A warlock patron for Dirge of Urazya.
- The Five-Headed Empress is an artificial being created as a biological weapon of war by a powerful member of the vampiric Nobility.
- The strange essences that went into her creation include chroma-draconic gene sequences, diabolic ichors, and human DNA.
- Due to the transmutation magic involved in her “birth,” the Five-Headed Empress is a natural shapeshifter. She usually assumes either the form of a five-headed dragon or a dark-tressed, cruelly beautiful woman.
- The Five-Headed Empress exulted in her role as a weapon of mass destruction; wielding elemental wrath in the name of her master and the infamy she earned on battlefields brought her the utmost pleasure.
- After the Noble she served was killed during the Global War, she was judged to be too volatile and unpredictable to be tamed by another vampire lord; she was imprisoned in a netherworld and kept bound by advanced abjurations.
- Over eons spent locked away in her metaplanar prison, the Five-Headed Empress’s power steadily grew until she found herself able to make contact with mortals on the Material Plane and impart a portion of her power to warlocks willing to enter into a pact with her.
- Unlike many patrons, the Five-Headed Empress does not encourage her warlocks to act with subtly and subterfuge on her behalf; instead, she exhorts her warlocks to exercise the power she gives them in brazen ways.
- She wishes for her warlocks to revel in their reputations and in engendering fear of her return; she instructs them to pursue fame, notoriety, and influence so they might serve as glorious and inexorable exemplars of her worldly power.
- As such, she prefers her warlocks to assume positions of social prominence, prestige, and renown; they are glorious weapons in her name.
- The Five-Headed Empress’s hope is that one of her warlock will rise high enough in position and arcane power to find the secret of releasing her from bondage. She would dearly love to slip back into the world, where she will again indulge in a wanton and grandiose reign of terror.
This is my riff on Tiamat for Dirge of Urazya, obviously.
