Cassana

Cassana was a centuries-old evil wizard who worked with the Fire Knives, the Iron Throne, and masterminded the creation of Alias for her own ends.

"Dragonbait looked deep into Cassana's eyes... A perverse curiosity prompted him to use his shen sight on her before he died, just to know what such evil looked like. The heat of her soul caused him to flinch. Within was a black wall riddled with flaming red cracks. Hatred burned deep in her and crackled between her, Zrie Prakis, and Phalse."

Description
Like Alias, Cassana was 5 ft 10 in (1.8 m) tall with reddish-blonde hair, which lacked the luster of Alias', had green eyes and high cheekbones. Her features were similar in nearly every way to Alias' but are much more cold and cruel.

Personality
The wizard was thoroughly evil and had a compulsive need to dominate others as well as a love of tormenting those under her thumb for her own amusement.

Abilities
Cassana spent centuries collecting arcane knowledge and honing her wizardly skills. In her collection included such rare spells as ray of enfeeblement, ray of Ondovir, waves of weariness, missile mastery, contact other plane, Xult's magical doom, death spell, repulsion, and forcecage.

Apart from the magical abilities, Cassaana was proficient with quarterstaves, and daggers. She possessed extensive knowledge of ancient history, especially on the topics of the Nameless Bard and Moander. She was well versed in etiquette, dancing, herbalism, and knew how to read lips.

Possessions
Cassana had an impressive wardrobe of beautiful and luxuriant gowns and dresses, centuries worth of various exotic spell components, spellbooks, gems, and jewelry, both magical and mundane. She always carried a dagger hidden under hew gown.

The most notable magical item in Cassana's possession was her 18-inch'' crystal blue wand. ''The wand was a powerful artifact that was used to control various creatures of Cassana's, control and enslave her undead lich ex-lover Zrie Prakis, and lock away a part of her power, prolonging her life for centuries.

Cassana owned a mansion in Westgate.

Activities
Cassana allied herself with the Fire Knives assassin guild by promising them a perfect assassin to exact their revenge on Azoun Obarskyr IV. She also had had a business relationship with the Iron Throne. She aided them in 1357 DR by supplying them with her summoned monsters like the Kalmari that secured the Shadow Gap on their behalf.

Relationships
Cassana's cruelty did not leave space for relationships apart from enforcing her will and servitude upon others. She preferred surrounding herself with servants and powerful allies to be used for her own goals.

History
Cassana's story began several centuries before the events that would lead up to the creation of Alias. Early in her career she met and fell madly in love with the wizard Zrie Prakis but events split them up and many years would pass before they met once more. However, by that time, they had both become powerful, vain, hateful practitioners of The Art. A competition of sorts arose between the two mages to see who had become stronger, with Cassana coming out on top and Zrie dying.

Regardless, Cassana's sanity was in question. The fact that she was able to callously destroy someone she so held dear and the fact that she kept the remains of her deceased lover at her bedside until she was able to complete the ritual to bring him back as a lich has shed much credibility to these doubts. In addition to this, she used a magic wand to keep her former lover in check, and thus he was transformed into a tool beholden entirely to her own desires.

As she exhibited her need to control others by enslaving her now undead lover, so too did she exert this need for control in the creation of Alias, or "The Puppet" as she called her, making Alias an exact clone of herself in physical appearance. Yet, this would prove Cassana's downfall when the Nameless Bard betrayed Cassana and aided his "newborn daughter" and the saurial Dragonbait when they were completing the part of the creation process which would fully bind Alias to their will.

After Alias and her allies defeated Cassana's plans as well as those of the assassin guild, the Fire Knives and the revival of the god Moander with the help of the atypical yet typical red dragon Mist hai Draco, Cassana recaptured Alias, attempting to destroy her free will once and for all. However, Dragonbait successfully destroyed Cassana's hold over Alias. Her wand that she used to control Zrie was also destroyed, which led to Zrie's destruction as well. With this, Cassana was defeated in battle by Alias and her allies when she broke Zrie's staff of power wielded by Cassana, ultimately destroying her.

Rumors & Legends

 * The story of Cassana the Cruel and her lover Zrie Prakis was quite well known in Cormyr, the Dales, and Sembia. In Raven's Bluff, their story was turned into a popular opera. There were multiple versions of the evil wizards' love story. One claimed the young Cassana and Zrie were sent to the opposite ends of the Inner Sea by their masters, another version sent one of the wizards into the Etherial plane. And lastly, the opera told the story of Cassana being kidnapped by pirates. The wizards stayed apart and grew narcissistic, vein, and powerful. Eventually, when they met again, all they did was arguing over who's more powerful. They dueled, Zrie lost, and was killed. In the stories, Cassana felt remoreseful over her first love's death and encased his bones in a glass sarcophagus to keep by her bed until the rest of her life.


 * Rumors floated around claiming Cassana survival in the explosion outside of Westgate. Some said she had another body, similar to one of Alias' sisters', in case hers was destroyed, some claimed she returned as a lich, knowing the magics required quite well.

Appearances

 * Azure Bonds