Sarhana Panagrim

*“Once someone dreams a dream, it can't just drop out of existence. But if the dreamer can't remember it, what becomes of it? It lives on in the north, deep under ice. There are forgotten dreams stored in many layers. The deeper one digs, the closer they are. All the north rests on a foundation of forgotten dreams.”*

-Sarhana Panagrim

## History

The only daughter of Gravyn Panagrim, the Mayor of Onryx, Sarhana's earliest memories were of fleeing the great old one Wormwood on their flying city, Onryx. The people of Onryx landed near the Empire of Arendur, where they became refugees. At first, they were treated with magnanimity, and Sarhana herself was encouraged by her father to join the Illuminated, where she became the assistant to Jotunheim. She helped him out in running the Branch of the Staff, but became the victim of an experiment in which Jotunheim attempted to shed his child-like curse. Sarhana became afflicted as well, and Jotunheim was able to temporarily assume the form of an adult, but only temporarily and at great cost to himself. The experiment was a failure, and Jotunheim was wracked by guilt. He had only overheard Sarhana complaining that she never wanted to grow up, and he took that as permission to carry out his experiment. To try and set things right with her, Jotunheim chose Sarhana as his personal apprentice, and she took to his tutelage admirably, becoming adroit in matters of the arcane.

The years of Tolumvire's exile were harsh on the gnomes of Onryx, who were treated as second-class citizens and exploited by the industrialist Isaac Icarus, who enslaved them in his mines. It was then that they became known as the Cobalt Pygmies - pygmies, because that was what Icarus derisively called them - and cobalt, because Icarus employed them to refine cobalt from the earth for use in his machines. Sarhana herself was safe in the Tower of the Illuminated, but she tried desperately speak up on behalf of her people. Jotunheim lobbied the Council on her behalf, but only succeeded in offending Isaac Icarus, who persuaded the Doppelganger to slash the Branch of the Staff's research funds. The Doppelganger, who was closely allied with the Arendurian Army, needed Icarus' technology and weaponcraft, and so had no real choice but to obey.

During this time, Sarhana became to exhibit the ability to remember her sojourns in the Dreamlands. She became close to Grundelthum Sunder, a fellow dreamer, who taught her to control her abilities.

After the fall of the Arendurian Empire, the Cobalt Pygmies fled north where they established a hardscrabble kingdom in Jotunheim. These years were harsh, and the gnomes faced danger on all sides. And yet they endured. The greatest danger they faced arose when they came under the scrutiny of the Hexenjägers, who suspected them of witchcraft. Franz Forrawyn himself arrived in their frozen capital under the guise of a diplomatic mission, and was quick to spot Sarhana as a mage. Things might have escalated, but her father Gravyn managed to reach an accord with the Fuhrer. The Cobalt Pygmies, explained the King, were under the protection of the King of Jotunheim, Ymir, who was closely allied with Marshal Abi Eodauga of Nadezhda. Tensions were already high, and this was no time to spark a war. King Gravyn promised Franz Forrawyn that in the Reich's time of need, the Cobalt Pygmies would come to their aid. The Fuhrer grudgingly accepted, and the gnomes recorded euphemistically (or satirically) in their chronicles that Franz Forrawyn had been the only man to ever best the King in a snowball fight. In fact, the snowball fight *had* happened - but it was hardly main takeaway of their harrowing encounter with the Reich.

## Personality

Empress Sarhana is a calm and serene monarch, who has seen the suffering of the world and been filled with determination to preserve childlike wonder. She fights an eternal battle to stave off despair, and does not wish to inflict her doubts upon others.

## War of the Philosopher-Kings

King Gravyn was growing elderly and frail by the time the War of the Philosopher-Kings broke out, and Sarhana was already beginning to take on many of his duties. When the war began, the Cobalt Pygmies were in a dire position, for they had been commanded by King Ymir to muster for battle, and yet they owed a binding favor to Franz Forrawyn. The Cobalt Pygmies chose to sit out the war, stating that the only way to repay their favor and satisfy their feudal duties was to reach a compromise.

