Karinna, also known as The Green Lady, is a celestian who has merged with the wicked and shining sides of Liliana and was the only Celestian to not split in half when the Fenulian Mirror was shattered.
About
A Celestian of ages past, given form as a being of the deep woods, the Green Lady is worshipped as a goddess by the Druid Order, who lend their great power to her armies. Manifesting as a ghostly maid, tall as an oak and swift as a falcon, the Lady oft uses her powers to heal her loyal subjects. Yet her beautiful form belies the terrible ferocity that lies barely skin deep, waiting to be unleashed. Those who would defile the ancient realms of the Sylvan Kin must brave the wrath of the Green Lady. She is at once the warm summer sun and the howling winter gale; the giver of life and the reaper of souls.
Biography
Arrival to Pannithor
Karinna was a Celestian who arrived in -995 with the second wave of Celestians which included Kyron.
The Fenulian Mirror
When the Fenulian Mirror was shattered, the Karinna actually managed to prevent herself being from splitting in two, protected as she was by her sacred grove.
Merging of Liliana
Karinna, one of the most withdrawn and secretive of the Celestians, was deep within her sacred groves when the mirror was smashed. As her kin raged and fought round the world, within the dark canopies she was protected, for a while. She knew to survive, she had to become more. The Wicked One, Liliana, crashed into the glades. The Forest creatures rallied to protect their Lady and destroy this wicked invader. But the Lady saw torment in Liliana's eyes, for she too had fled to the Glades to escape the war outside, the splitting of Liliana's soul was not clean and left her neither part of one side or the other, neither wholly evil or pure. Calling on the elemental powers Fire, Earth, Air and Water, she bound Liliana's being within her own, becoming more than she had once been. This fusion soothed the pain with Liliana, while providing the Lady with the power to venture outside her own realm.
The world was in chaos, the ultimate conflict, the God War. A single goal did the Lady have, balance. The first task to the balance, was her own soul, the Lady needed Liliana's Shining aspect. It was a journey which took her through some of the most horrific battles of the war filled with atrocity, taking pity upon a new mortal race which had fallen victim to this conflict, Liliana's aspect driving her own darker nature to perform terrible acts of vengeance against those that made them suffer.
Swelling her ranks were the Salamanders, the Hydras, the Pegasi and more, groups of each retreating with the Lady to the Forests to make their new home, even as their own habitats burned in the fires of the Wicked Ones’ spite or the Shining Ones’ vengeance. At the Straits of Madness, the Green Lady found Liliana’s Shining aspect, in what is known as the Battle of Madness. Ba’el, and his army of demonic creatures set to lay waste to these creatures, and Shining Liliana stood before him.Liliana was battered but defiant when the Lady arrived, at the head of a vast fleet of her allies, elves and other, feyer creatures all working side by side in the name of the Lady.
The Wicked Liliana in the Lady seeing her shining counter part in such pain dove into a terrible fury, a fury of such power that even Ba’el and his army of darkness could not stand before her. Legions of hellspawn were consumed in the fires of her anger, causing Ba’el to limp off like a wounded dog to lick his wounds. Exhausted after the battle, Liliana fell, limp, to be caught by the Lady, as soon as they touched, Liliana's corporeal form dissipated into motes of light and were absorbed into the Lady. The twin aspects of Liliana were whole again, extinguishing the pain both sides felt, creating the Green Lady which would rule over the forces of Nature forever more. Nature goddess worshiped by the Sylvan Kin, The Herd and other minor races.
When this happened, Karinna and Liliana were reborn as The Green Lady, a powerful gestalt being who stands between between the forces of Good and Evil, preventing either from gaining dominance. She is a champion of the lesser races of Mantica, seeking to protect them and the world they inhabit from the wars between good and evil. From that day to this, the Lady has commanded not merely the creatures of the Glades, but races from across the world, united in their debt of gratitude for her actions during the God War and inspired by her vision and energy. The Green Lady's main concern is Balance, and therefore can be see aiding the forces of Good and Evil alike, depending on the situation. Her most recent notable action was leading the forces of Good in the Edge of the Abyss campaign, which culminated in The Green Lady and her Thuul Aquamages melting the Frozen Sea and drowning the Abyss in melt water, quenching it's fires and destroying its armies... temporarily at least.
She is known to reside in the Forest of Galahir, but few will ever see her in person. She projects avatars of herself onto distant battlefields to aid and heal her allies in battle. Were the Green Lady ever to emerge from the Forest and take to battle in person she might well be the most powerful warrior in all of Pannithor.
Background
The lore of the Sylvan Kin has it that the Celestian known as the Green Lady did not split into a Wicked and Shining aspect when the Fenulian Mirror broke. With a supreme effort of will, she called upon the spirits of the trees and the beasts of the forests and they lent her their strength, and thus she kept herself together. Yet with the Celestians’ power fragmented, she could not survive for long. To this end, she merged with Liliana, a Wicked One that had somehow retained a sense of morality and was tormented by it. The Lady of Nature then sought out Liliana’s Shining side, and subsumed her too, bringing an uneasy peace to both parts. Thus the Lady is a goddess of two souls, and three aspects: Celestian, Shining and Wicked, and this perhaps explains the fickle yet balanced nature of the natural world.
When her Shining Aspect surfaces, the Green Lady is a gentle being, an avatar of the soothing, healing aspects of nature. In this form, she is oft worshipped by the Elves, who see in her the divinity of the woodland realms. Yet as much as this aspect is benign, the Wicked One within her can surface unpredictably, and woe betide any who are near when it does.
