"Naieth has convinced us all that we need to be ruled, but we do not. The last hope of the Asrai is rebellion – to throw down those deluded tyrants and rule ourselves."
- —Ordaana.[2a]
Ordaana, later called the "Fly Queen," [3b] was a Highborn Spellweaver and former handmaiden of Queen Ariel of Athel Loren. Hatred against her queen and grief for her lost child caused her to fall into the clutches of the Nurglite Daemon Prince Alkhor and become his mutated proctor, nearly dooming Athel Loren and its Asrai.
History[]
Ordaana had been married to Lord Beldeas of Locrimere. Their relationship had been love- and childless, with Beldeas pursuing his pleasure outside of marriage. Through her alliance with Beldeas, Ordaana was granted access to the highest levels of Asrai society, becoming a handmaiden of Queen Ariel herself.[1b]
Unsatisfied, Ordaana took a lover, a lordling named Thuralin from the northern realms of Athel Loren, and bore him a child. The Queen in the Woods believed Ordaana's infidelity to be indecorous and not appropriate for a member of her court and sent her back to Locrimere.[2a] Enraged and feeling betrayed, Ordaana lost control over herself and while cursing Ariel for abandoning her, set her own glade aflame, destroying her residence along with her daughter. When she came to realize what she had done, she went mad with grief, despair and rage, blaming Ariel for having driven her to the crime of infanticide. [2a] What Ordaana did not know was that her lover had saved their child and carried it far away, to raise it beyond Ordaana's reach.[2d]
In her despair, Ordaana was contacted by a spirit calling itself Aestar Eltanin, supposedly the spirit of an ancient Asur hero who had fallen and been sealed somewhere in the forest. The spirit tempted Ordaana with knowledge of ancient Ulthuan and claimed that he had been imprisoned because he had seen that Ariel's rule would be the doom of the Wood Elves. The two made a pact -- Aestar would lend his aid to Ordaana's vengeance and in return, she would free him. Together, they would unite the Wood Elven people and lead the exodus from the forest back to Ulthuan, where Ordaana would reign as queen for saving her people.[1a]
Since the death of her daughter, Ordaana had become a recluse, keeping away from court and even her husband. On the advice of Aestar, she approached Beldeas, apparently to rekindle their relationship and attend the spring festival together.[1a] She also lowered the wards of Locrimere to allow Beastmen to enter the forest. In this way, Aestar argued, the failure of the Queen in the Woods would be plain for all to see, weakening support for her and paving the way for Ordaana's rise to power. Furthermore, Orion, the King in the Woods, would need to be neutralized. To this end, Ordaana was to enter the King's Glade and sabotage the final stages of the Rite of Rebirth.[1a]
Approaching the Oak of Ages in secret, the Highborn plunged an enchanted blade into the shadow of the tree, planting a curse that inflamed Orion's rage and pride to yet unseen heights.[1b] The Consort-King turned against the forest spirits, hunting their greatest representatives to force them to pay obeisance to him, while ignoring the threat of the Beastmen herds. Even when the Beastmen destroyed her home at Locrimere, Ordaana felt no remorse, only seeing it as necessary to prove how weak the rule of Ariel and Orion was.[1b]
When the Wild Hunt crushed the Beastmen at Druné Fell, Ordaana at first believed the plan to have failed. It was then that "Aestar" revealed himself to be a Daemon Prince of Nurgle, by the name of Alkhor, having been freed by the rampage of the Consort-King. Yet Ordaana's hate remained strong enough that she was willing to consort with the Daemon if it meant a chance to kill Ariel. [1c] Ragged and alone, she met a Wardancer named Finavar in the wreckage the Wild Hunt had left at Druné Fell. They both shared their bitterness at the rule of Orion and she convinced him that there was no need for either of them, with the highborn leaving the commoner to die.[2a]
Consulting with Alkhor, the Daemon Prince told her that they needed to find a way to permanently ensure he remained in the mortal world, otherwise, he would be drawn back to the palace of Grandfather Nurgle in the Realm of Chaos. To permanently anchor Alkhor in the material world, Ordaana cut a piece of the Daemon's flesh away, which Alkhor transformed into a daemonic creature that would anchor him to the world and that, to Ordaana's eyes, looked like her infant daughter. Overjoyed with having been granted a replacement for the child she believed to be dead, Ordaana pledged herself with new fervour to Alkhor and the goal to destroy Ariel. The Daemon Prince took her as his consort and queen in return.[2b]
