Trazrellan

Born Duchess Arianna-Trazrellan of House Daxera, she was quickly engaged to Prince Francis of a Kingdom that has long since fallen. He had been 13 and she 2 years old when they were engaged. By time she was old enough to marry him she was 16 and he was 27. They had their first kid, the heir to throne the same year they got married, Crown Prince Helion. Prince Francis had a few mistresses and concubines but overall their marriage was a successful one. She threw herself into her studies and learned how to manipulate people so she could use the power she wielded without being seen as a threat because of her womanhood.

She was especially skilled with military tactics and torture tactics not that anyone knew that as King Francis often took the credit for her ideas. She found the hardest part of being queen was always needing to hold her tongue and never being allowed to just feel her feelings because everyone always had something to say about every little thing she did no matter what it was. King Francis was prideful and vain but ambitious so the two started a military campaign against one of the other smaller kingdoms to conquer it which over the course of ten years, thousands dead, three new additions to the royal family, and one miscarriage, they were able to conquer it.

She felt that the most logical thing would be to sit back and make sure that their hold on the new lands was secure before they moved out onto the other kingdoms. Securing the borders while it may have seemed like the worse option was the better option to her and all of his advisors but King Francis was drunk on the success and combined with a healthy amount of no proper maturing, paranoia, ego, and stress he made the more immediately satisfying answer, more war. She knew that this wouldn’t be good so she did her best to prepare the cities by ordering wall construction, an increase in crops growth, and a draft of all able bodied peoples to join their army.

It was during this time that many in the court started to see her as the more reliable ruler and the backbone of the kingdom. Her punishments during this period may have been harsh but they kept the kingdom in check while they were being pushed to their limits to fight a war only the battle hungry wanted to fight. She watched the armies die and the kingdom shrink and the wars get more and more bloodthirsty. On a siege of the castle two of her children, Princess Katerina and Crown Prince Helion were captured by the opposing armies forces. She attempted to negotiate with them and when noticing that that wasn’t going to work she attempted to derail them while sending in a team to go collect them and a batch of troops to go burn down and loot some of their cities.

Her attempts were….in some areas successful and in others not. Princess Katrina but the crown prince had been killed and strung up outside the capital city walls that only held in an abandoned city by the time their armies got there. This led to an immense outburst of rage from Arianna where she broke everything in her sight when the armies came back with her daughter. While she may not have agreed with the war initially she was able to recognize that they were too deep in it now to back down. To add that with the brutal killing of her eldest son this war was now personal. She wanted that royal family's heads on spikes outside her castle, served on silver platters at dinner, and burning in a pyre keeping the outcasts warm.

She took the reins of the war from Francis who she was able to get declared unfit for the job and then set an execution date for him under the label of “war crimes”. She knew she couldn’t surrender, they weren’t strong enough to fight them on their own, they had no allies, and they would be crushed if they stopped fighting without a deal of surrender in place so to avoid the many landmines in her own kingdom that may blow up should she misstep as well as the ones outside her own court she made a plan. A complicated plan in some regards but a plan nonetheless.

She set up a small pact with her advisor, nobles and three remaining kids where she explained her plan to them. She was able to get all of them to agree and then set it into motion. The first section played out like this: a section of her nobles under the leadership of her son Prince Terrance would speak to the other kingdoms about a coup against her. They would drum up allies and forces to separate from the original kingdom or take it over. Meanwhile Arianna would be working on her image by publicizing the trial of her husband so that other kingdoms would be forced into talking about her as the new ruler of her kingdom.

This allowed her to get an audience with some of the kingdoms her son Terrance was “secretly” going to for help as well as some simpler smaller bystander kingdoms. She was able to build a reputation as a queen who simply cared about her kingdom and had been in a bad situation just trying to survive. Something good came out of Francis taking credit for all of her ideas at least. This led to a very hesitant offer of peace along with some flowers that symbolized remorse from the kingdom that killed her eldest son. She wrote them a blunt and hesitant letter not wanting to come off as too eager. Over the course of the next two years with the help of the other kingdoms the two reached a truce.

The other kingdom pinned the death of her son on an overeager commander of theirs who was promptly executed and she blamed all the war crimes on her husband who had already been executed. Then the second part of their plan fell into motion. Only shortly after peace bells had been rung was there a new problem on the horizon. Her son Terrance was leading a rebellion against her and was seeking to overthrow her. She couldn’t bear the thought of sending out armies to hurt her son and was so distraught her daughter Crown Princess Katrina had to take up temporary management of the kingdom.

This made the now truce kingdom come to her aid and put their soldiers on the line to fight armies that were unknowingly being backed by their ally kingdoms. Prince Terrance using the assisting armies captured the heir to the truce kingdom and kept him locked up under the same treatment Prince Helion had been shown. Arianna watched them fret and worry over their son drinking in their pain and letting it fuel her anger further. It seemed almost as if her anger was slowly affecting everyone else around her as well making them enjoy the suffering the truce kingdom was going through to make a show of defending their new “allies”.

When the truce kingdom and all of their allies were weakened thoroughly Arianna’s kingdom rose from the shadows as a joined force, quickly, brutally, and efficiently conquering their previous “allies”. She then beheaded each member of the truce family herself and had the Crown Prince drawn and quartered. Her thirst for vengeance on this quenched she was now able to move onto other matters like keeping control over her new territories.

You may be inclined to think she wasn’t able to properly judge or make good decisions after this point. You may even want me to humanize her and say she was grieving which she was but she also wanted to watch this kingdom they had been fighting for so long suffer. She wanted their victory to be a permanent stain to each enemy's history. She knew how to keep the conquered countries in line. She made good deals and made sure they were well off and well anyone who disobeyed met the sharp end of a blade.

She ruled for many more years after this till she gave her crown to her daughter Katrina. Her son Terrance was head of the military and her youngest daughter Henna worked within the financial and noble circles maintaining the family name and reputation for success long after Arianna’s passing. It was no surprise to her that when she died she became a demon, after all it was all her ideas that had given her husband the moniker “Red King” during their first military campaign.

Blood soaked fields and destroyed cities left a mark on one’s soul. As did being responsible for torturing of many many soldiers, nobles, and military strategists in ways that left them insane, dead, or just a bit twisted. Ways that determined all future techniques that were used by rulers from many different kingdoms after her. Then looking at everything she did afterward you can also see how she became a demon but it was the rage that still lurked deep within that was unleashed when she died that made her the demon overlord of wrath. She quickly took to her new position of power and over time made that title even more fitting to the wonderful ruler.

"Her Wrath Got So Big It Blocked The Sun Out"