FIRST APPEARANCE: p.69 (S1)
LAST APPEARANCE: p.330 (S1)
ORIGIN: unknown/Perceptive Times
CURRENT STATUS: deceased
Shiraadh Risiodos was a human termagant who first became known as a consort of Prince Karbunkel of Fargon. She graduated with full honors from the Four Colleges, and apprenticed for several malevolent entities before working with Karbunkel, and later Refusaleth Badidea. She possessed many dark light-based powers, could stand in mid-air, and had a sadistic streak a mile wide.
PERCEPTIVE HISTORY
Shiraadh comes from House Risiodos, a Fargonian family of Obsolesmus zealots that includes her brother Etalun. While a student at Jausiv, she attracted the attention of Prince Karbunkel, and the two began a long-term, off-and-on relationship. By some accounts, she had a rivalry with a prior incarnation of the sorceress Darkana. She traveled all known regions of the Beyonding in her lifetime, including the Kerpallis Westerlands.
NARRATIVE HISTORY
Shiraadh first appeared in the employ of Prince Karbunkel, torturing a captive Cox McCrackin for information about the Lost Book. She traveled to a secret airship factory in New Bordorea, and spied on the Imperial Inspectorate there. However, Karbunkel seemed unimpressed with Shiraadh’s efforts, passing her off to his sycophant Vurka while he left for Midiria on a diplomatic mission.
While inspecting an aircraft Karbunkel was considering for mass production, Shiraadh was shot out of the sky over the coast of Drymouth by a newly-ascended Refusaleth. Shiraadh was recovered and subsequently resurrected by Refusaleth, and in gratitude she became his consort. She reconnoitered the ancient Literalist ruin that Refusaleth remodeled into his fortress, and began proper tutelage under the truevil.
When the Imperial Midirian Forward Advance (IMFA) team arrived in the Upper Frontlands, Shiraadh confronted the four generals in midair, imploring them to hit her with everything they had, and informing them that they were going to die there. Her first victim was General Syll, followed by General Logge, whom she grounded before finishing off. Generals Raissor and Dedurum had taken cover in a distant bluff, and just as Raissor was about to fire a sniper shot, Shiraadh transported behind them. After crushing Raissor’s face like a wad of paper, Shiraadh unleashed her full fury against the Imperial air fleet, wrecking hundreds of planes.
Eventually Shiraadh uncovered the presence of the Ordinarian Cornelius Coddler, and she disguised herself as a Central Archivist to manipulate him, and put ideas in his head.
While guiding Cornelius through Creepwood, Shiraadh toyed with his mind, misinforming him about Glowborgs, and giving him a complex knife from the Backlands (secretly a tracking device). The appearance of the Nard Faddlegas caused Shiraadh to abandon her disguise (reshaping it as light armor) and engage him in a brutal battle. Shiraadh used Faddlegas’s guileless nature against him, letting him think he was beating her, before revealing her deception and floating off.
Shiraadh trailed Cornelius to a concentarium at the bottom of Lake Ziera, teasing her presence with the knife, which had just been lost in a waterfall. As Cornelius, Zazmene and the diminutive Gargile floated to the surface in a Submersi-Bull, Shiraadh paralyzed Zazmene while Cornelius slept, destroying the scruton she had been hosting. Shiraadh then spit a doubtworm into Zaz’s ear, to make her believe that Cornelius would betray her and could not be trusted.
While Shiraadh was distracted making Zaz pilot the Submersi-Bull, the Gargile snuck up and touched her, diffusing enough of her evil to disorient her. The rock-creature then exited the craft wrapped around Shiraadh’s ankles, sinking her to the bottom without air to breathe.
Somehow, Shiraadh got the better of the Gargile, and found the fragment of the Prime Resinate in the Sunken Kingdom. She was discovered surfacing in Creepwood, by manhunters who were threatening to execute Cornelius. As Shiraadh messily dispatched the two hunters, Cornelius, Zaz, and the Hungrean He-Don were able to escape. Her lust for death was so overwhelming, she allowed herself to be easily ambushed by Darkana.
After a brief tussle, Darkana summoned a quartet of Resinatus from the ground, then absconded with the Prime Resinate fragment as they thrashed Shiraadh to pieces. Finally Refusaleth intervened and restored her, promising to crown her Queen of the Backlands if she helped him to conquer Fargon. Not long afterward, the doubtworm in Zaz’s ear perished.
In the guise of a mysterious woman who resembled Darkana, Shiraadh lured Prince Karbunkel to the extravagant and exclusive Cloud Concourse club Luxuratix, where she led him to a private room and introduced him to Refusaleth. After Karbunkel disrespected the truevil, Refusaleth ordered Shiraadh back to his fortress, and obliterated the entire Concourse. Instead of following orders, Shiraadh went directly to Karbunkel’s Keep and angrily confronted him over his behavior.
After a heated argument, Karbunkel played on Shiraadh’s ego by convincing her that he’d conceived a mission just for her, involving the use of a mountain-grinder to break Nefaria out of Bonehenge. Shiraadh was trepidatious, so Karbunkel told her he trusted her with the details, and to start whenever she was ready.
Returning to Refusaleth’s fortress, Shiraadh found the truevil lifeless on his throne. As she turned to leave, she saw Darkana’s Resinatus again, reprogrammed by Refusaleth to fetch the Prime Resinate fragments. She narrowly escaped as Refusaleth spun into a vacuum, receiving a dislocated jaw as the centrifugal force crushed her body against the wall.
Weakened and demoralized, Shiraadh decided to accept Karbunkel’s mission, and began the long, arduous grind through the continental plates toward Bonehenge. As she tunneled in the mountain-grinder, her view of the tunnel behind her unchanging for months on end, she chatted with her old friend Vurka, who secretly suspected Shiraadh was being sent to her death.
In the final leg of the excavation, Shiraadh saw ten brilliant lights pursuing her.
Shiraadh pinpointed Nefaria’s location almost exactly, obliterating a giant Boneguard sent to collect her. The Red Queen expressed ignorance of any rescue plot, and seemed unaware of having a son named Karbunkel. When Shiraadh cautioned Nefaria not to fall in the gaping hole left by the mountain-grinder, Nefaria asked Shiraadh if she could hold her breath. Before Shiraadh could reply, the Red Queen grabbed her by her exhalations, dangled her until she painfully expired, and dropped her corpse into the abyss of the tunnel.
FUN FACTS
- Shiraadh did her master’s thesis on Beyondingan tectonics, which made her an ideal mountain-grinder pilot
- Her body was never recovered (doing so would be borderline impossible), removing any chance of resurrection