Maiden of Plagues
Sobriquet: The Sleeping Lord to the denizens of the Court of Dreams and those few who have an inkling of what lies below Cairo's streets.
Appearance:
Behavior:
History: Had Set's general in the war against the north been aware of the consequences of standing against the avenging angel of Ra, he might well have thought twice about it. Brave as he was, the Scorpion King merely sought to face down the rampaging beast that seemed bent on tearing the rightful kingdom of Set out from under him. In so doing, he was inadvertently subjecting all those of his line to that over which Sakhmet held frightfully potent dominion: pestilence.
Had the Scorpion King been victorious in his mighty battle with the Eye of Ra, who knows what would have occurred. When Sakhmet smote him into nothingness at last, however, she may as well have done likewise to all those whom the Setite lord had ever sired, as all such individuals were instantly and eternally subjected to her wrath in the form of a terrible blood curse. One such childe, a mere neonate at the time, was the very individual who would grow to become the lord of the Dream Court resting beneath the modern city of Cairo -- a creature known in the millennia between as the Maiden of Plagues.
For centuries after its sire's death, the cursed Setite sought simply to create childer of its own, that it might broaden its power base. All potential candidates in this regard either died in writhing agony or were driven mad by the Embrace -- such was the power of Sakhmet's curse. Either way, the Lord of the Dream Court could not propagate. It soon gave up on this endeavor, eventually seeking only to escape the tortured form that had become its eternal prison, a form that grows weaker with each passing night.
The creature initially found that by entering torpor, it could delay the pestilential rot that overwhelmed its once human body. Whenever it slept, thus putting the activity cycle of its undead form into stasis while refreshing its mental and spiritual fortitude, it found that it could concentrate its power more effectively. During sleep, it focused its energies towards the mystical subjugation of Sakhmet's curse, hoping to eventually best the wretched spell altogether. Although it never accomplished this feat, it did find that when it awoke after such a meditation, it could release all the energy it had thus contained without suffering any of the deleterious effects on its person. Although hundreds, and often thousands, suffered from the periodic rise of the Plague Lord over time, the creature itself was spared. Eventually, however, its defenses would break down and the curse would take hold again, forcing the accursed creature into torpor once more.
Recently -- in the past couple centuries or so -- the cycles of torpor began to grow longer, with each period of waking activity growing shorter. The Methuselah came to envision the time when it must forever sleep in order to simple preserve its existence. Realizing that, after that after so many times around, the curse it had eluded for so long would finally come to claim it's due, the Plague Lord knew despair.
Recent Events: That is until the appearance of the Herald.
The Methuselah seeks the Herald as a way out from under Sakhmet's terrible curse. After foretelling of the arrival of the One With Child, it immediately made her acquisition a top priority for those who attended it at the Dream Court. Some who know of her existence believe that their lord wants the Caitiff girl for her unborn child, some for her thin and clanless blood. Others still believe that she is the key figure in an ancient Setite prophesy. Of all the things the appearance of the Herald might foretell, the Plague Lord's final chance at salvation is the most certain. Without her, it is doomed to an eternity of imprisonment of an entirely different sort, ignominiously trapped within the vessel known as Lot 14.
