Shaani

Shaani was the second empress and the second-to-last ruler of the Shoon Imperium.

Description
Shaani was described as a spectacularly beautiful woman, but that was her only redeeming quality. She was generally held responsible for the fall of the Imperium.

Personality
Shaani was vain, proud, fickle, and flirtatious, caring for little except the pleasures of the palace. She was a drunkard and irresponsible. While she considered herself shrewd, she was an apathetic ruler, preferring to let her advisers run things.

Activities
Unbeknownst to her, Shaani was but a pawn for the whole of her 60 year reign. Her advisers controlled her like a puppet, and they in turn were secretly controlled by Shoon VII, whom everyone thought dead but was in fact a lich.

Her advisers convinced her to release a collection of her father's magical spells, and she did so by commissioning the creation of a tome called the Pagina Savilara. The only surviving partial copy after the fall of the Imperium was held by Laeral Silverhand.

Shaani spent most of her time in a life of debauchery, taking in the delights of her harem and receiving gifts and attention from her subjects.

Shaani abolished the practice of receiving fealty from her nobles and generals twice a year, because it was not worth her time. Because of this, many of the nobles deceptively began sending smaller tributes then they owed, and by the end of her reign, most of the states that made up the Imperium only paid lip service to their empress. For example, Lapaliiya, which had been a part of the empire since 285 DR, during the reign of Shoon V, was now essentially independent.

Despite all her failings as a ruler, Shaani was surprisingly able to make peace with the blue dragon Iryklathagra. She appeased the dragon by offering her gems and several magical items, including Amahl's Mastering, the battleblade ring of Akkabar, Kuraltaar the Demonshield, and two genie bottles. The dragon accepted these gifts and promised peace provided she was paid a tribute every hundred years.

Relationships
Shaani maintained a harem with over 100 male concubines (jhasinnar). She also bore four children, fathered by her most important qayadin. She spoiled them until they reached the age of majority, and then ignored them and had them married off for political reasons in Amn, Tethyr, Tashalar, and Ankhapur. Her youngest son, Shaan yn Shoon, would become the father of her successor, Amahl Shoon VII.

History
Shaani was born in 346 DR, a daughter of Shoon VII. In 367 DR, she was convinced by her father's advisers to assassinate him, since he was weak from his final confrontation with Iryklathagra the year before. So, she poisoned his soup, and laughed as she watched her father die. (In truth, this was all a grand deception by Shoon VII, who expected and survived the poisoning, faked his death, and went on to become a lich.)

Shaani died in 427 DR after a long reign, a shadow of her former beauty. She was succeeded by her grandson.

Reputation
So terrible a ruler was Shaani, that the word shaani came to mean "one with no ability to lead" in the Alzhedo language.