Lady Ivania Dreygu

Introduced in the 4th Edition article Domains of Dread: Sunderheart in the Dragon Magazine issue #368, Lady Ivania Dreygu is an NPC and darklord of the Shadowfell domain of Sunderheart.

Like her husband Vorno Kahnebor, Ivania was the debauched heir to be of her family, but the families condemned their love and matrimony. She rebelled against them, only to become bored of her husband later and betray him. Now their oaths to be together forever are quite literal, as Ivania and Vorno have become literally fused together in their curse.

Biography

Forbidden Love

Born in the ancient Bael Turath empire in the unnamed Points of Light implied campaign world of 4th Edition, Ivania and her beloved Vorno held a star-crossed love forbidden by both of their families. Motivated by the interference of the Dreygu family and the Kahnebor family, Ivania and Vorno first sought isolation but then ultimately turned to bringing about the deaths of any who opposed them within their families. Taking control as heirs of their respective families.

Ivania and Torgo eventually left their home cities and made arrangements with the emperor of Bael Turath for control over Harrack Unarth following the drowning death of the city's previous ruler. When they took control, Ivania and Torgo shifted the city into a more or less perpetual state of debauched festivities. In private, the pair continued the vile indulgences for which their meddling families had though to suppress. Yet Ivania and Vorno kept not their corruption to themselves, but rather the pair introduced all sorts of perversions and debaucheries to the other nobility of Harrack Unarth.

The City of Carousal

The celebrations of Harrack Unarth's nobility encouraged delivery of exotic creatures and items into the city, getting the attention of the emperor once more. Ivania and Torgo agreed to the emperor's request to see that the creation of the Hellbound, devils fused into the bodies of humanoids, and their integration into society. However, the married pair had their own agenda in mind. Placed in close position to devils, Ivana and Vorno hoped to make the best deals with them. In the first of such deals, Ivania and Vorno became eternally young at the cost of their souls, forfeiting them to Nephigor. Upon their deaths, Ivania and Vorno would be consigned to Hell.

Time did not affect Ivania and Vorno in the same way. While Ivania seemed to retain the same sadistic vibrancy she always head, Vorno became increasingly depressed, paranoid, and removed from everyday life and less able to be cheered up by Ivania's various attempts to forestall his decline. Eventually the pair became alienated from each other. Ivania came to view her husband as ultimately pathetic and boring, Ivania eventually arranged a trap for her husband to end his life once and for all. She drugged a young girl and left her to be eaten by the irresolute Vorno but also filled her blood with poison to kill Vorno when he ate her. Vorno died a horribly messy death reflective of how his life was.

By the time of Vorno's funeral, Harrack Unarth, now known as the City of Carousal, had become such a dangerous place, the nobility followed by general trade began to leave the city. When a mass outbreak of deformities struck the born, this was taken as a sign that the city had become cursed. During winter, a huge blizzard enveloped Harrack Unarth for a considerable time. When the blizzard parted, leaving the city empty to outside observers, its previous inhabitants drawn into the Shadowfell.

As Darklord

After the biizzerd ended, Ivania rose from unconsciousness in the River Palace. Seemingly alone, she explored the palace and looking out over her new city, she questioned where she was. The Ghoul, her husband horrifically transformed and inextricably attached to her back, told her she was in Sunderhart. The madness in the days that followed now remain a blank in Ivania's memory.

Current Sketch

Rarely leaving the River Palance, Ivania lords over her domain during the day, but she loses control to the Ghoul at night. All but mute, the Ghoul merely sneaks around the halls of the Palace. Ivania denies the existence of the Ghoul. The Ghoul's identity as Vorno is only known to Ivania, Nephigor, and The Wizard of the White Tower.

Ivania's will is absolute, and her subjects know to jump when she calls. The Ghoul's is not to be mentioned by the servants and such mention invokes brutal consequences. At night, the Ghoul awakens to feed (though Ivania only feigns sleeping in order to avoid the horrible trauma witnessing the Ghoul's depredations might make. If they are attacked, both Ivania and the Ghoul can work together to dispatch foes.