Valdarea, Princess of Blood
Fel Princess, Valdarea Islia Duskborn- Von Zarovich
The Second Child of Acren Eld and Vella Duskborn, Valdarea is a unique creature among the people of Edin.
Physical Description
Special abilities
Valdarea can manifest and control the energies of the Various Elemental Planes alongside the powers of both the Fey and Fel. Her body overflows with raw magical powerful like a traditional Sorceror but with limited control on her part. She can direct it but she cannot fully control it, yet.
Specialized Equipment
Valdarea wields Strahd's personal blade, Lifedrinker, and while she despises much of Barovia and its "culture" she does sport armor fashioned in Barovian style.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Valdarea was born within the city of Edin, for her parents feared that were she born within the Feywild she might end up diseased as her sister was. While her birth was uneventful the days following it were not. She was a terror when not in the presence of her parents, with her wetnurse fleeing from her when the newborn managed to bite her hand with teeth that were already fully formed only days after her birth. The nurse returned the next day to offer her resignation.
Valdarea grew quickly, able to walk and form basic words only six months after her birth. She was also unusually strong for her age and size. As she continued to grow there were no further incidents but rumors abounded that she was a cursed child, a plague upon the people and their city, simply waiting to unleash terror upon them. The King and Queen viewed these rumors as insulting of course but despite their best efforts they continued.
On Valdarea's tenth birthday the rumors spiraled out of control. A group of particularly violent guardsmen and commoners stormed the celebration that was being held and attempted to kill the Princess. The girl hid herself while her mothe rand father dealt with the mob but she was found and reached by two of the mob. When they drove their weapons into her the girl did not perish but her blood pooled upon the floor. The attackers watched as her blood swirled in multicolored hues upon the palace tiles, and when she screamed in horror at her injuries they were ripped apart, their bodies coating the hallway she had escaped into in a multicolored mess.
The rumors grew worse following the attack with some saying that the royals had planned for this. Valdarea hid within her chambers, atempting to discover what was wrong with her. Through trial and discovery she found her blood was infused with magic, not one form or two but of many. The energies of the Elemental Planes flowed through her alongside the magics of the Fel and Fey from her mother. The young woman cried, wishing she could flee from her home, wishing to disappear. Her blood answered her prayers, casting her adrift through the planes. When she opened her eyes she found herself standing within a dimly lit castle with oppulent decorations and an elderly man sitting upon the throne.
She asked him where she was and he avoided the question, asking why she had come to his Castle and how she had done so. When she explained herself, acting as the cordial princess she had been taught to be around strangers, the man rose from his throne and brought the girl to a guest bedroom, offering his protection and his expertise in magic to aid her understanding of her unique abilities. She thanked him and settled into the castle, looking outside to see a sunless sky.
True to his word, the man aided her understanding of her abilites. Through extraction and experimentation of her blood the two of them found ways to isolate the powers within her, engraving enchanted tattoos into her body that drew out the magic and kept it seperated. In ten months she grew to understand more of herself than she had in years prior, all the while never asking her new benefactor his name. When she finally had control of her powers, she begged the man his name so that she might thank him properly. He whispered it in her ear, even as he sank his fangs into her neck. Strahd von Zarovich attempted to drain the girl of her power, to sate his eternal hunger and claim the magic in her blood for himself. With Strahd's machinations in place her power was effectivley sealed allowing him to nearly drain her. She cried as he pulled back and let her exhausted body fall to the floor.
She was locked in the dungeons and acted as Strahd's personal blood bank for nearly two years, during which time he twisted her mind into becoming his own attendant, acting as if she were his own child. He forced her to act as if she were the Princess of Barovia, parading her before the court and having her stand next to his throne during the long days he held his people there, forcing her to stand for hours after he drained nearly all of her vitality. His conditioning grew so forceful that she was permitted to leave the dungeons and return to her former quarters, she made no attempt at escape, no grand plans, no cries for aid, only stared out the window of her tower at the sunless sky.
She was sixteen when Strahd's enchantments weakened, not enough for her to flee through the planes in the way she had done to arrive but enough that something stirred in the back of her mind, some spark of fury at what was being done to her. She made small actions of resistance, an improper bow, casually referring to Strahd and his fellow Vampire lords and speaking to other members of the court, specifically the younger nobility. The enchanted tattoos upon her body had helped suppress the power in her blood but now that she had grown older and her body had adjusted to the reduced power she found she could call upon the energies of individual marks. She also found that as her body had grown weaker she had developed vampiric traits, not the full sanguine hunger of a vampire but she possessed smaller fangs, blood red eyes and she found that the darkness of Barovia seemed almost comfortable to her. Almost.
It was her Eighteenth birthday that she met a member of House Vaerima, a young Vampire named Kalas Vaerima. While she had seen him attending court before, usually doing much the same as her and acting as if would rather be anywhere else, she had never spoken to him and when Strahd adjourned the court she followed him out of the castle and insisted on speaking with him. She found him unsurprisingly unwilling to speak with the Princess but her insistence and constant tailing him eventually got him to open up. He was polite and formal in the conversation until she pouted about it at which point he transformed into a bat and flew away, hoping she would continue chasing him. When she did not he flew back to her and asked why, where he learned she could not. The two snuck off to a secluded corner of Barovia and she laid bare the whole of her story, the first time she could speak of it to anyone in years. Kalas was horrified by what she told him, of her origins and what Strahd had done to her. He vowed to aid her in her escape from Barovia and the two returned to their homes where Strahd was awaiting
Valdarea area and he took a more direct approach to keeping her in line.
