Diana of the Dragonlance

## Diana arrives in Shangare

*“A warrior never cedes her personal power to anything, not even to her death.”*

-Diana

## History

Born in Naus Mau, the daughter of Mandlenkosi and Antigone. Both were members of Naus Mau’s warrior aristocracy dedicated to hunting dragons, but but their role had become ceremonial. Though they were proud of Diana, they never understood her decision to take those duties seriously and bear her clan's Dragonlance with pride.

Diana came into civilized lands on the trail of Grayndeon the Dark, the last Black Dragon of Namerya. The dragon had made its lair in the swamps near the Great River, and preyed upon merchant caravans, making himself fantastically wealthy in the process. Diana needed allies in her hunt for the dragon, and found them in the five men and women currently in Al Basazar. Upon their triumph, their fame was cemented, as was their bonds - and their rivalries.

Diana did not stay put in any one location, seeking out the most dangerous of beasts to slay and bring back to the civilized world as grisly trophies. During this time, she had minimal contact with the other heroes.

The six heroes would once more two years later, when Tel Kibair was threatened by an ancient and corrupted phoenix, Solaris Eternus. This time, it was Sabahattin who called them together, for he considered the fallen creature’s immortality to be blasphemous. They accomplished the task to little fanfare, and returned to their ordinary lives.

Diana returned briefly from her hunts, meeting Angon in Abu Hasan first. She learned little of value from him, and went next to Al Basazar, where she was wined and dined by Sabahattin. Sylviane told her what she knew, which included fragments of what was going in the Laboratory of Varas. Diana went on a fact-finding expedition to Varas, but found Shaarabahn to be reticent and evasive, and Vaajar actively stonewalled her investigations. Disturbed and suspicious, she would have continued her scrutiny, but her efforts were interrupted by the return of Laz Yap, the deposed Dictator of Namerya. Determined to seize immortality before he succumbed to old age, the exiled tyrant made an attempt to capture the Fountain of Eternal Youth. Knowing that Namerya would be plagued by Laz Yap forever if he succeeded in his task, Diana enlisted Shaarabahn’s aid in stopping him. While she went to Al Basazar to find Sabahattin, Sylviane, and Rose, Shaarabahn went to find Angon in Abu Hasan. As with Grayndeon, each of them had a reason to kill Laz Yap. To Sabahattin, he was a godless tyrant who would subvert god’s law by seeking eternal life, and where he went, Sylviane would follow. Angon, once Consul, hated Laz Yap for the harm he had done to the country, and Shaarabahn went at Vaajar’s behalf, to take vital ingredients from the fountain itself. Rose knew that if Laz Yap ever returned to power, Al Basazar’s freedom would be in grave danger, and possibly the front line for another pointless war. The six heroes fought Laz Yap and his followers in the shadow of the fountain, and emerged triumphant, killing the exiled dictator, though Rose took a mortal blow in the battle. An argument was had over whether to save her or not, with Angon and Shaarabahn arguing to give her water from the Fountain of Youth. The former did not think it was right to waste her life of Al Basazar’s protector, while the latter did not want to see his friend die. Nor did he want to leave without seeing the properties of the Fountain. Sabahattin and Sylviane argued to let her succumb to her wounds. Sabahattin maintained that immortality was against the natural order, a blasphemy against the Maker, and that he could not in good conscience inflict such a state upon a friend. For her part, Sylviane argued that Rose would not want the curse and burden of immortality, and that it would be better to let her die in peace, and that she would have been proud to perish in battle this way. Diana proved the tiebreaker vote, arguing to save Rose, and admonishing her friends for bickering over petty matters as she lay dying. In the aftermath, Angon would take the responsibility and the blame for her resuscitation, as it was he who administered the water from the Fountain, he who proposed the idea, and he who was its loudest proponent.

The six heroes would never again gather as a group after that day.

Diana would emerge during the darkest stage of the war. She had originally bided her time, hunting monstrosities originally kept away by civilization, but returned to Varas to resume her investigation into the workings of the Laboratory. Enraged by the her prying, Vaajar sent Shaarabahn to kill her, and the two fought in the atrium of the Laboratory. Shaarabahn was badly wounded and beaten nearly to unconsciousness, the Second Most Dangerous failing to defend his title. He was far more a specialist then a warrior, and crippled by a hesitation to fight a fellow hero. Most of all, he was well known by virtue of his status, whereas Diana, who shunned fame, was an unknown quantity. Nonetheless, he refused to say what he was working on in the Laboratory. Diana considered killing him, but held back. She entered farther into the Laboratory, where she was confronted by Vaajar and several Chimera. She attacked him, killing several Chimera and wounding him before being forced to a standstill. Thinking on his feet, Vaajar realized that if he was able to subdue her, he could, upon reclaiming the Philosopher’s Stone, use her memories to create the first perfect Homunculus. He informed her that she was lucky that he only possessed a fragment of the Philosopher's Stone, and not the completed artifact, and invited her to see his work. Upon seeing the stasis tanks occupied by the gestating Homunculi, she divined their meaning, and drove her lance through her own pod, killing the infant creature within. She told Vaajar that her could still kill her, but that no abomination would be born from her death. Vaajar merely shrugged, and told her that she could leave, asking her only what she would do with it. She told him that he would kill Sabahattin, an idea that made him laugh.

