Ferranifer

Ferranifer was a vampiric human necromancer who once served Acererak. She was the head of the Black Academy, until she was slain by Brecca Greenstone of the Sutler Expedition. Rather than perishing, however, her soul was drawn into the amulet of Acererak around her neck, which was claimed by the Expedition. Waiting until an opportune moment presented itself, Ferranifer possessed Azaka Stormfang and, when the band returned to Silverstone, stole the amulet and made an excuse to depart the group.

After making permanent her hold on Azaka's body, she traveled to the city of Moil to await the expedition's arrival. She confronted them, revealed her true identity, and after flying out over the empty void beneath the city threatened Azaka's soul if they did not give her what she wanted. The heroes attacked her before she could even explain what she sought, and when a firebolt from Wyncit Sutler broke her concentration on the spell she plunged into the darkness below. Though she was presumed destroyed, she managed to plane shift to safety at the last moment.

Two years later, she began sending dreams to Wyncit using Azaka's soul as a conduit, that appeared to be a warning from his grandfather, Leardon Sunflare, not to trust the Raven Queen. Unbeknowst to her, Azaka was able to add a plea for help to the end of the dreams. Though vague, and unidentifiable, it was the crucial element that eventually allowed Wyncit to deduce that the dreams were a trick, and that Azaka could yet be saved.

Ferranifer used a group of yuan-ti to hollow out a complex beneath the ziggurant of Orolunga, which she filled with traps. At the heart of this complex was a necrotic remnant of the atropal that Acererak used to create the Death Curse, empowered to recreate the effect at a local scale. She then began luring adventurers into the ziggurat to feed their souls to it. Eventually the Sutler Expedition tracked her down, destroyed the atropal fragment, and took her prisoner. The revenant druid Ro brought Ferranifer to her grove, bound her to the grove's heart tree, and sacrificed herself in a ritual that trapped Ferranifer within the tree forever, sealed away by the power of both life and death.