Assyr (Ah-see-er)
Assyr
"I lived when what the Greeks and Romans called Caledonia was new. I have never died, but at some point, I gave up life and became something different. I not alive nor am I dead, and I am now as close to eternal as can be. The lost arts by which this was done to me are ancient and forgotten, and should remain so, for they are darker and more heinous than you could want to imagine. Many died to make me as I am, but we thought it necessary and right at the time. Time, of course, is how I now know we were wrong."Assyr is an unliving Lamia, older than can be understood and with powers that are best not spoken of.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Assyr's physical form is static and unchanging. She is a creature of terrible and disturbing beauty; her skin is white and her hair is black, and her features are those of a beautiful woman, but any attraction she evokes is often coupled with fear.
Body Features
Assyr is tall, especially for the age in which she lived. No one in recent history has touched her, but the tales speak of her skin being cold to the touch - not like that of a corpse, but that of a body where no blood is moving.
Facial Features
Her features are 'classic' scotch-irish, and if she were a living woman, she would be considered quite attractive. She was a teenager when she died, and her body and face reflect this lack of physical maturity, and the lack of food and nutrition she endured as a child.
Identifying Characteristics
Her skin is pure white and her eyes are strange and often disturbing violet that turns blood red when she is angry or summoning her magics.
Special abilities
Assyr's powers are not well known, but she has been seen using a variety of powers and abilities over the centuries.
Magical Perception
Assyr is quite capable of percieving magic, detecting and knowing where anyone is in the Dark Forest, and is incapable of being suck up on. She can sense through invisibility cloaks, spells, or even the natural abilities of magical creatures. She can 'feel' magic and can tell what is being done with magic, even if the spell or effect is unknown to her.Supernatural Endurance
She does not seem to need to eat or sleep, and seems to feed on energies of death. She cannot be cut by non-magical means, and heals very, very quickly. She is immune to most magic and Lore, and her mind cannot be read or touched without her permission. Dementors flee from her, and she is immune to the killing curse, the cruciatus and the Imperious Curse. Fiendfyre can hurt her, but it does not destroy her or harm her. She has often said that the arts needed to destroy her or harm her are long forgotten by modern wizards. She is uncomfortable in the presence of Patroni, but she is fascinated by the spell, and often asks witches and wizards if they are able to conjure them. Phoenix Tears burn her skin, and Phoenix Fire has been known to cause her great pain and suffering.Levitation
Assyr is capable of levitating herself at will, levitating others or objects with great ease. This allows her to fly after a fashion. Whether or not she can truly fly is unknown, but many belive she can.Dark Fire
Assyr is capable of creating, manipulating, and usinig a purple-blue fire that is cool to the touch, but can burn worse than anything other than Fiendfyre if she wills it to. This fire can protect her from spells and physical attacks, destroy any material it has come in contact with, and is capable of destroying anything it touches. It can be used to cause great pain or even scars on those it touches - if she wills it so.Apparition
Assyr is able to teleport herself and others through a flash of Dark Fire or wrapping them in shadows. There does not seem to be a limit to this ability, but she has said she cannot enter Hogwarts with this power, nor can she enter the Grand Library with it.Invisibility
Assyr can turns herself invisible at will. There is no spell that can detect her, though Sorcerers and Warlocks can both detect her and feel her coming. Necromancers can always feel her coming.Beast Speech
Assyr is capable of communicating with and often commanding any creature, especially magical beings and animals. The only known exceptions to this are dragons and basilisks. Some old and willful acromantula can resist her commands, but they cannot ignore them.Compulsion and Enchantment
Assyr is capable of compelling any witch or wizard without significant command of Occlumency to do as she wills with barely any effort at all. She can enchant and hyptonize most wizards and witches, and put them into a fugue state, though signficant mental discipline and will power can allow them to resist this.Undead
Assyr has vast necromantic powers. She can command undead, raise undead, sense the unliving and destroy undead with barely any effort at all. No undead can resist her command. No undead can hide from her detection and powers. The full extent of her necromantic abilities are unknown, but she has summoned and commanded spirits and demons/infernal creatures, and excorcised ghosts and possessions.Wandless High Magic
Assyr has can use High Magic spells without the use of a wand, though she does have a wand and a staff of her own.Touch of Corruption and Decay
She has shown the ability to age, corrupt or destroy anything she can touch. She rarely uses this ability, but it is one of her better known powers.Apparel & Accessories
Assyr has been met wearing a great many things - from elaborate black robes to nothing at all. Her normal clothes are simple black robes and skirts with boots or elaborate Roman sandals. She has also been seen wearing a diaphanous robe that flickersin with silver and gold runes, a Roman tunic and sandals, and waht could be a Roman legionnaire's uniform and armor.
No matter what else she is or isn't wearing, she has a bronze and copper headband with a jet black jewel of unknown origin and type in it that has never left her brow.
