Name: Heilong Yu Title: Queen of Severed Heads Gender: Female Appearance: Yu appears as a woman of 30 years of age, the time when aging ceased for her. Many will be quick to comment on Yu’s beauty, something that is indeed the cornerstone of her rise to power. Heilong Yu has a long, slender face, with large brown eyes, and a narrow nose. Her body is noticeably muscular, yet maintains a look of leanness. Yu wears a yellow Quju Shenyi, wrapped towards the left of her body. As well, Yu has an ornate headdress, made of the skull of a goat, and the antlers of a deer, carved and adhered into an imposing crown. Yu’s skin is unnaturally white, while the sclera of her eyes is a sickly yellow. Her teeth have become pointed and serrated, as well as significantly longer than a normal humans. Personality: Heilong Yu is, as one would expect from a vampiric empress, ambitious and ruthless. As Empress, she maintained order through rule of fear, and as such, she has a very much authoritarian air to her, with little room for nonsense and a desire for quick, efficient actions. Despite her brutality in rulership, Yu was noted for her pleasant personality, with a very soft manner of speaking, great courtesy, and otherwise hospitable behavior. This is the thing that keeps her from being totally unlikable and monstrous; and is a trait she learned while rising through the ranks from a slave-wife to a high priestess and empress. However, one should not mistake Yu’s friendliness for genuine compassion and kindness; she is notoriously pragmatic and utilitary towards others, and has no problem disposing of those who are no longer of use to her. Ideals: Yu aspires only for her own power an domination over others, and does all she can to increase her own power. Biography: While Vampires have made their most damaging attack on humanity in the form of the medieval Black Empire of Erebus, however those who are knowledgeable of Vampires and their existence are likely aware of one of the earliest, and perhaps the most brutal of vampiric nations, the Heilong Kingdom. The Heilong were a tribe of vampires that had migrated to the continent of Yazou in the Bronze Age, and established a kingdom of modest size. Like all empires of the vampires, the country was ruled by a vampiric aristocracy, with humans and mythical beings being little more than slaves, with large scale human sacrifice to the gods of the Vampires taking place. Outside of this empire was a woman born human, who was sold off to the Emperor of the the Vampires, changed into a vampire and locked away as a byproduct of diplomacy. This woman was named Yu, given the name Heilong. However, Yu was not willing to simply be resigned to a life as an undesired wife. Yu had a skill that set her apart from the many other women obtained from alliances and treaties; a great power in magic, particularly illusion and enchantment. Through her skills, manipulation and convincing of her husband, Yu achieved the status of a minor priestess, slowly rising up to become a high shaman and oracle. Through the power and respect of her status as a high priestess, Yu managed to develop powerful links to vassals and warlords, eventually using these connections to exterminate her husband and his other wives, rising up to take his position as Queen of Heilong. The rule of Queen Yu was a cruel and brutal theocracy, with wide scale human sacrifice, a favorite of which was large numbers of beheadings with an axe, performed with Queen Yu herself as executioner, with the bodies dismembered for augury and the heads boiled and steamed, then sealed in one of “Yu’s Owls”, vessels of bronze that were sealed shut with human offerings and placed in the temple of the Morthail Gods; these vessels shaped like owls. The massive scale of slaughter served a few purposes; it helped to maintain the authority of the Queen through fear, provided the necessary practice of religion, allowed dead bodies to be resurected for military purposes, and, a final purpose that had been planned by Yu. Yu, a skilled enchanter, knew that the souls of humans and other intelligent, sapient life provided powerful bonds through their massive energy. Traditionally, an enchanter would use a piece of their own soul, at the cost of a shortened lifespan depending on the scale of the enchantment, to bind magic to an item. Yu had found a way to empower herself, creating an enchantment to capture the souls of those killed by her axe, and seal them within the axe, and by extension, distribute power to herself for use in magic and enchanting, able to create powerful enchantments by sacrificing a whole human soul in a bond, as well as fully absorb a soul to increase her own abilities. After centuries of wide scale human sacrifice with her enchanted axe, Heilong Yu had reached the peak ability of a vampire’s body, as