Sariel

The Goddess of War, Mistress of Destruction, The Dread Queen - Intermediate Deity

Sariel was a mighty noble drow, born near the end of the 3rd Age, and was the primary catalyst that both started and ended The Void War. It became glaringly evident very early in her life that she was not an ordinary drow, or even ordinary amongst the other nobility in her tribe. She was able to read and write and understand multiple languages earlier than any of her peers, and she had mastered several schools of arcana as a mere child. By early adulthood, she had honed her arcane skills to an even sharper point and became bored, so she began to focus on her combat skills, becoming adept at using a hand crossbow, as well as a sword. She became an expert duelist, and could best even the most formidable amongst the elders in her tribe. Academically, she had surpassed all of her contemporaries tenfold. In addition to speaking her native drow (dark elven), she could speak fluent undercommon, draconic, abyssal, aklo, drow sign language, gnome, giant, and goblin. She was even rumored to be learning to commuicate with aquatic sealife.
Sariel commanded the attention and the respect of her peers, elders, and all those around her; she truly had no equal in any arena. Whisperings amongst her people turned into loud calls for Sariel to take charge; she was hands down the most combat-capable, cunning and smartest drow in her tribe, despite the fact that she was a female. When several male elders and chieftains attempted to thwart her effort to usurp control because of her standing and because she was not a male, she laughed as she effortlessly struck them down. The most fearsome, battle tested combat veterans her tribe had to offer: defeated as if they were nothing.
Sariel had a meteoric rise to power, and soon left her home village of Eshveneas with her newly acquired throng of followers. She had amassed enough of a following that she trained a small army to fight for her. Her cause pushed west towards the sea, where they were met with little to no resistance. The jungles of the Jirengroth Vale were occupied by small villages of half-armed and ill-prepared militamen, an easy target for an upstart prodigy like Sariel. She effectively used her charismatic nature to attract those that were not staunchly opposed to her to join her forces. Few if any dared oppose her, for her power was undeniable. She radiated pure dominance, and put off an aura that seemed to make others recoil in fear. After a nine month push across a few thousand miles of thick, overgrown junglelands, Sariel had conquered the Jirengroth Vale and called it her own. To memorialize her first major military victory, she had her followers erect a massive keep called Ollm Unarith, which translated from her native drow to mean "The Dread Fort". This acted as the first real stronghold to exist deep within the jungle, and would represent her base of operations moving forward.
The other gods had taken notice to Sariel's rise. Hiemua, the God of Chaos in particular, was completely enamored by the unbridled potential of Sariel - he vowed to have her at his side for all of eternity. On many occassions, he left the divine realm to visit her on the mortal plane, where he assumed the form of a handsome and ambitious drow male. Sariel identified the illusion almost immediately. Were it not for the fact that she was dealing with a divine, she would have killed Hiemua on the spot. Sensing her rage at being deceived, Hiemua was able to quell her anger. He delivered his proposition to Sariel, and as he spoke, he could see the ire melt from her face, and her calculated, auburn-colored eyes glow with ambition. She was immediately drawn to the power he offered her, to the prospect of immortality, and vowed to increase the chaotic and violent nature of her military conquests. A blood ritual was performed before the mortal illusion of Hiemua, and Sariel vowed death, suffering, and chaos - in the name of The Lord of Chaos and Destruction.
Naturally, the gods of righteousness sought to disallow such an ascension, and a cosmic battle ensued. As the events of The Void War trudged on, the divines fought over Sariel's fate. In Hasdall, Sariel's army had grown to an overwhelming size, and fueled by her increasing connection with Hiemua, her power became more than any mortal could bear. She commanded armies of magically enhanced orcs, hobgoblins, trolls, giants, and other atrocities, in addition to her own army of drow. Her army was so fearsome that they met no resistance as they marched up the western coast of Warlord's March. Scouts rode north and warned the free nations of the terrible doom heading their way. The treatise of the Northern Nations, though, finally offered Sariel's army the first bit of resistance it had faced to this point in her military career. Led by many brave generals and future kings, the North was able to fend the Dread Queen's army back to her junglelands, for no other reason than the