Weaknesses

 

Her glory is not without its costs. To bask eternally in youth and power, she has forsaken the natural blessings of healing and recovery known to lesser mortals.

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Healing magic and restorative tonics slide from her like rain over polished obsidian, unable to stitch her radiant flesh nor mend the sovereign marrow beneath. Wounds endured are not easily forgotten—unless paid for in the currency she demands: life itself.

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"The world does not mend me. It feeds me—or it withers for me."

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If her body is broken, her vitality dimmed, there is only one balm—The siphoning of life essence from the living. Each touch, each stolen breath, each cut licked from a dying throat fuels her bloom anew.

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Should she go too long without feeding, the consequences are dire:

• Her flesh grows cold and brittle, her beauty dims, and the eternal bloom begins to blacken at its edges

• Her strength wanes, her movements sluggish, her dominion over the dead faltering like a dying flame. Her body is mortal in the sense it can be crushed, disemboweled or have severed limbs by the same forces that will do so to the typical fighters in the setting.

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Furthermore, Xandera’s towering pride is a blade turned against herself:

• Cocky, to the point of underestimating foes she considers beneath her contempt.

• Bitchy, lashing with venomous wit that sometimes burns bridges better left intact.

• Power-hungry, insatiably so, forever reaching, forever hungering for more—even when patience might have better served her.
   

"Power is like the pulse of a lover beneath my fingertips. How could I not hunger to feel it throb and surrender again, and again, and again?"

 

Unique Strengths

 

While her weaknesses are real, Xandera's gifts are rarer still:

• She can generate immense destructive force or reshape her own body by consuming life essence or fresh blood. With enough vitality devoured, she can unleash devastating spells, regenerate grievous wounds, or even enhance her strength and beauty to terrifying new peaks.
   

• She is immune to poisons, venoms, and diseases, her sovereign flesh too perfect, too beloved by death itself to be marred by nature's petty spite.
   

• When injured or maimed, Xandera can sever and replace her own limbs using the freshly dead.
  An enemy's severed arm can be stitched onto her body like a jewel set into a crown, though it remains lifeless until she feeds—Only through the ritual siphoning of a living soul can the graft be fully reanimated, pulsing with her sovereign will.

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"Why should I mourn a severed hand, when I have a kingdom of corpses to furnish me anew?"