Ruling over these conflicting aspects is the Green Lady’s Celestian heart, which strives for balance and equilibrium in all things. This, her aspect of The Preserver, is worshipped across Pannithor by simple folk and nature spirits of the deep woodland, impenetrable marshes, vast prairies, icy tundra and scorched deserts. In this form, the Green Lady brings harmony to – and draws strength from – the four essential elements: earth, air, fire and water. She strives to use these elements to balance the struggle between good and evil, for her greatest fear is that one or the other will one day rule supreme over the world, and part of her own soul will be vanquished forever. If good were to prevail, the world would risk eternal stagnation. If evil reigned eternal, violence and destruction would tear Pannithor apart.
With this sudden change comes the harsh, feral reality of nature, red in tooth and claw. The urge to hunt, and to kill, which lies within the heart of all living things, is embodied by the Green Lady’s Wicked Aspect. At her command, thorned elementals, monstrous beasts and spiteful creatures lope and slither from every forest, mountain-pass and seabound cove, intent on destruction of the Lady’s foes.
Thus, the Lady is torn between her own aspects, and constantly allies herself with the weakest side, in an attempt to bring balance to the course of the eternal war. In recent years, Pannithor has seen the rise of evil, and as such the Lady’s Shining Aspect has dominated her own persona as she seeks to restore neutrality, and this stance has led to her forming great bonds with the Elves, who offer fealty in exchange for her sacred blessings.
Though the Elves of the Sylvan Kin worship the Green Lady as their goddess, they are too lost in their struggle for survival to be truly controlled by her. The Lady knows that her powers are limited to the wilds, and although she has eyes and ears everywhere in the form of fey creatures, birds, beasts and insects, she has long had need of servants capable of travelling the world independently, to warn her of coming dangers, to predict the movements of enemies, and to understand fully the hearts of conquering warlords and brutish despoilers. To this end, the Lady enraptured a traveller, long ago, and inducted him into the mysteries of nature. It is said that this traveller was a Man of noble birth, a great warrior, who was so enamoured by the Lady’s magic that he swore an oath to renounce his life of battle and serve the Green Lady for all eternity in peace. Thus was founded the ancient Order of Druids, and as their ranks have grown over the years, so has the Green Lady’s influence. Recruited largely from the lands of Men, who alone understand what it is to be possessed of both light and darkness, the Druids are solitary wanderers, who walk the length and breadth of Pannithor, ever alert to threats against the balance of nature. If darkness threatens to overwhelm the forces of good in the world, the Druids summon the Lady’s power to quell it. Yet they are ever mindful that should evil be driven back too far, the Lady will adopt the aspect of Liliana, and turn on the forces of good just as surely. Druids must, therefore, remain impartial in all things, lest their meddling cause great harm.
When a Druid senses that the balance of power might be tipped –that a conquering army has grown too powerful, or a last bastion of one alignment is about to be overrun – they send word to the Green Lady, their goddess. Birds, Sylphs, insects, Naiads and sprites carry the Druid’s message across land, sea and air, until it reaches the sacred groves of Galahir, where the Lady’s power is strongest. Here, the Druid Elders assemble in the Greenmoot, and combine their power to awaken the Lady and send her forces into battle. Her reach is long indeed, and at her unspoken command an army of monstrous creatures, fiery elementals and sylvan kin can strike many hundreds of leagues away. The rise of the Lady’s forces in recent times has given pause to many a warlord, who know that to extend their reach is to anger the spirits of Pannithor . Even the greatest warriors tremble when the forests around them start to shake with sentient malice, the ground beneath their feet cracks with grim purpose, unnatural stormclouds gather overhead, and creatures of fire burst to life in the midst of their army. When the sound of fey hunting horns hangs on the breeze, and chill winds blast the serried ranks of invading forces, all know that the spirits of the wild have come, and they will show no mercy.
All of nature yet untouched by evil magic in Pannithor will respond to the Green Lady. The Sylvan Kin follow her unreservedly. Other, even more secretive creatures, serve her – centaurs, the eagles, and those wolves and bears that possess the power of reason. Elementals of the deep forest and stone are hers to command, the strange beings known as Tree Herders are among her most ardent servants. These creatures are locked in endless struggle against the despoliation of the natural world. Most often their foes are the Orcs and Goblins, but the logging camps of Men or the mines of the Dwarfs enrage them just as much.
When summoned to war, the Lady is wrathful, having little love for either the evils of the Abyss, or for the smothering rectitude of the Shining Ones. The Sylvan Kin hold a hope that the Lady will restore balance to the world, reuniting the Shining Ones with their Wicked halves, bringing peace for the first time in thousands of years. This peace is itself to be feared, for it is the peace of the unsullied glade, of the untamed river. Should it come to pass, no city will remain.
Rumors
It is whispered by some that the reason the Elves refuseto be drawn upon the nature of the Green Lady is thatshe is in fact a being of deep contradiction, her darkside hidden from the world at large. Some claim thather powers come at a cost, that she must take a mortallover who after seven years must be slain as an offeringto the secret forces that underpin the world and drivethe workings of the earth.
Other dark lore claims thatthe Green Lady is but one facet of a twin being that mortals are only able to perceive in the most occult ofways. These forbidden texts suggest that another being,the opposite of the Green Lady, exists, somewhere in the Utterdark, the antithetical embodiment of all she standsfor. Perhaps one day the servants of the Fallen Ones –the Twilight Kin, the Abyssal Dwarfs or others – will learn how to call this dark twin forth from her hiding place, and then surely, the age of mortals shall come to an end.
References
- Kings of War – 1st Edition Rulebook
- Kings of War 1.1 – Kings and Legends
- Kings of War 2nd Edition Uncharted Empires
- Kings of War 3rd Edition Uncharted Empires
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