well as reached unmatched power in magic so long as the axe was in her possession. Eventually, however, Heilong Yu would be deposed, in her sleep, as her jade sarcophagus was carried off by her disgruntled vassals, and burned in a pyre, with Yu burning in her sarcophagus. Though, Yu would survive in the form of her Axe, her own soul bound to it, residing within the weapon after her death. The Axe was taken as a trophy, and eventually passed down, with the weapon remaining as powerful as on it’s day of creation as it carried on for centuries, absorbing more life as it killed more. The Jade Coffin that the Queen of Severed Heads slept in was taken from its fiery end and thrown into the ocean, where it would be carried off by the tides for 2000 years, before arriving in the lands of the now powerful, Black Empire of Erebus. A local cult, the Morthail of Heilong, a group dedicated to the practice of ancient ritual done by vampires in the Heilong Kingdom, came into possession of the sarcophagus and the Axe of Heilong Yu, and placed them in one of their temples; offering the sarcophagus with Yu’s body sacrifices of Blood, seeing her as a spirit of Morthail. Eventually, however, Yu’s soul entombed in her axe was able to use the blood to repair her body, and take it back, returning to life some 2000 years after her execution. The Heilong Cultists were killed one by one, to serve their master as entrapped souls in her axe, as Yu left, seeking out a course of action in her newfound surrounding. Powers: Dark Magic - Heilong Yu is a powerful sorcerer with access to abilities of black magic in the form of illusion and enchantment. Healing by Blood - As a vampire, Yu can heal and repair her body by consuming human or similar blood. Peak Condition - Yu is at the peak of physical ability for a vampire of her age, capable of great physical feats Thrall Creation: Yu is able to form a binding on weakened humans, usually those she has fed upon, turning them into slaves with full obedience to her. Weapons: Heilong Axe - The Heilong Axe is a weapon crafted from bronze and jade, enchanted to steal and seal away the souls of those that it kills. Those who are sealed in the weapon experience great torment as they are slowly torn apart to feed Yu’s power. Souls that are trapped within may also be accessed by a skilled enchanter to be used in a binding. The head of the axe is made of bronze, with jade inlays to decorate the mad gaze and grin cut into the weapon. The Axe grants several powerful gifts to its possessor, such as the ability to walk in ambient light, superior strength and agility, and spellcasting ability Equipment: Yu carries a small leather satchel of herbs and stones that she uses for spells and divination. As well as a torch to light when in need of a fire. Yu also carries a parasol to protect her from direct sunlight. Weaknesses: Yu is unable to be directly exposed to the sun. The Heilong Axe allows her to be exposed to ambient sunlight, so long as she stays in the shade, but direct sunlight will severely injure her. Yu suffers from epilepsy, a common problem with Humans turned Vampire. The seizures range from short lapses in consciousness to full spasmic attacks. This makes long, physically taxing fights rather dangerious for Yu, as she may slip into a seizure at any time during a particularly long fight. As such, she will try to avoid any conflict she can’t simply deal with quickly. While Yu is formidable as a Vampire alone, the Heilong Axe is the source of most of her power. If deprived of the Axe, Yu’s magic and fighting skill drop dramatically Yu is from the Bronze Age, and most all of her equipment is very primitive Yu is unable to enter into areas sanctified against vampires Universe of Origin: [hider=The Blackening] The Blackening is a pseduo-Earth setting; the land is geographically the same as earth, but has undergone massive changes to cultures, nations, and history, as well as the presence of many mythical creatures and magic within the universe. The Blackening is defined by the rise of the Black Empire, a nation of Vampires that arose out of the Balkans and has since spread across the Old World. Most of the focus of this universe is on the three continents of Erebus, Shams and Yazou, analogues to Europe, The Middle-East, and Asia. The dominant religion of Eberus is the Church of Invitto, an initiatory solar religion, centered around the all powerful deity of Zun Sole Invitto. Following the rise of the Black Empire, the center of the Solar Church was moved away from the Holy Lands in Shams, and placed in the farthest corner of the known world, the Islands of Prithana and Euerna. The Heilong Empire was a prehistoric empire that appeared in the Bronze Age, and was the first major vampire nation, later erased from history by the peoples of Yazou [/hider]