Vanessa Wenchcombe

Overview
An amiable and incredibly power necromancer who independently discovered the secrets of lichdom. Immortal and constantly experimenting, she is currently engaged in a decades-long wargame against Ohkrofium, her close friend, lover, and fellow lich. Bound to Mistvale by the Champions of the Resolute Tower, she fabricates half-truths about her imprisonment to convince powerful travelers that her destruction will stop the undead in Gentaria, while in reality she can merely transfer her essence to another one of them at any time.

Biography
Born in wine country in 4E ___ to the Wenchcombes, a family of minor nobles. The 3rd daughter and 5th child, she had plenty of time to pursue her own interests rather than the goals and priorities of the family. Hungry for knowledge from a young age, she dove into religious and historical studies, considering a role in clergy before rebelling against the rules, restrictions, and rituals the various orders placed upon their members. Afterwards, she constantly chafed under others' authority, which led her to abandon her young ladies' responsbilities in exchange for study under the family arcanist.

While Juelus Marticio cast through memorization and hard-set practice, Vanessa copied his technique into a notebook of spells that she carries to this day, restoring and repairing it throughout her natural life. She focused on practice and study and remained unmarried through the age of 26, when her parents insisted she marry and attempted to arrange a series of matches for her. Rejecting every suitor, she eventually admitted in drunker anger that she had rejected all her suitors in order to study magic full-time rather than assume the duties of a noblewoman.

After a month of animosity, she and her parents came to an agreement. So long as she surrendered all rights of rank and privilege and refused all claims to the Wenchcombe lands and titles, they would fund her magical education for ten years. To their surprise she accepted with enthusiasm, and within the year had moved out of the Wenchcombe estate for the Ivory Mausoleum (located in modern Firondl). She spent 21 years there, first as a student and then as a researcher, experimenter, and leading member of the faculty.

The Wars of Separation that marked the end of the Fourth Era came hard to the Masoluem, forcing her and her peers onto the front lines. Located in disputed territory between several burgeoning kingdoms, the Masoleum declared its indepdenence and was thus subject to multiple sieges. As a master necromancer, she reanimated the dead casualties of both sides and turned them against the institution's enemies, sowing discord and lowering morale against the attackers. The Masoleum stood against siges from three rulers' armires before declaring allegience to Firondl and allowing themselves to be absorbed into the growing empire.

Furious about being outvoted into working for another nation after 16 years of freedom depsite their losses, Vanessa resigned her position as Mistress of Necromantic Arts and abandoned the Masoleum. Now 63 and a powerful mage, she nevertheless feared her own approaching death. Unsatisfied with the Clone spell due to its cost and vulnerability, she sought out other forms of immortailty. The use of True Polymorph solved the aging problem, but the danger of the world she lived in left her concerend, and the ease with which she had reached her goal was unsatisfying.

Spending a year in an isolated Magnicificent Mansion, she tried to find a goal with her new immortality, and she found none. After some introspection, she decided to become a lich—if nothing else it would provide an exciting challenge.

Her initial research sent her acrorss the libraries of the world to see if she could discover a lich's techniques or whereabouts. It took 34 years of scouring the Plane of Flesh to find and clear lich's lairs to find one. Most were abandoned, long slain in another lair. They were filled with valuable treasures, artifacts, notes, and creatues, but no full liches. Finally, she cleared a lair in the Darklands to the deep south and found an ancient demilich at the end. Imprisoing the rabid magical skull, she spent 11 years reworking Feeblemind and combining its reversed effects with Greater Restoration in the hope that she could restore the lich to its former power. The spell failed, but she was able to glean enough knowledge from his proto-elven notes to create her own phylactery from the notebook she had first used to learn magic.

In 5E ____, Vanessa Wenchcombe ascended to lichdom, abandoning the limits of her mortal body and trapping her soul on the plane of flesh.

After ascending, she elected to test her new powers on a civilization of Darklands creatures, several dozen miles from the southern border of the Vrahn Queendom. Thanks to her efforts, the species was wiped out, and all records of their existent stripped from existence. While the process took nearly a century, she had required no food, drink, rest, or light. Satisfied with her newfound power, she questioned exactly what she should do next. Fortunately for her, she didn't have to wait long for a goal.

Blightshaman Okrofium had detected her magic and appeared to her to offer immortal companionship and understanding of the new life she had created for herself. Initially wary, she accepted his aid, and later his friendship. He acquainted her to several of the other ancient, powerful creatures of the Plane of Flesh, and introduced her to the concept of the High Games—friendly competitions between the ancient and nigh-immortal creatures that inhabited the planes, with plans that lasted decades or centuries.

She competed in several games, winning some and losing others, all while honing her skills as a spellcaster, cursemaker, and necromancer. To celebrate the 500th year of the 5th era, Vanessa proposed she and Okrofium compete by bringing down a nation and creating armies from the remains. They selected Gentaria as a battleground, decided on themes (undead for her, and nature: beasts/plants/monstrosities for him) and agreed on a victory condition: if one of them was destroyed and regenerated while the other possessed their phylactery, that person was the loser. Every other tactic was fair game.

Recalling how a collection of a few skilled individuals were more effective than armies when dealing with liches, Vanessa set out recruiting. The first few decades were failures, but coming across the Champions of the Resolute Tower in Skrumbard by 532 was a great success for her. After repelling the illithid invasion of Linnig, she manipulated them into traveling to Gentaria and released rumors of a lich creating abominations in Misthold, where she knew Okrofium had taken up residence and blocked the Grayspire castle from access. She also provided them with information on imprisoning someone in a demiplane impervious to Plane Shift (a valuable tool which she had invented herself)

Her plan would have almost worked had she not dropped the glamour she used to make herself appear mortal before entering her demiplane. A peasant in Misthold spotted her and reported to the other members of Champions of the Resolute Tower who waited until the ritual against Okrofium was complete, then cast her phylactery into the demiplane portal with him. They weren't able to confine her to the demiplane as well, but they did force her to remain in Misthold, geographically confining her to the area, by sealing her phylactery into the demiplane and binding her to it.

