Elizaree the Magnificent

**Elizaree the Magnificent** CR 22

Ancient Red Dragon Sorcerer 3

XP 614,400

LE Gargantuan dragon (fire)

**Init** +6; **Senses** dragon senses, smoke vision; perception +38

**Aura** fire, frightful presence (300 ft., DC 33)

**Defense**

**AC** 41, flat-footed 37, touch 14 (+4 dex, +37 natural, +4 deflection, -4 size)

**HP** 402 (25d12+3d6+227)

**Fort** +27, **Ref** +22, **Will** +29, +2 vs poison

**DR** 15/magic; **Immune** fire, paralysis, sleep; SR 33

**Weaknesses** vulnerability to cold

**Offense**

**Speed** 40 ft., fly 250 ft. (clumsy)

**Melee** Bite +37 (4d6+22), 2 claws +37 (2d8+15), 2 wings +35 (2d6+7), tail slap +35 (2d8+22)

**Space** 20 ft.; **Reach** 15 ft. (20 ft. with bite)

**Special Attacks** breath weapon (60-ft. cone, 20d10 fire, DC 35), crush, manipulate flames, melt stone, tail sweep, corrupting touch (14/day)

**Spell-Like Abilities** (CL 15th, concentration +26)

*At Will* - detect magic, find the path, pyrotechnics (DC 22), suggestion (DC 25), wall of fire

**Spells Known** (CL 18th, concentration +29)

9th (4/day) - Mage's Disjunction

8th (6/day) - Mass Charm Monster (DC 33), Stormbolts (DC 31)

7th (8/day) - Forcecage (DC 28), Greater Scrying (DC 28), Caustic Eruption (DC 30)

6th (8/day) - True Seeing, Sirocco (DC 29), Contingency

5th (8/day) - Cone of Cold (DC 28), Mass Charm Person (DC 30), Wall of Force, Greater Peacebond (DC 26)

4th (8/day) - Dimension Door, Charm Monster (DC 29), Black Tentacles, Detect Scrying

3rd (9/day) - Haste, Ash Storm, Greater Stunning Barrier (DC 24), Protection from Energy

2nd (9/day) - Alter Self, Web (DC 23), Mirror Image, Glitterdust (DC 23), Share Language

1st (9/day) - Protection from Good, Charm Person (DC 26), Mage Armor, Shield, Obscuring Mist

0 (at will) - Detect Poison, Read Magic, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, Arcane Mark, Open/Close, Acid Splash, Ghost Sound (DC 21), Dancing Lights

**Statistics**

**Str** 40; **Dex** 14; **Con** 26; **Int** 23; **Wis** 24; **Cha** 32

**Base** Atk +26; **CMB** +45; **CMD** +57 (+62 vs trip)

**Feats** Combat Casting, Dazing Spell, Dimensional Agility, Extend Spell, Flyby Attack, Greater Spell Focus (Evocation, Enchantment) Hover, Improved Initiative, Multiattack, Quicken Spell, Spell Focus (Evocation, Enchantment)

**Skills** Appraise +29, Bluff +42, Diplomacy +42, Intimidate +42, Fly +33, Knowledge (Arcana) +34, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) +15, Knowledge (Engineering) +15, Knowledge (Geography) +15, Knowledge (History) +37, Knowledge (Local) +15, Knowledge (Nature) +15, Knowledge (Nobility) +34, Knowledge (Nature) +15, Knowledge (Religion) +15, Perception +38, Sense Motive +38, Spellcraft +34, Use Magic Device +42

**Languages** Auran, Celestial, Common, Draconic, Ignan, Infernal, Vishkanya

**Equipment** Amulet of Natural Armor +4, Belt of Physical Might (Str/Dex) +4, Cloak of Protection +5, Headband of Alluring Charisma +6, Ring of Protection +4

The Empress Elizaree rules over the Empire of Grandia, having fulfilled her life's ambition to carve her legacy into these lands and establish the foundations of a civilization that would dominate the coming era of the world. She is surrounded by swooning loyalists who answer to her every whim, and with each passing day her great nation grows stronger, larger, and wealthier. Elizaree has everything, but it was not always that way.

