Character sheet:
Name:
Heilong Yu
Age: 4017
Appearance:

Home Realm:
World of the Seven Psalms (OC Comic of Mine)
Backstory:
Heilong Yu was the Empress of China during the Heilong Period, as well as the head of the Cult of Shenlong Shangdi from 1890 BC until her first death in 1600 BC. Yu took control of the Heilong holdings in China through a murder of her husband, Gao, and thus became the first authority figure in a vampire state who was born of gene splicing, rather than being a vampire by species.

Born as Yin Yu, Yu was the child of a rice farmer in the settlement of Yin. Little is known about her early life other than that her mother died in childbirth shortly after her own birth, dying along with one of her would be siblings. Yu spent most of her childhood working in the rice fields of her father's allotted land. As per the agreements of the Yin with the Heilongs, Gao demanded a bride from the tribe themselves to show their loyalty to him. As a result, the young Yu, due to her low position within the tribe, was given away to Gao as tribute.

As a wife of Gao, the then 10 year old Yu was subject to the Gene Splicing that would make her into a vampire. The process took 20 years to complete, and in that time, Yu was often too weak to leave the palaces of Yin. She was known, however, to wander around the palace and watch the actions of the residents and the workers in Gao's employment and slavery.

In her teenage years, Yu found herself the object of the sexual advances of her stepson, Heilong Sui, who was roughly the same age as her, and saw that she was of no interest to his father, despite being his wife. Sui often pressured, if not outright forcing Yu into sexual contact with him, leading her to seek out a refuge away from him.

Seeking a place to hide from Sui, Yu found the nearby temples of the state-sponsored religious cult, in worship of the Dragon God, Shangdi Shenlong (Chinese for 'the Highest Lord, the Dragon Spirit"). Yu came to spend her time in observation of the Dragon Priests, who took notice of her as well.

Yu came to attract the interest of the Saka born Dragon Priest only known as Kong. Kong saw potential for the young vampire and invited her to do tasks for the temple, before assigning her to be his assistant in rites. Yu soon showed strong potential with magic, and Kong saw it fit to induct her into the priesthood immediately.

Yu's potential with magic and her natural talents in conducting rites and sacrifices caused her to shoot up the ranks rapidly, soon becoming a head priestess out of a mix of her own abilities and her high social status.

When Gao disinherited Sui due to the discovery of his incestuous actions, the successor to Gao became apparent in the fact that Yu had taken on a massively important position in society.

With Yu nominated as successor, Kong and Yu formulated a plan on how to be rid of Gao, and bring the high Priesthood into a government position. At a massive sacrifice, Kong snuck a drug into the wine of Gao, while Yu laced his medications with raw mercury. The drug made Gao sick, who returned home to take medications to alleviate his illness, only to die from mercury poisoning.

Yu assumed power immediately and had the Dragon Priests round up all vassals suspected to be disloyal, and had them publically executed by boiling as a sacrifice to Shenlong as an apology for tolerating such treacherous individuals in her government.

The two brothers Yokaqo and Arktahan, who were jointly in command of a large alliance of tribes in Ordos, saw the time to continue the conquests of their father, and push into China. While the Ordos were able to reach a significant ways into China, Yu and her armies met them at the Battle of Xiashang in 1867 BC, where Yu was able to defeat the two brothers and drive them back over the Yellow River into Ordos, where she had her armies follow them, and lead a direct invasion of their territory. Yu ordered the Chinese to burn the land and kill all men and horses they found. Yu's brutal invasion culminated in the deaths of Yokaqo and Arktahan, who were slain in battle, and the bringing of Ordos under Chinese authority. The war earned Yu the title of 'Demon of Ordos'.

Under Yu, the Dragon Priesthood assumed a more direct role in governance, reporting directly to Yu and carrying out her orders. The Dragon Priests promoted the word of Yu as being that of the word of Shenlong itself, creating a mythos that Yu was the dragon god on earth.

Yu created the first true centralized government in China this way, stripping powers away from the mostly autonomous warlords set up by Gao.

Under the Dragon Theocracy, Yu had all local warlords dealt with in an infamous ceremony. Yu had the Dragon Priests gather the warlords into a single palace in Yin, where she was to address their grievances. Instead, Yu used her magic to rip their souls out of their bodies, and bound them to her signature axe, giving the artifact immense power, creating the Axe of Heilong.

Yu would experiment with soul binding further, learning that she was able to bind a portion of her soul to the axe as well, allowing her to survive beyond a potential death.

Yu's step-son, Sui, sought the throne for himself, and thus conspired with Yu's tribesmen, the Yin, to help him in killing her. Sui convinced the patriarch of the Yin tribe, Yin Jiang to kill Yu, which he did so by getting her drunk on mead, and then locking her in a box, which was thrown into the bonfire in the center of the drinking hall. After Yu's death, Sui was killed by the Yin and the tribe took control of China as the Shang Dynasty. In an attempt to distance their association with vampires, the Shang ordered the expulsion and death of all vampires in China. Those vampires who were loyal to Yu, however, recovered the iron sarcophagus in which she was trapped, and dragged it to the land of Pamir, where the vampires of Asia would hide for the next few centuries.

Yu was, unknown to her servants, still active in her axe. In her barely sapient state, Yu was able to create a rift among the vampires, and encouraged a small number of them to move west.

These vampires would come across the lands of Scythia, and settle on the Crimean Peninsula, that was until the coming of the Greeks, who mostly wiped out the Crimean Vampires, and took their loot for themselves, Including Yu's sarcophagus and her axe.

