many potent evils, and maintains relatively cordial relations with her living neighbours.
Description
The Pyre of Unrepentant Vanity lives up to her name in all respects; she is an unapologetic narcissist, and is also on fire. Her voluptuous body appears to be composed of white-hot molten metal; her hair is a roaring bonfire of orange flame. Her face is a blank mask, featureless and smooth except for the burning embers of her eyes. Searing heat radiates from her at all times, making it difficult to look directly at her, or to approach closer than several yards.
For obvious reasons, Pyre of Unrepentant Vanity does not tend to wear many clothes. She sometimes affects cloaks of fire and the like; when she finds that she must fight, she dons ornate soulsteel gauntlets, greaves, breastplate and boots, and wields an unusual polearm named Barbed Ember of Torment. She tries to avoid using such equipment as much as possible, though; she thinks that wearing the dead-black armor makes her look like a smoldering log, and finds the anguished shrieks emitted by the soulsteel touching her fiery skin to be quite obnoxious.
The Pyre is a complete egomaniac, and only deigns to speak to those who approach her in the most fawning and obsequious manner. However, although she works very hard to project the image of a flighty, rather oblivious spoiled princess, she is in actuality extremely intelligent and capable. Her schemes often seem foolish and unrealistic, but usually turn out to be integral parts of complicated, long-term plans that are anything but frivolous.
The Pyre's greatest strength is her encyclopedic knowledge of all forms of Sorcery. Although it is not common knowledge, hers was the mind which devised many of the most powerful Necromantic spells.
Place of Residence
The City of a Thousand Radiant Delights, located in a small shadowland a hundred miles northwest of Whitewall, is the Pyre of Unrepentant Vanity's base of operations. It consists of a small city centered around a fanciful tower of ivory and glass with a perpetually-shining beacon atop it. The entire city is enclosed within a huge, faceted crystal dome. The dome's facets scatter and amplify light from the sun and the tower beacon, suffusing the complex with soft light and rainbows. At night, when the only light comes from the tower and the moon, the refractive effect becomes much more pronounced, painting the city's buildings with a sea of stained-glass colors. The dome also amplifies the sun's heat, making the climate inside it quite temperate.
The city itself is constructed primarily of a glass-like substance similar to that used in Chiaroscuro. There are numerous fountains and parks, but few actual plants; most of the parks contain carefully-tended rock gardens, except for two or three flower gardens featuring amaranth, blood orchid, and other rare Underworld blooms. Colorful songbirds and butterflies are very much in evidence, but close inspection will reveal them to be either sorcerous constructs or Moliated ghosts. Lively processions made up of both ghosts and living people make their way down the main concourse, and regular pageants and tournaments are held on the large sporting field. All in all, the atmosphere is quite pleasant -- even cheerful -- and not at all what one would expect from a shadowland.
The Pyre holds court in the Tower of Ivory and Glass, which is filled with courtiers of all sorts. Masquerade balls and other such diversions occur on a constant basis. All of the people found here, and indeed most everyone who lives in the city, adore their mistress, and are constantly competing to win her favor.
Followers
The Pyre of Unrepentant Vanity is a great lover of courtly manners and chivalry. She is also an absolute fiend for micromanaging her subjects. Virtually everything which occurs in the City of a Thousand Radiant Delights is carefully orchestrated by the Deathlord; those who refuse to play along have a tendency to inexplicably vanish (such disappearances are often accompanied by an equally inexplicable surge in the city's butterfly and songbird populations). For most of her subjects, the Pyre keeps a loose hand on the reins; as long as they adhere to the proper modes of conduct and adore her with appropriate fervor, she doesn't meddle in their day-to-day existence. Prominent citizens, however, are her puppets.
The Pyre runs her city like a series of complicated, melodramatic theatre productions. When she takes it into her head that a certain event or situation would be entertaining, she issues orders to her subjects and they see that what she wishes comes to pass. The outcomes of all major pageants and sporting events are staged according to her direction, as are the intrigues, romances, and rivalries to be found in her court. Visitors to the City of Delights often find themselves swept up in these plots; by the end, they may well become a willing member of the "cast."
Abyssal Exalted are usually the stars of the show, as it were.
- The Melancholy Poet of Dust is the Pyre of Unrepentant Vanity's court bard. He is a thin, pale youth with long black hair, dressed in black velvet and lace and usually seen in the company of his soulsteel-strung lyre. He composes epic songs and poems about the Pyre and her court, although his role in her scenarios is usually limited to that of observer. Lately it has been hinted that the youthful Moonshadow's heart is torn between his mistress and his fellow Abyssal, Damsel of the Twice-Broken Heart.
- The Knight of the Black Sun is a mysterious warrior who wears bone-white armor and rides a magnificent white Underworld stallion. His shield bears the stylized ebony sunburst of the Dusk Caste. Unlike the Pyre's other Abyssals, he does not live in the City of Delights; he normally appears only for tournaments, in which he fights in the Pyre's name and bravely defeats all opponents. He also tends to show up at dramatically-appropriate moments to turn back enemy attacks or reveal traitors in the court's midst. He has not yet been unmasked.
- Damsel of the Twice-Broken Heart is an ethereal woman with ash-blond hair and a winsome, far-away look in her dark eyes. Although a skilled sorceress, she more often than not finds herself kidnapped by dastardly villains, most of whom want to sacrifice her, marry her, or both. She is sometimes rescued by the Knight of the Black Sun or some other valiant adventurer, but most often manages to escape on her own, usually discovering information crucial to the enemy's defeat along the way. The Damsel is Day Caste.
Mad Schemes
The Pyre of Unrepentant Vanity is constantly at odds with the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears, to whom she refers as the "Debauched Whore of Licentious Excess." She spends much of her time trying to make the Lover look foolish, or simply to foil whatever plans the other Deathlord has. These schemes are usually ineffective and serve only to make the Pyre look like a petty fool. Bedeviling the Lover, however, is really just a hobby while she waits for her major schemes to come to fruition.
Phase one of her "short term" plan is currently taking place below her citadel. Deep in the cellars of the Tower, behind nine thrice-warded portals, is a tunnel which leads to a gigantic cavern, much larger than the city which sits above it. It contains the ruins of an ancient, alien metropolis predating even the First Age -- or rather, it did. Giant automata of the Pyre's own design have spent the last century shoveling the crumbling buildings into their grinding maws and smelting the crushed debris into usable form within their furnace bellies. Other, smaller constructs have been taking the refined metal and using it to construct the huge device that lies on the cavern floor. Up close, it is too huge for its purpose to be readily apparent, but from far away its form resolves into that of a gargantuan, double-pronged spear, more than a mile long.
According to the Pyre's calculations, construction of the huge lance should be complete within a decade. Once it is finished, she plans to use the immense weapon to destroy the sun, plunging Creation into eternal darkness and condemning all life upon it to a slow, lingering death. How she expects to actually get the lance up into the sky is unclear; it isn't self-propelled, and she has shown no signs of designing or building a similarly colossal delivery system.
Even if the mysterious phase two of this plan fails, the Pyre almost certainly has at least one backup plan. Such a plan is very likely so long-term that it will not even begin to come to fruition for another five hundred years at least.
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