Character Profile 2:
Legendary Demonic Princess
In the heart of the Western Continent, there was a powerful sorceress who single-handedly shaped the world to her vision. Her ambition to unify civilization under one empire would lead to great prosperity and suffering for centuries to come.
Few records about her have survived. She was known by many names: The royal sorceress. The supreme highness. And most infamously, the untouchable demon. At the time, magicians like her were not seen as humans. She was a bad omen to the dynasty’s reign, and thus kept out of sight from the eyes of the kingdom’s subjects. Only the mages in the king’s inner military circle knew of her existence, as they carefully prodded her to figure out the wonders of her power. However, being born with such tremendous power sealed within, she was destined to be reckoned with. After a successful defense against an invading empire, she was propelled to frontlines, becoming the face of the nation. She possessed an extraordinary pair of glowing eyes with an unnatural pattern; three black arms that swirled out from her pupils. The princess could summon these menacing eyes at will, usually to carry out her magical spells.
Her presence in battle led to the unprecedented rise of an empire; the largest empire in history. Under her father’s command, it conquered nearly a third of the Western Continent, with her as his unwavering weapon. The empire’s ambition to invade the Eastern Continent was no secret, betrayed by the path of their destruction; an inevitable reality many nations, including the Land of the Skies’ ancestors, prepared for. Had it not been for the simultaneous and sudden disappearance of the emperor and this demonic princess, there was not a single kingdom along the southern strait that could have stopped this ambition. It is even speculated the princess could defeat the powerful Wanderer of the southern shaman tribes if they ever clashed swords.
Historical writings describe the princess’ presence on the battlefield as a seminal encounter. Long before she appeared, the atmosphere would seemingly darken, not in terms of the weather, but in terms of zeal. The men’s spirits would damper, seemingly suppressed by a fiendish, maniatic voice deep in their minds. A malevolent sensation, as if the princess’ demonic insanity were leaching into theirs. Shadows tingled with malice, infected with her murderous intent. Paranoia would break out, sometimes incapacitating warriors crucial to an army’s success. Once the fighting began, the hazed minds of the soldiers would lead to a swift victory for the empire, with its highly trained magicians and well armed foot soldiers.
The princess wielded an unimaginably long, double-bladed sword just over the length of her body. It glowed an ominous bluish purple, sometimes described to be able to change its length or shape. Despite the unwieldiness of her weapon, especially for how short she was, the princess manipulated it with ease, cleanly cleaving her opponents. Given what is known about Wanderers today, it is likely her weapon was a manifestation of her magical power rather than a physical blade, a complex skill that would set her apart from every documented Wanderer of her time.
Her extraordinary weapon is far from the only outstanding ability in her arsenal. Her potent magic which could destroy the strongest seals; destroy entire villages in one event; the ability to deflect projectiles off bare skin when imbued with magical energy; her piercing, glowing eyes which could pick out a general across the battlefield; possible mind control magic; to name a few. Her talent as a sorceress is what established her as a legend. Even to this day, some aspects of her power are mysterious. All accounts echo the same story: the generals were the first to go. There are stories that describe her seemingly emerging out from the general’s shadow for a swift execution, then disappearing just as fast. Different armies tried a variety of methods to ward off her possession of the shadows. Magical seals. Washing out the shadows with torchlight. Charms to ward off the evil, though these practices were proven to be pseudoscience. None of these methods worked.
Historian scholars continue to question the validity of these stories, as they don’t make sense in today’s understanding of magic, or energy. Viewpoints against the stories postulate they were exaggerated into myths over time. Viewpoints for the validity of these stories point to how the same incident was recorded in many different accounts across several kingdoms. They hypothesized that the princess’ true ability was teleportation magic, a technique that only exists in theory, but recorded in history to be possessed by more than one magician, including a figure in the Land of the Skies itself. This argument has yet to be proven, as the field of research is nascent.
Despite the princess’ overwhelming power, and the empire’s possession of advanced technologies for its time, close research proved the dynasty chose their battles carefully, especially as they stretched their empire thin. They invaded nations they could easily set up puppet rulers to control the region. Many nations they invaded en route to the southern strait capitulated to the empire before it reached their doorsteps. Battles fought without the princess were not as dominating, with kingdoms successfully defending against invasion in some cases; especially in sea invasions. In some cases, the empire lost territory it conquered just a few years after the princess continued south. If the empire accomplished their ultimate goal of conquering the southern shaman tribes of the Eastern Continent, scholars question whether it could hold the land they acquire for very long, for it was so far from their homeland, on a continent hostile to imperial kingdoms of the west, across waters controlled by hostile kingdoms, to keep tight control of. Given how quickly the empire collapsed without the princess, there is a lot of weight behind this speculation. If the princess stayed, she certainly could have kept control of it by fear, but it certainly would have marked the end of the empire’s conquests.
Ultimately, the princess disappeared without a trace, a mystery just as puzzling as her power. Records preserved from the fallen empire say it was the emperor who disappeared first. When the princess found out, she turned against some of the leaders in the dynasty’s military circle, deranged they had assassinated her father. Unable to surface any evidence of his whereabouts, the princess was driven to the brink by her love for her father, and disappeared. It is assumed she left her responsibilities to search for the emperor, possibly in a journey across the Western Continent, but she never returned. A few recorded incidents of high-profile murders could be tied to her frenzied search across the continent, particularly in cities the empire had conquered. Otherwise, no traces of her whereabouts were ever found. The latest record of these high-profile assassinations was on the southern strait.
The legacy of the untouchable demon was unquestionable. The empire’s reach shaped the culture and politics of the Western Continent, even onto contemporary times. Many military leaders and their successors carried on the former empire’s zeal for conquest for centuries. The prevalence of nations led by a few, powerful magicians catapulted, even after the period of proliferating republics during the Magical Renaissance. The Celestial Empire of the north, the last surviving piece of the broken empire, is constantly harassed about its past by other nations, despite the isolationism politics of its ruling dynasty today. The princess’ feats as a powerful sorceress established Wanderers as weapons across the world. Magicians dreamed of powers ever more destructive. The great nations of today are still on guard for her rebirth, despite the ambiguous research behind that concept, driven by the Kingdom of the Sun. Even after almost five centuries, her reincarnation has yet to appear…