Editing Awnshegh (section)

==[[Lamia|The Lamia]]==

Keta Pechaya was a one-time exotic dancer, con-woman, and thief, who accidentally absorbed the tainted bloodline of a man dying on a battlefield when she murdered him to loot the corpse.  Years later, after killing and draining several Blooded folk to power up, she murdered the king of Besaiam and became ruler as the Lamia, spending away the country's wealth constantly funding vainglorious monuments to herself.  Physically, she hews to the original ''D&D'' depiction of the lamia as more of a lion-taur than a snake-woman (with a hypothetical snake-woman awnshegh called "the Naga" instead used to illustrate the bloodform power).  That said, if the tauric thing isn't a dealbreaker, she's still pretty good looking for an awnshegh... though her left hand's fingernails can extend like a cat's claws and slice through metal when she's mad.

Her main powers are her ability to instantly charm men, whether with a glance or an aura, and a touch that drains [[Wisdom]] and makes men into her fawning servitors.  Women are immune to these powers, which is one of the reasons she gets very... catty (hee) whenever pretty ladies are around, the other being that she is envious of her lost human beauty.  Between her various charmed puppets and a fair-sized army of mercenaries, she actually controls a decent-sized holding, where the common people are lied to about being ruled by an awnshegh and subjected to ruinous taxation.  But she doesn't regularly pillage her own people, and at least some of her appetite for wealth is sated through extorting and terrorizing her neighbors.  She's also managed to corner the market on a rare deer whose horns are used as spell components by sending poachers to kill the rest in neighboring countries.  The Lamia has a cautious alliance with the Raven, planning to invade and split Cwmb Bheinn between the two of them soon, Poland-style.