Sophie Swanheart

Sophie Swanheart is a Shadowfell Dark Lord of the Domain of Dread, the Cursed Forest. She is more commonly known as the Witch Queen of the Cursed Forest. She was the last Dark One of the Material Plane.

## Appearance

Sophie appears as a fair young woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and gray eyes. In her true, magic-poisoned appearance that she dons at night, she has scaly green skin and scraggly white hair.

## Personality

Sophie is conniving and duplicitous. She is arrogant and prideful in her vast magical abilities. Ever talkative and quippy, she has a fearsome but reliant reputation.

## Biography

Sophie was born in the early 1000s as the middle sister of triplets. Her older sister was named Agatha and her younger sister was named Emma. Agatha was born as a shadow sorceress while Emma was born as a divine soul sorceress. Sophie was born with no magic powers. The triplet's mother died in childbirth, unable to survive the raw magic power of her daughters.

The sisters lived in a predominantly elvish forest community known as the Charmed Forest. As the sisters grew up, Sophie went to the local magic school to learn primal and druidic magics. The sisters also travelled with their father to the minor kingdoms bordering the Charmed Forest.

The triplets' father, Riderick, soon remarried to Gilda Snow, the princess of the forest, who was the daughter of the Druid King, who became their stepmother. Gilda became especially close to Sophie because she was born without the great druidic powers her bloodline was known for. Gilda became another magic mentor for Sophie and even sent her to several magic institutions to broaden her horizons.

Sophie, Emma, and Agatha once delved into a dungeon and defeated a powerful magic user known as the Dark One. They learned that the only way to defeat the Dark One was that one of them needed to kill the Dark One with a magic dagger and take his powers for themselves. Sophie volunteered to be the one to take on the mantle, stabbed the Dark One, and acquired his powers, becoming the new Dark One. Upon returning to the Charmed Forest, the Druid King was angry that Sophie had absorbed such unnatural powers. Her sisters convinced the Druid King to let Sophie stay in the Charmed Forest on the condition that Sophie allow the Druid King to seal away her Dark One powers.

Gilda was soon accused by the Druid King of killing her older sister to get to the throne, an accusation backed up by Riderick. The Druid King believed in her guilt so strongly that he instantly sentenced her to death. The day of Gilda's execution was meant to be a day of entertainment for the surrounding royalty. Angry at the injustice that her stepmother was going to face, Sophie planned to fight for Gilda's freedom. When the moment arrived, Sophie tore through the ranks of the guards before she was magically restrained by her own sisters. Emma had become the Champion of the Charmed Forest and the Druid King's heir, while Agatha had become a great adventurer, and both stood against their sister. Sophie was forced to watch as Gilda was executed.

Shortly after, Sophie's Dark One powers were unsealed with the help of the Ravenloft Dark Powers. Sophie gained control of the magic surge and used it to instantly poison her father, the Druid King, and the visiting kings and queens. Sophie then went to take care of the three princesses that could stand against her. She put one princess under a sleeping curse and lifted her castle into the air, trapping her there. She turned the other princess into a beast and her guards into stone warriors and trapped them in the kingdom's magic labyrinth. She drowned the third princess and fused her reanimated corpse with that of a squid and trapped her kingdom in the poisoned waters.

Emma and Agatha stood against Sophie and fought her after she killed the princesses, but their powers could not beat the empowered Sophie. As she watched her sisters choke to death on her magic, the Mists engulfed the Charmed Forest and the neighboring kingdoms, pulling them into Shadowfell. In Ravenloft, the Charmed Forest was renamed the Cursed Forest, and Sophie crowned herself the queen.

In the Cursed Forest, the princesses she killed and tortured gained new powers and rose against her. Sophie spends most of her days fighting off poisoned sea creature army of the Sea Princess and reshaping the stone labyrinth to make sure the Beast Princess doesn't escape. When she is asleep, she fights the flying dream demons of the Dreaming Princess. Sophie is also forced to stay in her magic poisoned form from sundown to sunup.

Sophie would normally be capable of resurrecting Gilda, but she is cursed to never be able to. She is always busy with fighting the princesses or fulfilling her deals with mortals to have any time to do the proper resurrection ritual.

Sophie also has an enemy in Laud'lauralai the Nightmare Queen, a benevolent but frightening archfey. During one of their battles, Sophie gouged out Laud'lauralai's eyes. She keeps them in a jar in her stronghold, the Sorcerous Stronghold.

Sophie sometimes deals with mortals, creating curses and exchanging them to warlocks and wizards who beseech her. Eventually, she always claims those mortals for her own court.

