Dread Empress Maleficent II

Maleficent II is an ancient Dread Empress. When she came to power Praes was falling apart from the Secret Wars and she managed to turn it around into one of its greatest heights. Her reign was (at least) approximately 600 years before current events.

Unknown
General information
Name	Dread Empress Maleficent II
Faction	Praes, Villains
Species	Human
Status	Deceased

Biography

Background

She was of middling birth and held the rank of general, she was not nobility.

Secret Wars

The three Secret Wars were waged through the Hells, a vanity project that was an attempt to seize the Dead King’s infernal dominion. After the third, an invasion through a hellgate in Ater was so imminent that the woman who would become Maleficent II called on a pair of demons to erase most of a Hell and the previous two decades with it.

As Dread Empress, she tried to also erase all written records about these wars, but there are rumours of some High Lords having records she never managed to get rid of.

Reign

After a victory against Ashur, Maleficient II sought to improve the defences of Thalassina and ordered the then-current Warlock to build Shatha's Maze, a great defensive warding system in the bay outside the city. Built with a practically limitless budget, since Praes at the time was at its wealthiest, it was still centuries later deemed by Wekesa "one of the finest ward-based defensive arrays [he had] ever had the privilege to witness". The Maze is said to have "only failed twice over the last six hundred years", which gives us an approximate date for the reign of Maleficent II.

She tried to solve the eternal Praesi problem of not having enough food to feed the population by going to war on the Free Cities, where Praes could "bleed its surplus on foreign fields". It was successful enough to take and subjugate territory, but in the end she was too successful: Ashur and Procer allied to drive her out. Maleficent did not survive her defeat.

Quotes and epigraphs

“The closest equivalent I’ve found to the Imperial court is the act of shoving your hand in a bag that could be full of jewels but is, most of the time, full of razor blades.”
– Extract from the personal memoirs of Dread Empress Maleficent II

“I never keep grudges. Not for long, anyway.”
– Dread Empress Maleficent II

“Any plan with more than four steps is not a plan, it is wishful thinking.”
– Dread Empress Maleficent II

“The worst sin a villain can commit is to hesitate.”
-Dread Empress Maleficent II

“Sometimes you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, executing the hens who laid them on trumped up charges and setting the most rebellious henhouse on fire as an example to the others.”
– Dread Empress Maleficent II

“Authority is the lie we all agree on for fear of chaos.”
-Dread Empress Maleficent II

“To bargain with devils is to paint with your own blood: the greater the work, the harsher the price.”
– Dread Empress Maleficent II

“It is easiest to win a game when no one else knows you’re playing.”
– Dread Empress Maleficent II