fact that she was outnumbered. The Battle at Carigon's Shadow Pass was the first truly bloody battle of the war, with both sides suffering great numbers of casualties. The north would inevitably prevail, and push Sariel's army back towards Warlord's March. It was here that riders from the Eastern lands of Hasdall, primarily Merciwyne and Bryn, attacked Sariel on her exposed right flank, puushing her further back south towards her fortress. Bloody months of fighting raged on. A war of attrition was developing, and Sariel's forces were spread out. The Carigon Mountains were far too wide to circle and attempt a southerly flank, it would take months to make that journey. The war effort could not lose their strategic advantage on the right flank at such a crucial time. Generals from the North pleaded with Da Hefthyn Nograk - The Mountain Guardians to provide aid, but these stubborn mountain dwarves maintained that they held their own defensive position and need not leave it behind.
The war had reached a standstill. The wintertide was settling in, and the northern army was losing morale, supplies, and men. Sariel's numbers were thinning, but behind the lines she was busy bastardizing monstrous creatures to life to throw at the enemy. On 15 Anza, however, the divines finally played their part in this war. The battle in the divine realm had reached a level of cataclysmic proportions - the heavens shook, the Ashen Ocean trembled, and Sariel suddenly became very unstable. She was losing control of herself, but more importantly, of her physical form. She was finally ascending to the divine realm. Her mortal shell reverberated, it shook and quaked and threatened to tear apart at the seams - until at last it finally did. A tremendous, blinding, conic flash of light shot straight up into the sky, a sonic boom ripped across the skies. The ocean waters out at sea exploded, trees from the Jirengroth Vale were uprooted and tossed, a tsunami of water came barreling in. Much of Sariel's army was swept away in the flood waters and the aftermath, and a portion of the Northern Army too, was collateral damage. What was once several hundred miles of jungle coastline was no more - gone - sunk to the bottom of the Ashen Ocean. With the majority of Sariel's army obliterated in the blast, that one event all but ended The Void War as we know it. What remained of her army fled into the jungles and south into the deserts of Omren. The Northern Army took stock of their surviving troops, and quickly realized that they had, at long last, achieved victory. They began the arduous task of sifting through the dead and wounded there in the jungle, to perform holy rituals and offer burial rites. But they hadn't been there more than half a day after the war ended when they first saw it: the strange purple-ish mist engulfing the air and filling their lungs. It was odorless, tasteless. At first, nobody was anything other than confused, and on high alert. As the hours passed, those exposed to the mist began losing control of their mental faculties. They started hallucinating, bellowing out blood-curling screams, and drawing their weapons and attacking each other. Nothing would calm them or quell the men, many went mad and fought and killed each other. A few others were able to be restrained and extracted from the jungle. Army leadership was going to take them home to see a cleric or one of the elder wizards from Eifrandel. All of the men that were exposed to the strange purple mist died on their travels back north. The survivors of the Northern Army returned home, badly wounded and lucky to be alive - and with a new set of questions to answer.
The aftermath of the war on the geographic area of the Jirengroth Vale is unknown. Sariel's self-immolation to a different realm of existence - or perhaps her destruction - has created an unknown circumstance in this area. Scholars and mages are finally starting to reach a point now decades after the war that they are willing to travel back to the Vale. Religious rites were never offered for many of the dead and the missing. Entire villages of families live in unrest, knowing that their deceased loved ones have not received their proper last rites, and that their souls are at unease. Whisperers of the Crown bring news of rising threats from the south related to this strange, purple fog; more rumors abound that The King Donorik Marten I is purposely ignoring them. It's only a matter of time until a new threat rears it's ugly head. And what ever did happen to The Dread Queen, The Mistress of Destruction - what ever happened to Sariel?

Religions

• Nyx'arra

Date of Birth

Unknown

Circumstances of Death

Ascension to divinity, see: The Void War

Sex

Female Drow

Eyes

Light red, orange, angled inwardly down, cold.

Hair

Light black, almost always pulled back and concealed beneath the hood of a cloak

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Light gray/soft purple glow, smooth complexion

Height

5'5"

Weight

145lbs