As a young red dragon, Elizaree was hatched and raised by a savage human warrior of the eastern lands who trained her to serve as his mount. The man was a conquering warlord, simple and barely literate, but with a basic understanding of the most fundamental of military tactics: strike with decisive force. Elizaree's master taught her repeatedly that the price of disobedience was pain. Yet the most important lessons Elizaree would learn was from the other slaves of the human tribe - the kobolds. From them Elizaree learned to read and was able to peruse tomes of lore and history. These tomes were taken as plunder by the tribe, hoping they might be magical. When the town mystic determined they were not magical these tomes were used as kindling, but the Kobolds would often save some. Elizaree came to comprehend just how simple and primitive her master was, and how easily the strong and stupid can overpower a superior mind. She resented his control, but she knew he was powerful even without the chains that held her fast. Starting on her sixteenth year, she frequently saw sorties and the might of this aging warrior for herself. It was in her twenty-ninth year that Elizaree was given from the retiring warlord to his son and heir. Seeing a chance at her freedom, Elizaree convinced the Kobold slaves to rig her harness to unlatch. They asked one thing of her in return: that she would find a way to free them from their shackles as well.

In the first battle with her new rider, Elizaree suddenly flipped upside down and the harness slipped loose. The young man held on by a single chain that yet held him to the dragon. After a brief life-and-death struggle between the two, Elizaree slammed the man into a building as she flew past it. When he lost his grip, she gained her freedom. The young dragon sped away into the distance, too quickly to be pursued by the other mounted warriors. She knew she was too weak to defeat the humans who had held her servant for so long, but she had learned many lessons from them. One warrior could be mighty indeed, but there was always a level of force that could overpower any individual. Her first thought was to find others of her own kind, but they were difficult to locate and roosted in remote locations. Those she did find were territorial and hostile, not at all the intellectual superiors she expected. Turning her attention to other potential followers, Elizaree found a tribe of lizardfolk. Dispossessed and chased into the swamplands by the humans, Elizaree saw them as little different from herself - overpowered by inferior savages and stripped of their dignity.

Elizaree came before these lizardfolk and began to teach them of their own superiority. After nine years of preparation, she assembled her followers for their first military campaign. Elizaree had read much of history, and understood that dividing the enemy was just as important as uniting her own followers. She used diplomacy to play each human tribe against the others, picking them apart one by one as her own followers' strength grew. After thirty years of expansion her Lizardfolk and Kobold followers came to dominate the region. Yet Elizaree was not content to live in this backwater of the world. She wanted to push outwards, towards the greater world, to contact the other great civilizations - the ones that must have written the many tomes she had read. Instead of the lizardfolk nations she expected, she found even more powerful human kingdoms.

Elizaree left her followers with instructions to continue to expand their civilization as she sought out allies abroad. Over the next few centuries Elizaree would establish bastions of scalykind dominance throughout the east. Yet she could find no trace of the scaled empires she expected, and came to believe that the savage humans had overrun them in ages past and only scraps of their wisdom and knowledge remained. It was in this time that she became a devout follower of Quieem, determined to revitalize the lost civilizations of old. Through her continued oversight the scaled kinds of these lands were flourishing once more. Facing ever-stronger resistance from humans and other less civilized races at home, Elizaree began to turn her attention to the rest of the world, and commanded her followers to begin expeditions to the distant southern lands. They found these lands ripe for the plunder, and the influx of gold and other commodities bolstered them. In particular, she found the vast wealth at her disposal finally was bringing draconic support to her side.

In time, Elizaree began to focus her attention to the south. The colonies were prospering, and facing much less organized resistance. She took her most powerful followers to the Plains of Grandia. Despite the frustration of the new beginning, she found the humans here were less organized and more easily turned against each other. When the time came for the Empire of Grandia to march across the plains and establish its power, it was too late for them to unite. Though the war was costlier than she had hoped, she saw her prospering empire of scalykind. With centuries still left in her long draconic lifespan she is now content to watch the slow march of progress she has set in motion.

Elizaree takes great enjoyment over the formalities of court. It is their civilized nature that brings them above the rabble of humanity, and throughout the centuries she has been smitten with dalliances of various sort. The most recent was the Lizardfolk champion Thomas Cabert. The man was a veteran of the war against the humans but was severely wounded in the battle of Ganterton. He became a common feature in court, and his stories of the war drew the admiration of the Empress. He is the father of the Crown Princess Bellaria. Like most of her predecessors, the Crown Princess does not expect to outlive and succeed her mother but will instead found a noble lineage within Grandian society.

The Dragon Empress is determined not to show weakness, but her heart is burdened by all she has lost over the years. She finds little comradery among dragon-kind, and other creatures live but short lives compared to her. Many of the bastions of scalykind in the east have fallen in the centuries since her departure from those lands, and others are now more cosmopolitan, unable to maintain their lizardfolk character amidst increasing emigration to Grandia. Yet a single thought to her origins - a shameful history she has not shared in half a millenia - and all she has achieved since then gives her strength and confidence. She would not trade what she has achieved for anything.