## Relationships

### Allies

* The Huntsman General: The Huntsman General was a mortal who lived in the Charmed Forest before its assimilation into Ravenloft. He had a reputation as the greatest archer in the kingdoms. Upon the Cursed Forest's pull into Shadowfell, he tried to take care of the remaining people, until many of them were killed by soldiers of the Sea and Beast Princesses. Furious, he made a pact with Sophie, pledging his service to her in exchange for the power to enact vengeance on the princesses. With this pact, he became her Huntsman General, in charge of her armies.
* The Phantom Spymaster: The Phantom Spymaster was once a mortal named Carlo Costa. Divination magic told Sophie that Carlo would be a great asset to Sophie. She contacted him via dreams and visions. Carlo rejected her influence at first, but accepted a deal with her to allow his stillborn son to live. Sophie took some of Carlo's vitality, turning him into a ghost-mortal hybrid. Carlo soon abandoned his family and allowed Sophie to bring him into the Cursed Forest, where he assumed the mantle of her spymaster.
* The Dream Guardian: The Dream Guardian was a kalashtar named Starla abandoned by her parents in the Material Plane. As a baby, her ability to travel planes manifested itself, and she plunged herself through the Feywild, the Astral Plane, and the Abyss before ending up in Sophie's corner of Ravenloft. Upon coming across the child, Sophie decided to have her servants raise the child. As she grew, she mastered her psychic and planar powers and was able to travel through dreamscapes. The Dream Guardian became Sophie's primary ally in her dreamscape battles against the Dreaming Princess.

### Family

* Gilda Snow: Gilda was Sophie's stepmother. The two were very close ever since Riderick's marriage to Gilda due to having similar feelings of being outsiders in their magical families. Gilda facilitated much of Sophie's magic learning. When Gilda was accused of killing her sister Zelda, Sophie stood by Gilda and defended her. Seeing Gilda's execution is what triggered Sophie to kill the royals.
* Riderick Swanheart: Sophie and her father were once close, but grew apart as Sophie grew closer to Gilda. When Riderick sided with the Druid King against Gilda, Sophie had no qualms about murdering her father in revenge.
* The Druid King: Sophie and her step-grandfather have had a rather rocky relationship which was not improved by the Druid King rejecting her for taking the mantle of the Dark One and almost casting her out of the Charmed Forest. Sophie's anger with him only grew when he ordered Gilda's execution. Sophie has no qualms about murdering him.
* Emma and Agatha Swanheart: Sophie and her sisters were once close, but Emma and Agatha stood against her once Sophie turned on her family and killed their father and step-grandfather. Sophie eventually had no qualms killing Emma and Agatha. It seems that she eventually began to harbor guilt over her decision. She hates all divine soul sorcerers because they remind her of Emma and hates Laud'lauralai because she reminds her of Agatha.

### Enemies

* Laud'lauralai: Laud'lauralai is one of Sophie's greatest enemies. Laud'lauralai is essentially the opposite of Sophie; she is a benevolent archfey who looks ghoulish while Sophie is an evil dark lord who appears as a fair lady. Sophie hates her because she reminds her of her sister, Agatha. Sophie is the one who gouged out Laud'lauralai's eyes.
* The Sea Princess: Thalassa the Sea Princess was drowned by Sophie and fused with a squid, becoming a cecaelia. The Sea Princess is one of the three princesses that stand against Sophie; she commands her undersea army to rise from the Festering Sea and storm the Cursed Forest. The Sea Princess's father and six younger sisters were all killed by Sophie.
* The Beast Princess: The Beast Princess was turned into a monstrous form by Sophie and trapped in a Labyrinth. The Beast Princess still has the respect and command of her warriors, now turned into living statues. She uses her newfound strength to break out of the Shadowstone Labyrinth and storm the Cursed Forest. The Beast Princess's parents and older brother were killed by Sophie.
* The Dreaming Princess: Borealis the Dreaming Princess was the first princess Sophie took care of. She was merely placed under a sleeping curse, with her castle placed in the sky in an orbit above the Cursed Forest. Over the years, the Dreaming Princess learned to control her dreamscape and used her mind to create dream demons. She pierced through her dreamscape and found an entrance into Sophie's, where she and her army of dream demons torment her as she sleeps. The Dreaming Princess's mothers were killed by Sophie.

## Abilities

### General Abilities

* Magic: Sophie is a master of nearly all magic. She can call upon sorcerous, primal, and arcane magics. She has access to every spell list except for the artificer and cleric spell list. This has no effect on her number of spell slots.
* Cursed Forest Manipulation: Sophie can bend the Cursed Forest to her will. She can close the borders of the demiplane by weaving the cursed trees into a a gnarled barrier. Sophie can also control the orbit of the Spinning Castle, the walls and boundaries of the Shadowstone Labyrinth, and the properties of the Festering Sea.

## Trivia

* Sophie is inspired by twisted fairy tales.