This compromise enraged both sides.

In a fury, King Ymir dispatched his darkest servant, the frost giant necromancer Vostr-Hirraldyng, to make an example of the Cobalt Pygmies so that the other tribes might take notice. Vostr-Hirraldyng and his giants slaughtered many gnomes and might have wiped out the tribe entirely, but had to leave them to lick their woulds and return to his king's side to join the war proper. Nor did the Hexenjägers treat the Cobalt Pygmies any more kindly - only their way north, Franz Forrawyn sacked the gnomish city and subjected a number of suspected mage to the blood eagle. The Cobalt Pygmies hid Sarhana from the Hexenjägers, and as punished, her father Gravyn was executed. Only the urging of Emperor Arthur Coralis of World's End and the need to press northwards as fast as possible spared the Cobalt Pygmies from extinction.

Decimated and demoralized, the Cobalt Pygmies rallied around Sarhana, crowning her their new monarch. Still youthful as a result of her curse, she won the moniker of "Childlike Empress." The Cobalt Pygmies spent the rest of the war recovering, warily watching and waiting to see who would emerge victorious.

## After the War

The land of the Cobalt Pygmies fell under the sway of the greater Reich after the war, but Reise Forrawyn had little interest in pursuing her father's grievances, nor the resources to waste on the Cobalt Pygmies. They persisted for a short time, but danger came in the form of an old adversary - Vostr-Hirraldyng, who had not forgotten their failure to rally to King Ymir's cause. Vostr-Hirraldyng had gathered a small host of surviving giants who had escaped the fires of Brennen's wrath, and convinced them that the Cobalt Pygmies were among those to blame for their fall. In truth, Vostr-Hirraldyng was only interested in stealing their magical lore, but they proved a useful scapegoat to keep his followers united behind him. The Cobalt Pygmies fought back against the giants as best they could, but as before, they were slaughtered, and this time Vostr-Hirraldyng had to war front that he needed to return to. Before long, the fighting fit amongst the Cobalt Pygmies were dead, leaving the women, children, and elderly. Taking an enormous risk that put her very understanding of the Dreamlands to the test, Sarhana convinced the surviving Pygmies to join her in a magical slumber while she cast a spell to guide them to safety in the Dreamlands, using a magical crystal flower (which originated in the ancient homeland of the gnomes, before they took to the skies) which magnified her power greatly. Vostr-Hirraldyng and his giants fell upon the sleeping gnomes, killing them before they could wake. What he did not realize was that their spirits lived on in the Dreamlands.

Now that her people were safe, Sarhana established a society in accordance with her values - a society where no one needed to ever grow up, nor lose their childlike sense of wonder. She created and planted a field of flowers in honor of her slain father, and planted the crystal flower in the center. Using it as a kind of arcane focus, she made her dream guidance permanent, so that her people would not forget the waking world. This came with an inherent danger - should the flower ever be picked, the spell would end, and without any bodies to awake to, her people would pass on into the afterlife.

The Cobalt Pygmies received many travelers and treated them with warmth and whimsy. None of them would remember their encounters upon waking, which was to Sarhana's liking. In time, however, the Cobalt Pygmies received more and more visitors, and the Dreamlands itself seemed to morph and blur. It was becoming clear to her that the boundary line between the waking world and the Dreamlands was growing thin, and that the Pygmies faced an uncertain and violent future for which they were not prepared. The final blow came when Sarhana received the third northern expedition, and met - for the first time - another dreamer, the Yuan-Ti Venom Tilani. The expedition had not entered the Dreamlands in the normal way, through slumber, but had simply slipped between the world. Realizing that they way of life was at an end, Sarhana asked the expedition to take the crystal flower and bear it until the world became a gentler place, and plant it somewhere fitting. She could not bear the though of her people, for whom she had labored so hard to make a childlike and innocent home for, to be plunged into a mad and violent world. Better that they pass on into a dreamless slumber.