From IoD Lost

Name: Mirzintiel Xoserificathos Nor
Domain: The Dulcet Empire
Titles: Goddess of Hearts and Minds, Lady of Dulcet Resonances, Foul Temptress of the Timeless Empire, Legion of One, Empress of the Singlebody Choir, Splintered Self of a Thousand Beauties

Appearance

There is never one form with Her. Countless changelings have escaped noting Her name to hundreds of different appearances...but how many of them are real? How many of them are strictly durance? The unifying themes have always been the following: Female appearance, numerous, dainty mouths and long, slender limbs. Here are the most popular of the forms, however:

The Steel Sphere

A smooth, metal sphere between one inch and three feet in diameter, hovering off of the ground. The mouths pucker inward and the limbs are radiant ribbons of light.

The Temptress

A slender, entrancing woman that appears to the viewer as their aesthetic ideal, often between four and eight feet all. Adornment is elegant and draping, but consists of bizarre materials, like webs, clouds or shadows.

The Tree

A great, walking oak, between ten and three hundred feet tall. The limbs are as countless as any tree and the mouths appear as gnarls in the wood.

The Zephyr

A whirling dervish of limbs and mouths that hovers off of the ground appears to be a blur of motion.

Personality

She is unpredictable in form and nature. She is whimsy uncontrolled on a level more extreme than even most Gentry. However, She does have a few tendencies.

Abuses

What is a Gentry without detriment to its servitors? She is a perfectionist with an everchanging definition of what is perfect; nothing sane can survive Her. She punishes for the slightest flaw; some have noted that Her punishments come in the form of emotional abuse and carefully cultivated guilt. Many a minion has broken down in tears before because of Her casual glance. Some have even said that, if She has not punished a servant in sometime, She will contrive a reason to do so.

Appetites

All those mouths exist for a reason. Whether it be conversation, sex, consumption or singing, She is always doing something. This is the being that does not sleep, and She often works Her servants to the bone--even literally. She has lost all concept of time, if She ever had it.

Practices

She favors the arts and crafts in all forms and often has Her more capable servants train an individual up to a certain point before they are transferred into Her "tutelage". Her instruction is potent, but cruel. She is an unforgiving mistress in extremes.

Tactics

As with so much of Her, nothing is fixed in stone. All that can be recorded are tendencies.

Changelings

She seduces and brainwashes them, setting their focus on a hypersensitive level and trying to remove their foundation of reality until their former selves are non-existent...all are extensions of Her.

Environment

Many Gentry pretend to have some semblance of humanity for dealing with changelings; to Her, this is far less apparent in use. The land often reflects Her emotions and responses in myriad ways, only establishing just how tied to Arcadia She truly is: Stones crumble, trees flourish or wither, pools stagnate and emotions seem to vibrate and surge through the air itself. Concepts become solid and flesh loses cohesion when She feels like it.

Gentry

In the Great Game, Hers is a ploy of gifts and thieving. Many a time, She has hunted down other Gentry's servants for retrieval to Her lands and questioned them for intel. At times, She has granted gifts to the Others, only to have Her servants steal them back later on a whim. It is, in this way, that She seems to learn and adapt.

Ventures

A creature as powerful as this need never entirely leave Her domain. Numerous "selves" are out there; splintered, lesser extensions of Her that move about with Her will and ways. She strays into Earth as Her lessers to place Fetches or terrorize escapees, but She has never been known to leave Arcadia in Her entirety.

Durance

Emotions

Agony, ecstasy, sensory overload, confusion, duplicity, multiple conflicting emotions, fanatical devotion, co-dependency, addiction.

Experiences

All servitors who have experienced the touch of the Empress come away knowing something of mastery, be it art, craftsmanship, fighting...anything. Many an escapee has grudgingly admitted that they were able to turn their aptitudes or learned skills to better use because of Her previous guiding hand.

Memories

Consumption, sex, torture, being consumed, being raped, being reborn, overwhelming of the senses, having senses that do not exist, registering new colours, sounds, scents and tastes that exist nowhere else.

Escapees

Servitors

Gifts

Rumors

She sent that insufferable bogeyman of hers to destroy us all.
She left a small piece of her soul in each of her servants, so that when the time came, they would all be her loyal voices.
So long as a human mouth exists, she can never be destroyed.
It is said that the Empress cannot approach any hallow protected by bells forged in innocence and tuned to dissonance.
There's no way that one of her minions actually struck Her down...that's impossible...isn't it?

OOC Considerations

Inspirations

Abalach-Re, sorceror-queen of Raam, Dark Sun
The Zllyphan, the alien intelligence from Rifts: England
Nyarolethotep, the Elder God
Kali, Parvati and Sarasvati: Hindu pantheon
Vykos, Vampire: The Masquerade
Cenobites, Hellraiser

Credits

Original Graphic: Sarasvati, Rifts Conversion Book II: Pantheons of the Megaverse.
Graphic Resizing: Aine MacLennan and Elizabeth Hunt

Contact

For more information, please email Bryan M. Bowden.

The Choir Empress

From IoD Lost

Contents