Aruna Proseria Lascari

Queen Aruna Proseria Lascari I

The Rotten Queen, The Unmother, Bride of Vhors

Female - She/Her pronouns

Age: 32

Race: Human

Abilities: Necromancy, 'death' magic. Trained with a spear, though prefers to use magic. 

Her magic abilities come from a deal she made with Vhors, the god of the dead, funerals and pregnant women. Whereas Dira's domain is the moment of death itself, Vhors rules the underworld, tending to the souls of those who have passed. Pregnant women also pay tribute to him, as they believe the souls of their babies are somewhere between the realms of living and dead, given the high rate of stillborns, especially in the southern continents (which is where Aruna lives). Humans don't naturally have any magical abilities, and those who do gained it from making deals with gods (or sometimes being cursed) - Aruna has a thirst for power so strong she gave Vhors her fertile womb, a rarity amongst her people and something that would have given her huge political sway if she'd chosen to use it, and in exchanged gained the ability to bring the dead to life and steal life from others.

Personality: Prideful, witty and sharp, her personality is a blade that's always slightly out of its sheath. Driven almost mad with grief and thoughts of revenge, even her close friends can't be quite sure if she has a grip on her sanity at all times. Can be cruel, but never impulsive no matter how it might appear. Everything she does is carefully planned with her goals in mind. She will get what she desires, no matter the cost. Has a weakness for fine things, if she wasn't in charge she would likely have been spoiled, married off to live in luxury in some faraway kingdom. As it happens, she found that she has a knack for leadership and thirsts for more power and control. If someone is on her side, she will fight for them, so long as it suits her.

• Has a harem of men from various places and races. All of them serve a purpose, they weren't just picked for their attractiveness (thought it certainly helped)
• Her closest advisor and lover is Ambros, the first man she brought back from the dead as more than a mindless husk, with his old personality and memories intact. His body... could use work, but she was still learning. She intended to use him just as a general, what he'd been before he died, but ended up falling for him as he adores her.
• Her kingdom is small but her subjects loyal - despite what's said about their Queen, she knows that after years of civil war all her people want is stability, and she's determined to give them that. If they're willing to fight for her, she'll give them the best lives they can have, while they're around to live them.
• Necromancy as a non-magical art is practiced in her kingdoms and those around her, too, though it takes the form of seances, spiritualism, fortune-telling and the like. Death is celebrated rather than feared amongst her people.
• Some say she aspires to godhood, though of course she laughs at the rumours.

Aruna came to her title after years of fighting with her half-brother, King Constantin. She knows he murdered their mother, and while Aruna should have been next in line to the throne the sudden vacuum of power left after the Queen's sudden death allowed Constantin to rally the army, loyal to him and his father, their general, and stage a coup. Aruna had her own loyal soldiers but they weren't enough for her to win back the crown she'd spent years preparing herself to inherit. Broken, ashamed and grieving for the mother she adored, she surrendered to Constantin before her could wipe her out. As a supposed kindness, and an eternal badge of her supposed submission to him, he granted her the annexed kingdom of Chariss, a tiny coastal country far away from where she could bother him. Despite her setbacks she has made Chariss a bustling trade port, though their economy remains shackled by the huge taxes and reparations she pays to the usurper King.  Knowing that any revenge would be hardfought, but worth the cost, Aruna sought the help of Vhors and his magic. Through this understanding of the old magic, and the research she has done since, she suspects the hand of the Unseelie in her mother's death and her brother's sudden rise to immense power. As events begin to unfold across the world, she spends her time researching the Liminal and the boundaries between it and this world, hoping to one day pass through that threshold itself to gain knowledge that rivals the gods.