As Alkhor's corruption over the nearby region of the mortal world grew, more and more Daemons were able to manifest. Plaguebearers counted the fungi, insects and moulds that manifested due to the growing might of Nurgle, and expanded the Daemon Prince's domain near the halls of the Asrai at Silvam Dale. Ordaana supported the legions of Nurgle against the Asrai, rending their fortress and aiding her "child" in killing the Spellsingers leading the defence. Warning Alkhor against challenging Prince Elatior, the Lord of Silvam Dale, directly, the Daemon Prince withdraw parts of the plagues afflicting her, making Ordaana appear as she had before she joined his daemonic legion in order that she might infiltrate Elatior's court.[2c]
Using a Plague Drone to carry her over the enemy lines, Ordaana was brought to the Wilding Tree to meet her husband. Believed to have been abducted by the Daemons, the Asrai took her in immediately. There, she not only met Beldeas, but also Finavar. Fearing that the Wardancer would betray her plan to kill Orion after Elatior had prophesied that their defence would only fail through betrayal, she instead accused the Wardancer of being in league with the Plague Lord, citing the ideas she herself had planted in his head.[2e]
Afterwards, Ordaana attempted to contact Alkhor, but instead found a Daemon of Khorne, who had been attracted by the bloodshed and weakening of the barriers between the forest and the Realm of Chaos. The Khornate Daemon attempted to wrest her services away from the Plague Lord, but the treacherous Highborn fled in fear. When her daemonic master contacted her, she revealed the Asrai's plans to him.[2e] Under his instruction, she killed the Spellweavers responsible for controlling the Wilding Tree, causing it to run amok, kill Elatior and the rest of the Asrai army, which granted Alkhor victory.[2f]
Continued service to the Daemon Prince caused Ordaana to become further and further mutated, with memories of her time as a Highborn Elf becoming dimmer and dimmer, with only her hatred of Ariel remaining to anchor her psyche. She led the armies of Nurgle against the Asrai host, destroying the seats of the Highborn that once shunned her and she revelled at the recognition of her in their eyes before she killed them.[3a]
Her army, however, suffered a bitter loss at the Cromlech of Cadai, where the might of the Cadai manifested at the behest of the ancient mage Calaingor as avatars that laid waste to the daemonic host and drove them back to Alkhor's garden.[3a] As the Daemon Prince's plan neared completion, Ordaana was commanded to defend the garden from the remaining Asrai. At that point, the former Wood Elf could no longer remember the slight that had driven her to turn against her kin, being solely consumed by hatred and a desire for revenge.[3b]
As Orion gathered the Wild Hunt to destroy the daemonic infestation, consisting of Dragons, spirits and even the bitter branchwraiths of the Deepwood under the command of Drycha, the Nurglite army was driven back, forcing Ordaana to retreat. Attacked by Orion while he was mounted on a Forest Dragon, she was wounded, her wings destroyed. Ordaana was driven away, but the appearance of Ariel drove her back into combat as her hatred burned white-hot.[3c]
It was then that among the Asrai combatants Ordanna recognised her adult child, now a wardancer. Realising she had betrayed the forest for nothing, she turned on Alkhor, ramming the blade inscribed with his True Name into his face. Enraged, Alkhor crushed her with his fist and cast her aside, ending Ordaana's life, though the damage was done and Orion was able to banish him back to the Realm of Chaos thanks to the knife she had planted in the Daemon Prince's body.[3c]
Appearance[]
Ordaana was originally described as beautiful, a stern Wood Elven woman with silver hair, an aristocratic mien and ivory skin.[1a] Over time, her service to a Daemon Prince of Nurgle caused Ordaana to physically mutate as she accepted the "gifts" the Daemon granted her. Alkhor left a mark upon her shoulder in the shape of the three circles of Nurgle, which later transformed into a resemblance of his face.[2e]
Further mutation provided her with six fly-like wings, insect-like mandibles dripping with acid instead of a mouth, skin tessellated with a black, oily sheen that acted as a carapace, and compound eyes similar to those of a fly that were able to see even the smallest and fastest of Nurgle's creations from up high. Her blood was replaced with pus. [3a][3b]