The King that used the axe, Mithriades, was a brutal despot who routinely liked to execute his prisoners with the exotic weapon, the blood slowly bringing Yu's soul back into its full intellectual faculties, and whispering into his mind to seek out greater chaos and death. Yu found human minds easier to manipulate, and her whispering lead to the Madness of the Black Sea, when seemingly all the Greeks of Crimea were reduced to bloodthirsty savages, with wars breaking out, murder and violence in the streets, and the complete collapse of social order. Hundreds of Greeks returned to Greece, with the Black Sea colonies being deemed failures. One of these returning Greeks was a trader named Orestes, who brought the Axe back for trade, and sold it to a wealthy collector in the city of Sybaris.

However, Sybaris would soon find itself destroyed and sacked by the people known as the Bruttii. The Bruttii, an Italic people, would become entranced by the artifact, said to speak to its holder. A group of Bruttii held onto the weapon, forming an underground cult in worship of the being who claimed to live within the artifact, who told them of ancient history, and of her own powers.

When the Romans arose and conquered the whole of the Italian Peninsula, the Cult remained, with members not only of Bruttii origin but Latins, Oscans, Greeks, and Gauls among its ranks. The cult called itself Cultus Draconis Negri, The Cult of the Black Dragon. The members used a language descended from Bruttian for its sacred rites, which would be known as Denwa.

After the Black Dragon was found to be involved in acts of human sacrifice, Imperial authorities sought to destroy the cult, with surviving members relocating to Dacia.

In Dacia, Yu, who was essentially speaking through her axe to all to hear, used her magic to turn 3 cultists into vampires and give them tasks before killing themselves in autosacrifice so that she could revive in her physical form. The Tasks were to build an army of vampires, conquer as much land as they could, and put down all rebellion so that Yu could return.

Yu's servants did as commanded, however one never returned to sacrifice himself, instead making himself the new ruler of the empire. Yu, in anger, had her cultists sacrifice themselves to her so that she could return and kill him.

Yu revived herself in 908 AD when the empire was under significant problems. Dyrantis had proven a bad leader and the Neo-Heilongs in the East, who arose out of Pamir only a mere 100 years before the foundation of the Black Empire, had driven aggressive steppe nomads into Europe.

Yu enlisted the help of a local warlord, Volodymyr, who sought help in driving out the Turkmens, a nomadic tribe that had taken most of his land and made it unusable. Yu helped him, only to be betrayed when he planned to have his Rus warriors kill him. Yu did, however, betray him as well, turning the Turkmens out on his soldiers. Yu had gained the respect of the Turkmens and used them to wage war on Dyrantis, before breaking into his palace in Constantinople and killing him. All the while, Yu realized a problem. In her time of preparation, most of the Empire was now fragmented and in the hands of powerful new states, such as the Latin Empire and the Anatolian Kingdoms. Yu realized that the time had been wrong to revive and thus needed a herald to pave the way for her once again.

After finding one, Yu sealed herself in a cave in Armenia, within the Valley of the Dark Lords, until time came for her to return.

seven-psalms.wikia.com/wiki/Heilong_Yu

Powers:
Yu is able to heal herself by feeding on the blood of a creature (particularly humans or humanoids) to the point of being able to regenerate her body from blood by her soul alone.

As a vampire, Yu is capable of using the ability called "Xuanxue" or the 'dark arts'. In addition to being basically a magic system that allows metaphysical manipualtion of the world's elements and energies, the Dark Arts allow Yu to utilize two abilities called "blood mixing" and "mental manipulation"

Starting Powers:
- Elemental Manipulation: Yu can manipulate the 5 Chinese elements of Fire, Water, Wind, Metal, and Wood.
- Infest Mind: Yu whispers telepathically into another lifeform to try and probe into their mind.
- Night Vision: Yu can see in the dark.
- Heal by drinking blood

Intermediate Powers:
- Blood Mixing: Yu uses manipulation of matter to fuse the "blood" (DNA) of creatures into one, mutating the host into a sort of chimera called a Pelorite. These Pelorites are usually mindless beasts with a taste for human flesh and blood, but some made from intelligent entities like humans are able to be created while retaining her human identity and consciousness.
- Dominate Mind: Yu hypnotizes the being, eventually taking control of their will
- Regenerate: Yu can regenerate health slowly over time, healing wounds so long as she has recently fed. The effacity diminishes between feeding.
- Invisibility: Yu cloaks herself in darkness and goes invisible
- Manipulate Shadows: Yu gains the ability to direct shadows.
- Soul Binding: Yu can bind souls to other objects
- Induce Hallucinations: Yu is able to fill the mind of her target with visions and images of a terrifying and apocalyptic nature.

End Game:
- Soul Splitting: Yu is able to divide her soul into smaller pieces that can be affixed to objects to preserve her after death.
- Destroy Mind: Yu destroys their own personality and desires, leaving them incapable of independent thought or survival
- Enthrall: Yu enslaves the mindless drone as her eternally loyal servant
- Rend: The Dark Arts also allow Yu to rip out the soul out of the body of a "lesser" being, such as an animal or a weak-willed human.
- Revive: Yu can revive herself from death so long as she has a piece of her sould affixed to another object
- Possess: Yu can completely take over the body of a living being to which she has affixed a soul, destroying the original soul in the process.

Skills:
Yu has a natural ability to read the emotions and thoughts of others. This branches into her natural leadership skills and manipulation of other's perceptions, with a gigantic presence.

Yu has a very intimate knowledge of magic. She has a seemingly unlimited knowledge of all things magical, but her specialty is with enchanting and soul binding. Yu's knowledge of soul-binding allows her to bind pieces of her own soul to inanimate objects, such as her signature weapon, the Axe of Heilong. This allows Yu to survive the death of her body, and regenerate it by exposure of the soul-bearing object with blood.

Stats:
Strength: 7
Dexterity: 5
Endurance: 7
Intelligence: 8
Charisma: 8
Arcane: 10