Morsyana

(a.k.a. Death Queen)

Morsyana was the daughter of Bothandal the Crafter and twin sister of Galythiel. She is currently a lich queen living in the World Beneath. A dispute with her sister during the Second Diarchy led to the War of the Sisters, which ultimately forced Morsyana to flee and seek out a new life.

Early life

When Morsyana and Galythiel were born, their father was already king of the Kingdom of Laeryll and lived in Prydisyrr with Queen Sanya the Watcher. Sanya had a strong connection to the nature and traditions of the Northern Arm and tried to raise both her daughters accordingly. This approach mostly stuck to Morsyana who, in contrast to her sister, had little to no interest in the current affairs of the kingdom. Instead, her focus was on herbalism, magic and ancient traditions. At times, Morsyana resented her sister, who was more popular than she was among the elven elites.
When Bothandal died, the twins became rulers of the kingdom, yet their differences persisted. After a period of escalation, their conflict led to the War of the Sisters, which involved all major parties of the Northern Arm. In the end, Galythiel emerged victorious from the conflict and Morsyana was pushed towards the Thracyll Mountains in the east of Laedor Thilis. For a while, soldiers hunted down her and her loyalists, but after some time it was simply assume she could not have survived in the harsh conditions of the orc-infested territory.
She did survive however, and brought her band of loyalists into the darkness of the World Beneath.

Life in the World Beneath

Carving out a territory with impunity and cruelty, she became known to the underdwellers as the "Demon from Heaven" and united many races under her tyranny (although unity might not exactly be how any of them would describe it). While she tolerated in-fighting, she insisted on having all races ready for war, and prohibited anyone from mating with her elves, as she wanted to keep the elven race pure for her vision of a New Laeryll. Her power grew and she managed to form an alliance with a group of mind flayers, whose hunger for brains was stilled by the steady supply of troublemakers, dissidents or unfortunates from Morsyana's own ranks.
In 853 LC, Morsyana finished the necromantic preparations necessary for building a phylactery, and continued to rule her underground territory as a lich. A new generation of elves had grown up in the World Beneath, with a radical longing for reclaiming the surface world. Morsyana realized, however, that overcoming the technological might of the Labarean Empire and the magical powers of the Kingdom of Laeryll and Zhai would not come easily.

Deal with Demons

What Morsyana needed was a horde, and she knew exactly what she needed to get one. Her studies of the necromantic had made her knowledgeable about the many demon cults that exist, both on the surface world and beneath, and she knew that an alliance with these demons themselves would make a reclaim of her lands -- and even more -- much easier.
And so she went to contact the wolf demon Geehynki, the fungus queen Shlumzoif, the monstrous Aktrakares and the three demonic princes Graz'zt, Orcus and Demogorgon. She offered each of them gifts and help to gain entry to her world, in exchange for soldiers for her wars. As a consequence of her rites, dark, demonic psychic energies started flowing into the World Beneath and seeped into the surface world, too. Nightmares became common among dwarves returning from the deep mines near The Porcupine. The cult of madness in Safar proved especially sensitive to the psychic shift and started worshiping their old god Dasimar more fervently. Effects were especially pronounced in The Mistlands, where the border between the World Beneath and the surface world was thin, so that mad underdwellers easily found their way up.

Morsyana's Plan

In 902 LC, Morsyana's spies on the surface world picked up that the Labareans had conquered one of the residences that used to belong to her father,Bothandal the Crafter. Inside, they located a coded map, which Morsyana knew pointed to the location of Bothandal's Mine. Although she already knew the location of this mine, its crafting room was locked down by powerful magic, and she knew the map would provide hints as to its opening. Since access to the crafting room would provide her with Morsyana's Mirror, an important asset to her war plans, she collaborated with the mind flayers to reclaim it and sent out one of her more promising soldiers, a blue-haired rogue-wizard whose penchant for lethal violence had earned her the name Blue Death.
The mind flayers commanded a sizable group of bugbears on the surface world, who were instructed to form an alliance with the Krikk tribe in Khandar's Blessing and who convinced the hobgoblin leader of the tribe to let them oversee the various goblin operations in Laedor Thilis. At the same time, Blue Death struck a deal with Lou the Conjurer in the village of Pellvyr, offering him powerful magic and the help of the bugbears in exchange for his aid in securing the region. The conjurer, who had been in magical contact with Morsyana after finding her old spell laboratory, accepted this deal and used his newfound power to take control over a rowdy group of criminals called The Vangals.

Losing the map

Sometime later, the dwarven venture capitalist Gondwen Huckstone was ambushed together with his human friend Sigrid Brightface and the dwarf was kidnapped by the Krikk tribe. Huckstone had got his hands on the map via a gambling game in Nadi and was hoping to set up a lucrative business in Pellvyr. Brightface was kept with goblins, while Huckstone was taken to Khandar's Blessing -- also knowns as Castle Krikk -- where Krikk took his possessions. What Krikk didn't realize was that Huckstone had removed the wax seal that held the key to the map and had put it in a locket. While Krikk kept onto the map to hand it over to Blue Death, he gave Huckstone's locket away to his goblin priest Lhupo.
Brightface, who was rescued by a band of adventurers in the meantime, went to Pellvyr where he defeated the Vangals. He set up a tribunal in Pellvyr and restored justice in the village, while Huckstone was saved by the same adventurers, but lost the map coveted by Morsyana to one of them: Ballelds Landidith, a wizard-in-training who was sent after the map by the Kingdom of Laeryll.
This did not deter Huckstone. Together with Tijl Morgenster and the priest Glückmock (who had retrieved the key to the map from Lhupo), he convinced the bugbear Axeman Gronk to show the whereabouts of the mine. After a perilous journey through the mine, they arrived at the crafting room of the complex and managed to crack the code to enter. Morsyana's troops (including Lou the Conjurer) had followed the party, but were overcome by the adventurers who also managed to destroy the Morsyana's Mirror promised to the demon Aktrakares by Morsyana.

Species

High elf

Ethnicity

Dathyllian

Life

153 BLC 720 LC 873 years old

Parents

Bothandal the Crafter

Sanya the Watcher