The Red Witch of the South

The woman known throughout the Southern Territories as the Red Witch was born Zarina Kitinova Dumane, daughter of the once-illustrious House Dumane, whose trading empire once connected the Sultanate of Golden Sands with lands across the sea. The Dumanes were not merely merchants but diplomats and scholars, their bloodline traced back to the marriage of an Al-Zaharan naval commander and a foreign princess from distant eastern shores.

The Fall of House Dumane

House Dumane's fall came swiftly in 2795 PC3, during the Copper Wars when rival trading houses sought to control the lucrative metal routes. A coalition of enemies orchestrated their downfall through forged documents and bribed testimony. While her parents and brothers faced public execution, twenty-year-old Zarina escaped through the ancient catacombs beneath the family estate.

The Wandering Century

With nothing but her education and emergency gemstones, Zarina began a period of wandering that would span decades. Her natural affinity for magic manifested during these years as intuitive, wild expressions born of necessity and emotion. She also discovered that her aging had slowed dramatically, eventually forcing her to craft elaborate disguises and false identities to avoid unwanted attention.

The Crimson Transformation

In 2893 PC3, nearly a century after her family's fall, Zarina discovered a sealed chamber containing a mana vent—one of the rare geological phenomena where pure magical energy erupts from deep within Aethoria's crust. For fourteen days and nights, she remained within the chamber as the mana vent's energies coursed through her body, transforming her on a fundamental level.

When she emerged, her natural magical affinity had been altered. Though she could still access all forms of magic, anything she cast manifested with a distinctive crimson hue. Her hair, previously black as night, now shimmered with deep red highlights. Most significantly, her connection to time itself had changed—what had been a mysteriously slow aging process became a nearly complete cessation of aging altogether.

Crimson Hold

By 2900 PC3, Zarina had accumulated enough wealth, knowledge, and magical power to establish a permanent domain. She chose a strategic location at the southwestern tip of the Great Sand Sea, where desert meets ocean. Over two decades, she restored and transformed an ancient fortress into what is now known as Crimson Hold. The surrounding landscape bloomed with strange, red-tinged flora, creating an oasis that travelers speak of with equal parts desire and fear.

• Crimson Magic: All magic she casts manifests with a distinctive crimson hue
• Near-Immortality: Aging has nearly ceased after exposure to the mana vent
• Intuitive Sorcery: Magic emerges as wild, intuitive expressions rather than structured academic approaches
• Limited Foresight: Some scholars theorize her exposure granted her ability to perceive potential futures
• Domain Control: Crimson Hold and surrounding lands respond to her will
• Chaos Mastery: Understands that complex systems sometimes require destabilization before evolution

• Escaped the fall of House Dumane through ancient catacombs
• Spent over a century wandering and accumulating knowledge and power
• Survived and was transformed by exposure to a mana vent, gaining crimson magic
• Established Crimson Hold as an independent power in the Southern Territories
• Systematically brought down the descendants of those who destroyed her family over generations
• Created the Crimson Court, a shifting collective of outcasts, scholars, and adventurers
• Maintains fierce independence, accepting no students and swearing fealty to no ruler