Dowager Montagenet

Dowager Eliza Montagenet, of the influential Montagenet family, was the widow of Lord Blackblood and resided in the elaborate Montagenet Mansion of Ashtan. She was a renowned Necromancer, and her Dorian-style mansion was staffed entirely by zombies dressed in servants' garb. She was one of the few who remember the days before Ashtan was a democracy, and many say that the arcane magics she and Lord Blackblood conjured up were instrumental in the fall of the royal family during the Anarchy Rebellions.

Against her wishes, the Dowager Montagenet's son, Rudolpho Montagenet, fled to Shallam long ago to marry Camilla Prietta in Shallam. The Montagenets seemed to have a long-standing rivalry with the Prietta family, evidenced by the state of the Prietta family sepulchre within Linnaen Park. During the first appearance of the Jaguars crime wave, the Dowager was hypnotised into creating gleam from the bones of orphans by a man known as Ysven, who bore a striking resemblance to her son Rudolpho in his youth.

With the deposing of the pretender queen Sarranda and restoration of the ancient Ashtani throne at the end of the 6th century came the truth of the Montagenets' secret involvement in the downfall of Queen Pellucaria, and the dowager's subsequent rule as a shadow queen over Ashtan in the centuries since. The leadership of Ashtan summoned the executioner and the death of the dowager was swift. As she died, a maelstrom of necromantic energy carried away her body and all of the many magical workings throughout the city which she had created, leaving it uncertain whether such a powerful necromancer could be killed so simply.