Lady Savy'na

**Lady Savy'na**, once known as *Melissra Dionysa*, is a human member of the Shadow Cult. One of a very few non elven mortals to be admitted to the cult. The exact origin of the woman is unknown, but her position is well earned. For few mortals manage to impress Greatmother Lucaerna.

## History

Hailing from the small Barony of Dionis , an isolated place of minor intrigue and politics. A land consumed with its own matters and that of the local realms, the intrigues of the ruling class were usually harmless enough, occasionally devolving into minor scandals, but rarely all-out troubles. Into this world was born Melissra, last born child of the minor noble family which presides over the land.

By her third decade, the woman who would join a cult of elves and demons had spent her entire life among the courts and trade-rooms of her powerful kin. Oft-ignored in favour of her more aggressive siblings, Melissra was left to turn inward and ponder the darkest regions of her own soul. Seeing her position, forgotten among her rivals, as little more than a matter for self-improvement, Melissra quickly rose to power by mercilessly removing her competition. In only a few years she had decimated her dynasty and seized control, while keeping its holdings intact. It was not enough for the newly-minted Baroness Melissra, though; she still had too little control over her world.

Desiring knowledge of secrets beyond mortal norms, she collected a court of learned magi and scholars, putting each to death after she mastered their knowledge. Among these men was a secretive Warlock. Hoping that it would end in her death, the Warlock taught Melissra the process by which to bind a powerful servant of the Legion to her own soul. His plan was simple in a sense, that the despotic woman could not hope to command such a creature, was foiled by two things; the failure of the warlock to properly understand from who he was obtaining his secrets from, and her overwhelming will and self-obsession. The demon summoned was not from the Nether, but of another order entirely , and it had seduced this warlock to its own end.

Though the ritual was long and exhausting, Melissra served as an unfortunate wrench in the works of the warlock and its master, for she was able to crush the demonic entity beneath the weight of her indomitable will. Now possessed of the energies of a powerful Succubus, the vain woman murdered the warlock and slew the remainder of her cabinet. She used her newly acquired felborne powers to exert more direct control over her subjects and her enemies, twisting their minds to her will, driving them mad with desire or jealousy, or eviscerating them with a thought. She continued to abuse the demon within her for years, draining its essence to fuel her ambitions and maintain her youth until she consumed its power, banishing it back into the nether to return to its Mother, and binding a new Succubus within, duplicating the magics learned by the unfortunate warlock.

Over the following decade she consumed a second and third demon entirely, and plunged her lands into utter chaos and conflict. When the third demon-soul withered and vanished within her, Melissra performed the ritual yet again, hoping to devour the power of a fourth Sayaad. It was then that she was yanked through the Nether to the Cathedral of Eternal Darkness where she found herself before Greatmother Lucaerna, who was both incredibly amused at the woman for her ambitions, and furious for the devouring of her Daughters. She overtook the woman, and forced upon her the Marks of the Faith, such that now as she took demons into her for power, now she would grow her own.

## Time in the Cult

Savyn, no longer able to resist Lucaerna's powers, fell into her new role. Despite her thralldom, she raged at the binding, trying to escape it. Throughout it all, her own solipsism and desire for betterment still held, but it eroded. It began to fall away as she spent more time near the Greatmother and fell deeper under the sway of the once-elf until eventually, the magic which had ensnared her overtook her, and she finally took a mate and became pregnant. As she birthed her first child, something clicked together in her, and her intense focus shifted from herself, to her offspring. To her eyes, this thing she had made was simply an extension of herself; and she would seek out those reflections and produce more.

Unable to draw her mind from the thought of pausing in her reproductions, she took mate after mate, and began a constant cycle of birth and repetition. Soon outproducing the very demons who had ensnared her, save for the Greatmother Herself. She found her place among the handmaidens, attending personally to the Mother Herself until she could move no longer, and forever more, she would take the name 'Savy'na'.

## Return to the Barony

As the Shal'dari reached a critical mass of growth, the society began reaching out its tendrils of influence to subvert and overtake villages such as Shalmara Village, Nightbreeze Village, and Akil’darah Village to create new societies in the image of what the Greatmother desired. Savy'na was chosen to return to her Lands and to take back her former position as Baroness.

It was a great ritual of teleportation to move the Broodmother she had become, but teleport she did, and when she appeared in the midst of the Merchant Council that had usurped her power in her absence at the head of a host of Shal'dari demons, there was chaos. Each one was subdued instantly...but not slain. Each one was captured, enthralled to a Sayaad, and returned home to their estates to manage their trade and their businesses as puppets to Savy'na's will. Soon after, she locked down the castle, permitting access only to Shal'dari or appropriate converts to the faith.

Since her return, she has taken a Majordomo, Lady Rachel Mandenhall to serve as her public face, and conducts business as usual to accrue resources, grow in influence, and spread the influence of the Cult of the Great Mother throughout her lands. Even now, she takes in new spawn, ready to birth a new generation of Darkborn humans to insert into the population to someday ensure a complete takeover and worship of herself....and the Greatmother above with a campaign of gradual psychic control over the population, growing stronger with each generation that grows from her bountiful care.