Dasumia

Dasumia, known as the Lady of Shadows, was a malevolent, Banite sorceress in the mid–8 century DR. She took over Galadorna and was served by the apprentice mage Elminster Aumar, a Chosen of Mystra, but ultimately revealed herself to be an avatar of Mystra herself.
==Personality==
She appeared to be a sadistic person.
==Description==
She was tall and sleek. She had proud, dark eyes, ivory skin, and glossy hair even longer than her long, long legs. Her features were pleasantly angular, and she moved with serene fearlessness. During Elminster's first meeting with her, she wore a gown and black boots, with no cloak.
==Abilities==
Dasumia was capable of working magic unnoticed, launching numerous deadly hanging and controlling spells even through a normal conversation. She also wielded the curious darkfire of Bane. Amongst other spells, she used one that made bolts of searing luminescence spring from her face, bodice, and hands, which Elminster could not wholly return; another of her spells created spinning bands of silver around her, which turned into attacking chains. She wielded some sort of spell-shield as well. Another spell created purple ricocheting lightning that spread from all around; another spell of hers conjured a cloud of green dust, which caused temporary petrification. She could also cast spells that were chained, setting one off as the previous was negated: in a spell-battle against Elminster, she launched a swarm of spinning blades, which released a snake-like whip upon nullification. This last spell could nullify a wall of force. Another of her spells hurled all of someone's bones out of their bodies, a killing spell akin to call bones.
Other spells she wielded at a later date included one that forced people to act according to her will, and another that caused an opponent to bloat out of his clothes, growing numb and heavy, with shifting limbs and many overlapping folds of flesh. Another spell of hers caused gravity to invert. She could also teleport to nearby locations, turn her blood to acid, and turn a helmed horror into a cone of deadly shrapnel.
==Possessions==
During her first meeting with Elminster, she was carrying a wand. She later wielded a rod she employed to explode the house of Holivanter. She also had a notable mask of unknown properties, if any.
==Activities==
Dasumia's day-to-day tasks were unknown, but she later became Queen of Galadorna. Her reign was largely one of absence.
==Relationships==
Dasumia was a Banite. One of her apprentices prior to Elminster had been Nadrathen. In Galadorna, she was obeyed by a number of helmed horrors.
==History==
Dasumia had had several apprentices down through the years. Three apprentices of them had kissed her unbidden; none of them survived her darkfire. One of her apprentices had been Nadrathen, who later became a Chosen of Mystra.
In mid-to-late winter of the , after liberating Buckralam's Starn, the Chosen of Mystra, Elminster Aumar, received a sign from his goddess calling on him to "serve the one called Dasumia". In Felmorel by spring of that same year, he learned there was a "Lady of Shadows" ruling lands east of that realm; his next vision from Mystra carried the message "seek me in shadows". After he fought and defeated the creature he named Silent Antlers at Tresset's Ringyl, Dasumia, unknown to him, took a hidden, magical scepter from the crumbling Ringyl.
Elminster finally met Dasumia shortly after, at the Riven Stone. Though he introduced himself as Elminster Aumar, the One who Walks, and as a Chosen of Mystra, she claimed that twoscore mages calling themselves that had come to her two months prior even during the snows, a dozen the month after, and one so far that month. But she also claimed that a dream-vision told her to seek an apprentice there. Elminster was aware that his silver fire at that moment countered a plethora of attempts to enslave and to leave slaying spells hanging on him. Nevertheless, he would become her apprentice as bidden.
Some of Elminster's punishments as Dasumia's apprentice included crawling on broken limbs and being strapped into a girdle of everhealing while being stabbed with poisoned and acidic weapons. While an apprentice, Elminster spent much time on his knees, praying to Mystra, which Dasumia saw. She also took a man as her lover, then tired of him, and turned him into a purple worm, leaving him stuck in the spits behind her stable; the man was later rescued by Elminster. She also bid Elminster create skeletons; he would create thirty-six. In the , Dasumia took Elminster to the tower of Holivanter, a rival mage, and commanded him to slay the man. When Elminster hesitated, Dasumia exploded the tower with a spell herself, and later used her own darkfire to punish Elminster; she held him by the shoulders, coming as close as she ever had with him. She then told him he'd serve her by slaying Nadrathen, a previous apprentice of hers, and another Chosen of Mystra.
Dasumia finally tested Elminster in a spell battle at the turn of spring to summer that year, which convinced her he was ready to battle Nadrathen. However, on the summer day in which they teleported to the House of the Unicorn in Nethrar to slay Nadrathen, it was Dasumia who struck the final blow instead of leaving it to Elminster. She then crowned herself Queen of Galadorna, the throne that Nadrathen had sought to usurp.
As Queen, she left Elminster to do all the work as her seneschal, and didn't use her power often enough to inspire terrified obedience, which made his task nigh-impossible; his decrees were ignored constantly, corruption and graft were rampant, and magic became a part of the intrigues and deaths: the land became a "nest of spell-hurling vipers" in the words of a local mage. Finally, one evening, she took the guards Ingrath and Delver to join her in a late-night ritual to Bane, where they'd become sacrifices. This prompted Elminster's final rebellion and he broke her control of the soldiers and tried to slay her. He managed to knock her out, but found himself disabled by her magic; after he tried to intercede with Mystra, she revealed that Dasumia was not actually a Banite, the ritual was modified, and that Dasumia, rather than a sorceress, was her own avatar. She then stole away with Elminster into the sky, leaving Galadorna to be destroyed before the end of the year.
Somehow, by spring of the , Dasumia had been captured by the Church of Shar and trapped in a sphere within the House of Holy Night in the Shaar, where her power was siphoned off by continuous human sacrifice. This also had the effect of inducing wild magic throughout the Realms, thwarting almost all spells.
==Appendix==
===Notes===
===See Also===
* Myrjala Talithyn
===Appearances===
===References===
Category:Wizards
Category:Humans
Category:Worshipers of Bane
Category:Avatars
Category:Inhabitants of Toril
Category:Inhabitants of Faerûn
Category:Inhabitants of East Faerûn
Category:Inhabitants of the Castle of the Lady
Category:Inhabitants of the Unapproachable East
Category:Inhabitants of Nethrar
Category:Inhabitants of Galadorna