Llawan

Empress Llawan was a Cephalid leader of the Mer Empire on Dominaria.

Exile
She had been married off to Emperor Aboshan by her father in order to create an alliance between the two cephalid houses to secure Aboshan's reign and to advance her father's position in the court. However, the relationship between Llawan and Aboshan was loveless and eventually Aboshan became suspicious of his wife and had her exiled to the southern court. As a result, Llawan became a symbol of the oppressed and so her court became a rallying point for rebellious factions.

Contrary to Aboshan's suspicions, Llawan's time in exile was mostly peaceful, as she did not openly make war against her husband, but merely offered a refuge for the various non-cephalid races that were being persecuted under Aboshan's reign. Despite this, she was often targeted by Aboshan's assassins. Llawan did not make a direct move for the throne until the Emperor's death following his use of the Mirari.

Civil war
Although she had a legitimate claim to the throne, Llawan was opposed by Laquatus, the former ambassador to the Cabal who had gained a large amount of influence over the Emperor's court. The two fought an open civil war under the waves, with Laquatus holing himself up inside the Otaria Chasm, which had been submerged by Aboshan's use of the Mirari and was believed to be rich in minerals.

The civil war reached a stalemate over the trench until Laquatus tried to use dementia beasts created for him by Chainer to overwhelm the empress's forces. In order to prevent a rout, Llawan led her own personal leviathan into battle. This rallied her troops and helped them hold their ground until Chainer's death, at which point the dementia beasts disappeared. Llawan then implemented her own victory plan by aiding her court mage Olsham in creating a permanent portal barrier to seal the chasm off, trapping Laquatus's forces inside. Afterwards, it was revealed that Llawan had created fake documents that overstated the value of the chasm—it had been a ruse to trick Laquatus into trapping himself.

Reign
With Laquatus contained, Llawan set about rebuilding the empire. She showed toleration towards the various species of sea animals and also fostered relations with the surface by sending Veza to be her ambassador to the Cabal. However, Llawan realised that Laquatus would eventually find a way to free himself, so she made plans to defeat him utterly. She had Veza feed him false information through his own ambassador and divided his forces by offering royal pardons to any merfolk that abandoned his side. She then had a strike force enter the chasm and massacre the remaining rebels, leaving Laquatus without any allies. Finally, she had the Cabal pretend to help with Laquatus's journey into Krosa to find the Mirari, only to abandon him once he was lost inside the forest, as well as having them create a zombie assassin, in the form of Balthor, to hunt him down. This finally ended Laquatus's threat to the empire.

Llawan then continued to build up her empire with minimal concerns. She approached the mages of the surface and had them combine with her own mages to form the Riptide Project, which aimed to advance the magical knowledge of both the surface world and the Mer Empire. However, the project ran out of control when its reborn Slivers broke free, slaughtered the mages that had created them and made it to the mainland. Llawan's fate after this is unknown.

In-game references
Represented in:
 * Llawan, Cephalid Empress

Quoted:
 * Ambassador Laquatus
 * Churning Eddy
 * Quiet Speculation