Specialized Equipment
Assyr has a wand made of stained human bone with a core of heartstring from a necromancer. She also has a staff made of dead wood and bone with unknown powers and purpose.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Very little is known of Assyr's history. She has spoken of it, some, with various Headmasters and Headmistresses of Hogwarts. What has been gleaned from her is this:
Assyr was a witch or Loremaster unwillingly married to a priest of a dark cult - likely a death cult. (Though, it would not have been considered a cult at that time: more of a sect.) Her husband was likely a Necromancer, and most certainly what we would now consider to be a Dark Wizard. Maybe even a Dark Lord. She was one of many 'wives' he had taken, and had been captured from a nearby tribe. Perhaps given as part of a diplomatic agreement.
He was a member of - possibly the leader of - a necromantic cabal within his organization, if the whole of the organization wasn't a necromantic cabal in and of itself.
They explored the nature of death and death magic, including summoning and speaking to spirits and possibly beings modern magic might define as 'demonic' or 'infernal' - if such terms can be applied to noncoporeal entities beyond our understanding.
At some point, the general population of their area (believed to be what we now call Caledonia came under attack. She has never clearly identified what the threat was, only that there was a threat.
In an attempt to create warriors and magicians capable of defeating the magic of the threat against them, her husband's cabal engaged in necromantic rituals and practices to bring about both undead and unliving creatures.
Assyr was to be quite brutally sacrificed in one of these rituals. She was raped, tortured (possibly flayed), and set to have her soul and life force given over to this effort.
Something went wrong, and she rose from the altar an unliving being known as a Lamia. Believed to be the recipient of a miracle, she was granted high status, power and authority over the cabal and local populace. Other members of the cabal, including her husband, were also raised as undead and unliving beings of incredible dark power.
Once the threat was defeated, Assyr chose to remove the knowledge of what created her from the world. She has spoken of hunting down and destroying the other members of the cabal and the creatures/beings they raised - including her husband and the necromancer who instructed him.
She tried - but was unable - to erase necromancy from the British Isles, despite her power. At some point, she was captured by Roman magicians and taken to various magical sites and groups, where she was further tortured, studied, and contained for some time.
She managed to escape, destroying as much necromantic knowledge and as many necromancers as she could, and returned to Britian, taking up residence in the Dark Forest.
There are apocryphal tales of her having met with the Founders of Hogwarts before they built the school, and has had a somewhat cordial relationship with Headmasters and Headmistresses of Hogwarts throughout the school's history.
She has made it her purpose to prevent Necromancy from being taught or used in the Dark Forest - which, due to the nature of the forest - is very suited to such arts.
She has destroyed and desecrated every necromantic site, altar, and location in the Dark Forest, and is often thought to be the most powerful being in the Forest - and possibly the ruler of the creatures that reside there.
She is almost never spoken of, and has long since agreed to leave any students who do not purposefully seek her out alone. There is no mention of her anywhere in Hogwarts, especially not in writing, but once a Headmaster or Headmistress has been seated for more than year, she visits them in their office and speaks with them at length.
No Headmaster or Headmistress has ever spoken of the nature of that conversation. Not even Dumbledore.
She often befriends - or at least allies herself with - Hogwart's Gamekeepers and Care of Magical Creatures professors, though this is not something that always happens.
While she has never interfered with or engaged in any wizarding war, she protects her Forest with arts and powers that are terrifying.
She has met and befriended many Hogwarts students over the years, including Lily Evans.
Mental Trauma
The torture and study she endured early in her existence has left her distrustful of wizards and wizarding organizations. She has a deep and abiding hatred of necromancers and dark wizards, and does not allow them to function or act inside her demense.
There are some exceptions to this - possibly because she is otherwise engaged or because the incidents are too small or inconsequential for her to deal with, including Voldemort's murder of several unicorns in 1991.
Intellectual Characteristics
Assyr is intelligent, and has made a deep study of various Lores as well as High Magic. To be fair, no one is quite sure where she studies or gets her information, though there are apocryphal tales of having seen in her in the Grand Library of the Wizarngamot.
She has a vast knowledge of magic and of magical history, and has dealt with almost every aspect of magical society and government in history, as well as almost every magical creature or being to set foot in Britian.
Morality & Philosophy
Assyr is a great believer in freedom of choice, freedom of knowledge (with the exception of Necromancy), and despises despotism and tyranny. She hates rapists and murderers, but believes pain and suffering are great teachers.
Other than her hatred of necromancy and necromancers, Assyr's beliefs and philosophies are her own, and are deeply influenced by her creation and the long life she has lived.
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
Assyr does not know how she can die, but she hopes that one day, she will - though she fears where her soul will go when she does.
She wants to keep any other being like herself from being made or given power, and she wants such dark knowlege to be removed from existence - though she knows this is not possible.
Likes & Dislikes
Assyr enjoys conversing with intelligent and witty people, but often loses patience with them. She loathes necromancy and necromancers, but it somewhat apathetic towards other magics - even dark magics.
(If asked, she will tell anyone that dark magic and light magic must both exist and be used, no matter what anyone make think of it.)
She is death to any necromancer or undead being that enters her demense - or who comes close to her demense.
Or that she hears about.
Hygiene
Assyr always smells faintly of decacying bodies, rotten roses, and burning flesh.
Current Location
Species
Age
Over 3000
Children
Current Residence
Dark Forest
Pronouns
She/Her
Gender
Female
Eyes
Violet
Hair
Long, curly black hair
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
White
Height
5'11"
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