Editing Darklord (section)

==Tsien Chiang==
Originally from the continent of Kara-Tur on the world of Toril, Tsien Chiang was beautiful and powerful wizard, who hated all men due to her father's dismissal of her abilities. After killing him and disabling her relatives, she seized control of her family lands. She used her charm and position to marry a total of four men, each of whom fathered a child with her before she killed him and moved on to the next. Three of the daughters so produced were evil, with the fourth, Nightingale, being truly good-hearted and adored by the gods. Tsien Chang would go on to commit various evil acts, including the desecration of four sacred bells and four sacred trees, but her mistreatment of Nightingale is what ultimately led to her being taken by the mists. On the fourth time that Nightingale objected to her family's atrocities, Tsien Chang decided to do far worse than merely beat her as they had the last three times, and she and her evil daughters were taken by the mists as the torture began. Tsien Chiang imprisoned the living remains of Nightingale in the Tower of Broken Promises as the Mists tore I'Cath from Kara-Tur forever.

If you're wondering why the number four is mentioned so much, it's because it's homophonous with "death" in most Chinese languages and is considered bad luck in many east-Asian cultures.
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===5e===
Her 5e incarnation gives her such a radically different backstory that pretty much the only things that remain are the four daughters and a magic bell.

When Tsien Chiang was a child, her home was destroyed by invaders, forcing her to flee into frozen mountains where she expected to die. Luckily for her, she was found and taken in by a gold dragon who took pity on her, and she served him as an attendant in thanks for saving her life. While serving the dragon, she learned much of magic and medicine, growing to become an accomplished wizard. The dragon refused to teach her any truly dangerous or powerful magic though, knowing that she would only use it for revenge. In her studies, she learned of the Nightingale bell, an artifact that could make its ringer’s dreams come true -- but creating the bell required the scale of a gold dragon. Knowing her mentor would never provide a scale she attempted to drug him so she could steal a scale while he slept, but got the mixture wrong and not only killed him, but caused his entire hoard to be destroyed, with all that remained being a single scale. Chiang crafted the bell and took it to her home, where she used it to wish away the invaders, which instantly vanished. In awe and gratitude, the people elevated her to royalty and she became their queen.

She ruled well for years, enacting vast reforms and strict but sensible laws in pursuit of creating the perfect empire. She had a family, taking particular pride in her four beloved daughters. Though her kingdom was prosperous, her people eventually began to chafe under her strict laws and demanding orders and revolted. Chiang was swift and merciless in her attempts to quell the rebellion, but her ruthlessness only caused the resistance against her to grow. When she ordered her armies to kill the families of all insurrectionists, assassins struck Tsien Chiang’s palace and killed her family. Distraught, Chiang climbed to the highest tower of her palace, looked out over her burning dreams, and struck the Nightingale Bell. Rather than granting her vengeful wish, the bell cracked and spilled a golden mist across the land. When the mist cleared, Tsien Chiang’s perfect city was gone, replaced by the unreal prison-city of I’Cath.

I'Cath is a city divided in two: The true I'Cath of the waking world, and Tsien Chiang's impossible, perfect dream. In the waking world the city is a silent and chaotic labyrinth composed of surreal, knotted streets and citizens trapped in eternal slumber. In the dream the city is vibrant and living, a place of ultimate beauty and efficiency where all things move according to Tsien Chiang's design, and a nightmare of constant drudgery for her people. Every twilight, Tsien Chiang climbs the spirit-infested Ping’On Tower and tolls the Nightingale Bell. This renews the magic of her dream world and keeps her citizens asleep, but it also calls forth a legion of jiangshi, which emerge from their tombs to reshape the waking city’s mazelike streets in a fruitless attempt to match Tsien Chiang’s perfectionist vision.

Her curse is that while the dream is near-perfection in her eyes, that only makes the imperfections of the waking world all the more obvious and inescapable. No matter how many times she tries to bring the same order and beauty she sees in her dream to the waking world, I'Cath's streets grow only more twisted and labyrinthine. She spends as much time as she can with the dream-versions of her daughters though she knows they aren't real, and in the waking world she actively avoids the twisted reflections of her daughters that wander the true I'Cath's streets.

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