The Lich Queen

Real Name: Alma Balke
Villain Name: Skadi the Cruel
Title: The Lich Queen
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (leans Evil)
Age: 703
Gender: Female
Race: Lich (Human)
Hair: Blonde (in Glamour)
Eyes: Blue (Glowing)
Height: 5’5”
Weight: 122 lbs
Blood type: None



In her human guise, Alma is a beautiful blonde woman with blue eyes, and her Nordic ancestry really shows. When her true form as a lich is revealed, however, she looks like an emaciated corpse - embalmed and not fully rotted away, but nonetheless entirely unrecognizable from the woman she was in life. As the lich, Alma’s apparel consists of scraps of cloth and leather that culminate in a hood and cloak.



In life, and before the Black Death claimed her family, Alma was - by accounts of her friends - a gentle, if occasionally hot-tempered woman. She loved children deeply and treasured life itself. After the death of her husband and son as a result of the Black Death, however, she became unhinged, searching for any means to bring them back, more than willing to study forbidden magics, including necromancy.

Upon her ascension to Lichdom, her ability to empathize with the living eroded over time as she outlived friends and extended family. Centuries of isolation had rendered her insane, and her humanity had died away to the point where she sees the living only as new subjects to experiment on with new and inventive rituals.

Thanks to being barren as a result of her ascent, she treats her reanimated dead with all the manners of a stern mother.



Born in 14th Century Norway, Alma Balke came from a long line of old Norse religious practitioners, despite the ostensible decline of the religion since the 11th Century. Her most treasured possession growing up was a pendant fashioned in the shape of Thor’s Hammer. By the time she married, her beliefs in the old Norse pantheon were largely a memory.

Alma Balke married young and by the time the Black Death had swept across mainland Europe, had two children. By the time news of the Black Death had arrived, the plague had made landfall in Askøy and began spreading into Norway from there. Alma’s son had been out of the country at the time, and was presumed to have been claimed by the Black Death.

First, her daughter had been taken ill, and soon after, her husband joined, dying within days. The sight of the gangrene that set in on her husband’s extremities in the last days before his death lay forever seared into Alma’s memory. Her daughter survived mere days longer, and then Alma herself became ill.

She was resigned to death, praying to whatever deity was listening that she would join her family. Yet, somehow, despite all expectations to the contrary, Alma recovered. Left alone, with her husband and daughter dead, and her son missing - presumed dead - Alma’s mind snapped due to grief.

Refusing to bury her family, she preserved their bodies and prayed day and night for their return. Only silence greeted her, and her already fragile mental state took a sharp decline. She remembered an old tale passed down by her parents of tomes of forgotten lore and forbidden magics - said to have been such an affront to both the Vanir and the Æsir that the clans collectively banished them to the frozen wastes where no mortal nor god could tread.

To seek out such power was tantamount to sacrilege, no matter the faith, but even still, she went to seek out such lore, reasoning that even dying in the attempt would be preferable to waiting on gods that did not act.

As it turned out, grief was a potent enough motivator to endure even that which ought to kill a mortal. Rumors of a robed figure returning southward with a large tome that smelled of death circulated around the more superstitious villages. Soon after, churches throughout the nations were desecrated, with the hearts of the clergy removed. Entire graveyards had been found with the remains exhumed.

Upon gazing at what was in the books she had found in the frozen wastes, Alma’s grief shifted into determination to carry out the ritual on its pages - to gain the power to conquer death. In conquering it herself, she would endeavor to conquer it for her family, too. With the magic she learned from the books, she trapped the souls of the innocent in a crystalline orb, which would ultimately become her phylactery upon her completion of the ritual.

Returning to the frozen wastes where no living thing dared to tread, she unbound her soul from her body to her phylactery and drank the fatal poison. Her body died, yet her soul didn’t depart, trapped into the phylactery. A great spectral fire engulfed her body as she passed over - dead, and yet not dead. Something less than human, and yet so much more. A monster that hovered over the snow and ice of the world.

Driven by nothing more than her desire to create a spell that would truly return her family to her, hundreds of thousands of people within the Arctic Circle went missing every century - subjects for the latest spell of necromancy that she crafted. None of them worked perfectly, and her test subjects would always return to life marred by the process in some way, but also completely bound to her will.

As the centuries passed, wars erupted and extinguished, providing new subjects for her experiments. As the isolation set in, she no longer could identify with or appreciate the emotions of the living - the suffering she put her test subjects through was simply a part of the experiment, rather than causing pain for its own sake. And yet, unable to have children anymore, she treated the resulting undead as if they truly were her children.

This started an idea within her: if she couldn’t truly bring her family back the way they were, she would simply make all of the living her children, so that she wouldn’t have to endure her undying existence all alone.

The tale of the origins of the Lich Queen is taught in the more remote parts of Scandinavia as a tale to frighten the superstitious, unaware that there is is more truth to the tale than most know.



Undeath: Having passed into undeath, Alma has no biological needs to service, and as such can sustain infections without issue, function in hazardous environments, and even act in complete absence of atmosphere. Naturally, the lack of bodily circulations renders her immune to the effects of toxins, viruses, bacteria, and other microbes.

Necromancy: Her primary capabilities revolve around the forbidden art of necromancy, including reanimation of the dead and forcing the living to suffer necrosis.

Hovering: While in lich form, Alma can’t fly, per se. But she can hover a short distance above the ground and even over water.

Offensive Magic: While her primary specialization is in necromancy, Alma has talent in more mundane forms of magic, including the manipulation of fire, ice, and lightning.

Cold Resistance: Her undead form is naturally resistant to frost and ice-based attacks and magics.

Glamour: Alma’s considerable power allows her to use a mortal form. While in this form, she’s considerably weaker because she is deprived of her more powerful necromancy spells, but she still has access to her fire, frost, and lightning spells.

Soul Bound: Alma’s soul is bound to her phylactery; thus, if she is “killed” while in action, her body will reform in front of her phylactery (mechanic: if killed during an RP, out of action for the rest of the RP)



Weak to Fire: Her undead form is extraordinarily susceptible to being incinerated.

Unaffected by Standard Healing: As she can’t use biological processes to heal, normal healing spells, as well as anomalies that increase healing, are useless on her. In addition, magical potions and other effects are only half as effective as they would be on a normal person.

Holy Weapons: Weapons that are considered “holy” in general are more effective on her than even anomalous weapons. Alma herself is particularly repulsed by old Norse pagan symbology.







Any corpse she comes across holds the potential to be reanimated as one of her minions.