Vannifar

Vannifar is an Azata-blooded aasimar sorceress.

Born in the decadent eastern city of Ilzafar, also known as the city of Six Pillars due to six towering spires of rock crystal raised from a nearby mountain by a wizard in some long-ago era, Vannifar was left an orphan at the age of fifteen when her mother passed away from pneumonia, her father having died a soldier's death shortly after she was born.

In order to support her two younger sisters, Vannifar became a courtesan, trading on the exotic beauty of an azata-blooded aasimar to secure a relatively comfortable position with one of the city's many purveyors of hedonism. As the years passed, Vannifar grew increasingly well-known, and managed to attain some measure of wealth. Her sister Arianna left to become a sailor when she came of age, and the youngest of the three, Lilia, was able to marry a carpenter's apprentice.

Altogether, the three sisters would have lived comfortable, fairly ordinary lives, if not for Vannifar's discovery of sorcerous powers at the age of thirty-seven. The event itself involved a rather prominent noble client, a visiting oracle, a kettle of oysters, a cat, three silver daggers, a flying carpet, and an animate pudding. After that particular incident was over, the noble client had been choked by pudding, the visiting oracle had run off, the cat was impaled by daggers, oysters were spread all over the castle, and the flying carpet was nowhere to be found.

Vannifar's career took a sharp turn after that. After narrowly talking her way out of arrest, she opted for tutoring with one of her clients, himself a powerful sorcerer, and began to grow into the powers of her protean heritage. Over the next decade she periodically made excursions out of the city to go exploring, saw both her sisters settled down with a lot of gold, and took up the pursuit that would shape the rest of her life - the pursuit of ultimate beauty.

No illusionary or enchanted perfection would satisfy Vannifar, however. Her search for true perfection meant transmutation magic, and her attempts to unlock greater and greater power became increasingly frenzied. Vannifar was lovely in her youth, but as she gained greater and greater power, she was able to attain truly inhuman standards of beauty. Her charm knew no equal, and her popularity as courtesan and entertainer was unmatched.

Ilzafar became Vannifar's playground. Thousands flocked to the city in order to hear her performances, and she grew exceedingly wealthy, so much so that by the age of eighty-three, half the city was in her pocket, and her face was known around the continent. Unknown to her admirers, however, was the fact that her beauty and vivacity was not entirely due to celestial genes and natural charm.

Early on in her pursuit of ultimate beauty, Vannifar's studies had yielded up a truth that many would find disquieting, were it known to them. Humanity has an inverse relationship to beauty. When one increases, the other decreases. Therefore, the more humanoid one is, the less beautiful one can be. In order to increase her beauty, Vannifar was slowly sacrificing her humanity.

At age 84, Vannifar whittled away the last of the humanity she had been eagerly trading for decades, and joined the ranks of the undead. Vannifar being Vannifar, however, that only made her *hotter.* The undead of Varisia are bound by a single truth - the greater their force of personality, the harder they are to kill. Therefore, those who were extraordinarily hot in life are nigh-unstoppable in death.

The final descent of Vannifar had begun. After becoming undead, Vannifar was able to push her body to greater extremes in her search for transmutation-enabled beauty. Words cannot adequately describe the things she did to herself. What had started out as an aesthetic search for fulfillment had grown into an obsession, and then curdled into horror. Vannifar became something uncanny, something dreadful - something as hot as a wildfire, and just as all-consuming.

Not that her fans would be bothered by that, of course. It turns out that taking a stunning woman and making her even sexier is pretty much a universally approved move. For many decades, Vannifar was able to continue operating in Ilzafar as if she were living, doting on her grandchildren and studying magic untroubled. However, when she turned 218, certain elements in the city became suspicious of her, as a life of over two centuries is quite long, even for an aasimar.

Needless to say, a secretive investigation was launched, a group formed, and a raid conducted on her manor in the dead of night. The next day, the dust piles were swept away, and Vannifar dined out at the uptown restaurant Le Haf. Two years of consolidating her hold on the city followed, and then this campaign begins.