Leaders of Aragon - Nepherimas

During the age of the 1st Demonic War, many of the Humans began to fear the end of their short lives and were tempted into becoming Undead. It was the greatest of all sins possible - it damned the Souls and tainted them for eternity. But the young Princess Nepherimas was ready to pay the price for she dreamed of immortality; and of power. She delved deeper and deeper into the darkest magic arts and made a deal with the very God of Squalor Dar’thul, who gave her everything she wished for, and more. The God sent her deep into the lush forests of White Garden, to the Spring of Immortality - one sip of its water was enough to take a Human to Death’s threshold while keeping the Soul firmly nested into the body.

The Priests of the Order declared the Undead an abomination; the people of Whitestone detested them and King Niam III did everything in his power to stop this sin from spreading, sending all walking dead to a dedicated Asylum where the King’s mages were to experiment on them until their Humanity will be restored. But no measures were enough to prevent the people from following their immortality dreams and giving themselves in the hands of Dar’thul. 

The Undead then formed a new, secret kingdom, the cult of the Gods of Squalor slowly turning the fertile lands of White Garden into Dead Swamps.

Princess Nepherimas was crowned Queen of the Undead and her power grew year after year, leading her even deeper into the dark arts.

And yet she had bigger dreams. To set her plans in motion, Queen Nepherimas paid the Infernal Demons in gold and Human slaves for the Shapeshifter, an amulet of immense illusion magic. A net of spies in Whitestone kept her well-informed about the Kingdom’s life and prepared the people for her comeback. When King Niam III was injured in battle, Nepherimas put on the Shapeshifter to hide her rotting body with an illusion of a Human form and solemnly returned to Whitestone.

Soon after she was crowned as a Queen to the Humans. The first thing she incited further the Demonic war, sending to the frontline all able-bodied, led by Lord Venuin Stonehill, the only one questioning her miraculous return to the capital. And when battles were flaming all over the Fringe and there were only the old and the children left in Whitestone, Queen Nepherimas opened the gates of the capital to the Undead and took off the illusion she wore.

For days Revivalists purged the streets of the city, turning each and every citizen into Undead, leaving no house unsearched and no hideout a secret. The new nation grew by the minute. When Lord Venuin got the news, he left the fortress of Ironfern to the invading Infernal Demons and rushed to Whitestone. Queen Nepherimas fought him there - and won, sending the Lord and the last of the Humans fleeing through Ondal’s Gate.

Whitestone was renamed Gravestone and became the new capital of the Undead, and the Kingdom of White Garden turned to Dead Swamps.

But it was a kingdom in ruins. Many of the border fortifications were in the hands of the Infernal Demons. Queen Nepherimas wrote to King Gremonyr and pleaded for him to withdraw his armies, but to no avail - the King only laughed at the un-beings such as her who had deprived themselves of life and broke their Souls, deeming them useless to the Infernal Demons.

Offended, Queen Nepherimas went to war against the armies of the Infernal King. But once the Infernal Demons found the Undead souls weren’t ingestible, they left the battlefields and refused to fight, thus making the offense even worse. 

Years later a new era started with a treaty with the Orcs against the Humans and their Sacred Order. Upon joining, Queen Nepherimas had one very important condition: the Undead to be recognized as equal to all other races, just in a different state of being. That condition became an immutable part of the pact, signed later by King Gremonyr of the Infernal Demons and Common Chief Longtusk of the Grontar, and the Undead were never denied honor again.

Yet Queen Nepherimas didn’t give up the dream to make all Humans Undead. Today she has many spies both on Mynorath and Grommdor, and it is rumored she herself often roams the Human kingdoms, hidden under the spell of the Shapeshifter. She is a seductress who offers immortality for a price and the poor souls caught in her web are in abundance, as always. One of the personal favorites of the Queen and a recent acquisition at Gravestone’s court is Prince-consort Mazerius Dragonlander; he was killed during the Battle for Massan Point 3 years ago and was found by Revivalists just in time. He’s now getting used to the ways of the Undead. Missing a heart makes that so much easier.