When next Kalas saw Valdarea at court, she did not move from her position at Strahd's side, standing at attention next to his throne without erring in the slightest and she passed him by on her way out of the Throne Room without so much as a glance. He tried to reach her room but found it beyond his reach and the next day Strahd announced his intent to marry the girl, making her the first Queen of Barovia. Valdarea did not react in the slightest to this announcement and she did not respond at all to Kalas when she waited outside the throne room for Strahd. He saw it in her eyes, Strahd had done something to her mind, something far more drastic and harmful. Kalas fled the castle, fled his homeland and used every bit of his power to flee to the place where he knew he could find aid for her. Edin, the Desert Oasis.
By the time he arrived at the city it had been two months of sleepless nights and only mild rest during the brightest hours of the day. His skin was burned, his clothes were in tatters and he looked as if he might drop dead at any moment. He was nearly executed by the city guard but he was spared only because he spoke the name of the long missing princess. He was dragged before the royals, given only the briefest spell of rest to allow him to speak clearly. He recounted her tale as she had told it to him, he spoke until his voice broke and he could speak no more. The King and Queen took their judgement of him and found that even if it was a trap they could not afford to doubt his words. It took them a week to gather allies and mount ready for an assault upon the Castle of Barovia. The brought with them Aldusa Vaerima the former heir of House Vaerima, The Nightmare Queen Quillima Duskborn, The Obsidian Sage Cian Lamplier, The Elder Genie's of Fi Yore Eld and Naraxus mar Cesier and Jadyn Arterian, younger sister of Queen Vella Duskborn. The Vampire Kalas Vaerima was allowed to join them as well, after screening from Aldusa revealed n falsehoods.
The attack upon Barovia was quick and brutal, with the others bringing ruin to the Castle's defenses and Kalas and the Royals charging into the Throne Room. There they found Valdarea seated upon the Queen's Throne next to Strahd with a ring fitted upon her hand as she stared blankly forward, not even reacting at the entrance of her parents or of her friend. The Royals brought all of their power to bare against Strahd, nearly ripping open the plane as they unleashed eight years of grief upon him. He mocked them, deflecting their power and throwing it back upon them. Kalas rushed to Valdarea, trying his best to reach her through whatever shackles Strahd had put upon her mind. He tried his own charms, his own magics and nothing brought about any change in the girl. Desperate, he drew his knife and stabbed it through her hand, eliciting a twitch of pain. The boy tried his charms once more and he saw a spark of life flash back into her eyes.
The King and Queen of Edin ended up slumped against the walls of the Throne Room, their own power turned against them and nearly destroying them in the process. As strahd was about to deliver the death blow to both of them he was dragged from his feet by the Fel Threads of the Nightmare Queen, as she entered the Throne Room and brought forth her fury at the harm done to her family. While Strahd was engaged with her, Kalas continued to reach out to Valdarea and he finally succeeded in sparking life in her eyes by driving his knife into the tattoos upon her back, staining her white wedding dress in red. The Queen of Barovia hugged him as she rose from her Throne and unleashed everything she had into Strahd for the first time in Eight Years. A cyclone of Magical Energy, strong enough that it did rip holes in the planar boundaries of Barovia , tore into the King of Vampires and while he survived, it was only barely and he was not given the chance to cause trouble as The Nightmare Queen poured her power into the Vampire and rendered him helpless as one of her puppets.
Valdarea rushed to her parents and embraced them as their injuries were healed by the Fel Queen. Valdarea's power suffused the air and she worried that she might lose control once more before the energies around her calmed, closing the wounds upon her back. Her parents were overjoyed to have their daughter returned and many tears were shed as Quillima whisked them and their allies away to her court within the Feywild.
It was some months before the Princess stood within the Palace of Edin, in the room she had not stepped foot in since her accidental fligth to Barovia. She had recovered, the mental imprisonment that Strahd had placed her under fully and completley removed from her mind by Elliot Andronas. She was accompanied by her friend Kalas Vaerima, some of the citizens whispered of something more but the Princess had little interest in romantic affairs as much as simply living the life she had been denied all those years in the sunless realm of Barovia. She and Kalas can often be seen roaming the city after sundown, prefering the cool night air to explore the various locales of the city.
Relationships
Honorary & Occupational Titles
The Princess of Blood
The Sanguinmancer
The Vampiric Fey
The Queen of Barovia
The Sanguinmancer
The Vampiric Fey
The Queen of Barovia
Year of Birth
2489 EP
285 Years old
Spouses
Strahd Von Zarovich
(Ex Husband)
Siblings
Virin Duskborn
(Sister)
Silia Eld
(Younger Sister)
Children
Pronouns
She/Her
Sex
Female
Eyes
Blood Red
Hair
Stark White
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Pale White
Height
5'8"
Weight
145 lbs.
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