Calanthe

Born

2,561 Reign of Amaranth (2,389 years ago)

Died

Alive

Aliases

The Red Queen, The Dragon, Glad-of-War

Family

Sisters: Dahlia, Evanthe, Flora, Gladiolus, Aster, Belladonna

Father: Amaranth

Racial characteristics

Extremely tall and powerfully-built, blazing scarlet scales, sharp horns, powerful claws, well-endowed, long scarlet hair

Sex

Female

Height

6'6"

Weight

250 lbs

Hair

Scarlet

Eyes

Ruby

Affiliations

Kingdom of the Pyreen (former princess)

Calanthe is known today as the greatest gladiator in Athas, undefeated in thousands of bouts. Outside the arena, she leads a lavish and hedonistic lifestyle, enjoying lovers, wine, intoxicants, brawls, and every pleasure she can have, usually several at a time. Even so, she is never so alive as she is in the arena, glad to face any challenge, be it a hundred men, a horde of monsters, a rage of drakes...never has she fallen.

Ancestry

Calanthe is a Pyreen, born to Amaranth and his wife Carlaggan.

Appearance

Calanthe is tall and powerfully-built, with a physique honed through years of gladiatorial combat. Her scales are a deep scarlet, unblemished despite deflecting countless blows from steel. Her rust-red are swept backward, curving up to sharp points; she typically does not adorn them. Her long, scarlet hair is as vivid as her scales, and typically tied tightly back in combat, but loose and flowing on her days off. She is well-endowed, although she binds her chest tightly in combat to avoid hindrance and balance issues. Her long tail helps her maneuver in combat, and serves as a powerful weapon in itself, and her large wings not only allow flight but can buffet strong men right off their feet and into the dirt.

History

Current Status

Calanthe travels the Tablelands, seeking glory in the arena, and challenging gladiators and other combatants when no official games exist. If she's bored, she starts bar fights, or goes in seek of mighty monsters to slay, always looking for a new challenge to test her skills and prove her unmatched prowess. She is inebriated more often than not, preferring magically-augmented wines that can penetrate her intense constitution, but many have made the mistake of assuming she is vulnerable in this condition, only to find themselves her latest trophy. Some analysts suspect her lifestyle is a salve, that she's masking a deep and abiding pain, seeking to fill a void that no hedonistic act can ever fill.

Abilities

Calanthe is strong, beyond any Pyreen or perhaps any humanoid of her stature in history. Her physical strength appears limited only by her resolve, as she has been witnessed by thousands lifting loads fit for a giant of three times her height, parrying blows from 50 ton monsters, bending steel and breaking stone columns with her bare hands, etc. But her abilities are not limited to strength alone; with over two millennia of combat experience, she is transcendent at combat, a god of the battlefield. Her instinct is perfectly honed, her movements are flawless. No blow from any weapon has ever been tried that she hasn't parried a hundred times before.

And yet, her abilities do not stop there. Her song is Power, and the ramifications of that song appear limited only by her imagination. She has struck blows with a sword that split the earth in two like an earthquake. She has shouted stone walls into crumbling. She has stomped stone towers into cracking and collapsing. And when she breathes fire, nothing, no stone nor ceramic, no magical defense, nothing is left unburnt.