The final stages of the unification wars were fought between Sabahattin and two other warlords, Lord Alphaeus of the Chthonic Lands, and Enver, High Chieftain of the Techno-Barbarians. After meeting with both of them, Diana found Alphaeus to be an avaricious pretender eager to claim the Philosopher’s Stone for his own, and a cruel overlord to the people that lived in his land. Enver, though a brutal and primitive warleader, was more of a kindred spirit, and the two formed a bond of necessity and shared martial honor. She served as his general and champion, hiding her face and using a sword instead of a lance, both because she had left her lance in the Laboratory, and to hide her fighting style. It was only after Alphaeus was defeated and killed that she emerged, during the final battle between the Techno-Barbarians and the Army of the Whirlwind. Enver had issued a challenge to Sabahattin to fight him in person, which Sabahattin declined, proposing a duel between champions. The decision was not one of cowardice, for he trusted in the power of the Philosopher’s Stone, and genuinely believed that he was the Maker’s instrument on earth, impervious to harm. He has his suspicions about Enver’s champion, and wanted to see her fight. He sent forth Sylviane to fight in his place, prompting scorn and derision from the Techno-Barbarians, who mocked him for hiding behind his wife. Sylviane fought well, but was struck down and slain. Diana showed her no mercy, remembering how she had been quick to condemn Rose to die before the waters of the Fountain of Youth. Sabahattin stepped forth from the ranks of his army, and using the Philosopher’s Stone, resurrected Sylvaine from the dead. As both sides stood in awe of the miracle, Sabahattin, unarmed and unarmored, invoked the providence of god, and demanded to fight Diana to avenge the act. Furious, Enver demanded to take her place, but Diana refused, asking only that she be given a lance for this fight. Even if it were not her own, it would serve her better then the sword she had been using. In the course of their fight, she dealt him dozens of mortal wounds, which healed as soon as they formed. Sabahattin let her continue, before summoning the full power the Stone, transmuting the sunlight into living fire that incinerated Diana and left him unscathed. Long after the battle, the Grand Vizier would write her out of all history as a kindness, so that she would not be remembered as a traitor.

On a forgotten battlefield, buried beneath ash and bones, Diana rose as a revenant, empowered by necromantic energies and a grim fixation on vengeance. Determined to find Sabahattin and kill him, she did not realize that he was long dead. And yet, Experiment #216 called out to her, and she began her hunt. Over the centuries, she has followed the Homunculus through the Wastes, and their battles have been legendary. For his part, #216 was unfazed by the dragoon, and gratified by the vindication of his identity. He has travelled through civilized lands and distant communities in the waste, learning the cultures of each village, city, and tribe he has come across. Experiment #216 cannot stay in one place, for if he does, Diana is only one step behind him.

## Personality

Proud, fearsome, and righteous, Diana stood firmly for her own beliefs. She never flinched at danger and duty, and expected the same dedicated and devotion from others. Her fellow man, for whom she fought so hard, was a continual disappointment in her eyes. No one could ever meet her standards, not her countrymen in Naus Mau, who she abandoned, nor her fellow heroes, against whom she raised her lance in grim resolve. Her fate was a painful one. She, who seemed destined for a glorious death and the admiration of generations to come was consigned to a miserable, eternal half-life utterly forgotten. She and her quarry are immortal, and so Diana will hunt for all time, forever cursed.

## After the War

After the fall of Aglazdere, Experiment #216 would follow Annakiya and the Philosopher's Stone into Shangare, Diana fast on his heels. Furious about the chaos that the two brought, Emperor Kuldeep would dispatch Annakiya and Toranna to capture the revenant, a task that proved arduous but ultimately successful. Diana was shackled in a gaol deep in the city of Rasure.

## The Great Awakening

When Francis slew the Maker with the Userper's Silver Key, the Philosopher's Stone would crumble to red power, and Experiment #216 became mortal. Once this came about, Ithiel Onesiphorus would free Diana from her captivity, enabling her to hunt down the former Padishah and send him to oblivion at last. Her duty done, she would rest at last.