But she wasn't dissuaded. She used the notes from Okrofium's research to create the Vermilion Scourge and release it upon Gentaria, and spent every second of the next few years mastering a nation-wide undead curse. She succeeded and, on Dead Freeday, was able to release it. Over the next thirty years she experimented with creating new undead, using Clones of the people in Misthold to fabricate new creatures made from corpses to supplement her army.

When Okrofium is released, she plans to challenge him to open battle in the Corpsefields, knowing that he has spent the last 30 years creating new beasts and monstrosities for her to fight. But he possesses her phylactery, which puts her at a disadvantage in their game. She hopes to manipulate visitors to kill her old allies, letting her break the and recapture her phylactery from her friend.

Relationships
Okrofium is her oldest living friend, a stalwart ally who inducted her into the tiny hidden society of immortals. They are competitors, stalwart allies, and close friends.

She and Irevenei shared some notable hostility even during their time cooperating together. Irevenei's strong sense of justice and love of helping others conflicted hard with Vanessa's more selfish and pragmatic outlook. It's no coincidence that Irevenei suffered the most from the group's battle with Vanessa.

She was close with Aloth as well, whose inherent magic manifesting as storms of ice puzzled and intrigued her. While their backgrounds differed greatly, they boned over magical study and a love of the finer things in life.

Spells and Spellcasting (28 prepared)

 * Save DC25/23, +17/+15 to hit with spell attacks


 * Cantrips (at will): Mage Hand, Ray of Frost, Shocking Grasp, Prestidigitation, Chill Touch
 * 1st-level (at will): Ray of Sickness, Shield, Identify,
 * 2nd-level (at will): Arcane Lock, Knock, Melf's Acid Arrow, Misty Step
 * 3rd-level (at will): Animate Dead, Counterspell, Fireball, Glyph of Warding,
 * 4th-level (3 slots): Blight, Greater Invisibility, Polymorph
 * 5th-level (3 slots): Scrying, Hold Monster
 * 6th-level (3 slots): Create Undead, Disintegrate, Chain Lightning
 * 7th-level (3 slots): Finger of Death, Mordekainen's Magnificent Mansion, Prismatic Spray, Symbol
 * 8th-level (2 slots): Clone, Feeblemind, Maze
 * 9th-level (2 slots): True Polymorph, Power Word Kill

Special Equipment
Vanessa wields and is attuned to:
 * Robe of the Archmagi (wondrous item, legendary, requires attunement)
 * the user's minimum AC is 15+dexterity—irrelevant thanks to her natural armor
 * the user has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects
 * the user's spell save DC and attack bonus are both increased by 2
 * Undead Bride's Circlet (wondrous item, legendary, requires attunement)
 * Damage Absorption: the user has resistance to necrotic damage. If they already have necrotic damage resistance from another source, then they have immunity to necrotic damage.
 * Morbid Grace: while they aren't wearing armor, the user can add their charisma modifier to their AC—again irrelevant, as she possesses a Natural Armor feature already.
 * Legendary Resistance (1/day): if the user fails a saving throw, they can choose to succeed instead
 * Amulet of the Shield Guardian
 * when a Shield Guardian bound to this amulet is within 60 feet of the user and on the same plane of existence, they can:
 * Communicate telepathically with the shield guardian, issuing commands to the guardian
 * Store a spell of 4th level or lower within the guardian, allowing it to cast the spell with none of the required components as were required in the original storing. When the spell is cast or a new spell is stored, any previously stored spell is lost.
 * Transfer half of the damage they take, rounded up, to the guardian from them.

Combat Tactics

 * In terms of pure damage output, Vanessa can cast Chain Lightning and hit 4 PCs as an action, and use Fireball 3 times for each legendary actions, doing an estimated average of 400 damage.
 * she spams her at-will Animate Dead and her upper-level Create Undead to create distractions for bother her and her shield guardian, as well as create more recoverable HP with Necrotic Recovery
 * if caught in a disadvantageous position, misty step allows her to escape as a legendary action
 * when she gets desperate, she will forgo a fair fight and combine Polymorph and Disintegrate to instantly kill a party member
 * remember that both Shield and Counterspell use a reaction, and she, like all other enemies, can only use 1 per round
 * In addition to the lair actions of a standard lich, the rooms where she does battle with a party is filled to the brim with Glyphs of Warding and Symbols that trigger when she passes by them (glyphs) or when the party steps upon them (Symbols)
 * Her symbols favor the Death, Discord, Fear, and Stunning effects
 * Her Glyphs trigger spell effects such as Haste, Fly, and Greater Invisibilty upon herself, as well as Animate Dead and Create Undead spells to create more undead for herself. Every space in her arena is booby-trapped this way, as well as most of the other rooms in Grayspire.
 * she favors invisibilty or flight to supplement her blasting magic, and the power of her magical items to further aument her power.
 * When she detects that someone is low on health she will unleash Disintegrate or, if pressed, Power Word Kill. While reluctant to use her ninth-level slots, she will also upcast spells like Finger of Death or Chromatic Spray
 * while death has little consequence for her thanks to her phylactery and her inability to leave Mistvale, she would still rather not allow her magical items to fall into the party's hands. The loss will leave her severely weakened, and the power exchange after a party defeats her leaves her reluctant to engage them after a loss.