"I am Akivasha!  I am the woman who never died, who never grew old!  Who fools say was lifted from the earth by the gods, in the full bloom of her youth and beauty, to queen it forever in some celestial clime!  Nay, it is in the shadows that mortals find immortality!  Ten thousand years ago I died to live for ever!  Give me your lips, strong man!"

The name of this ancient, evil, beautiful princess, the daughter of Tuthamon, who reveled in purple feasts amid the black halls of ancient Luxur, still is heard throughout the Hyborian lands in song and legend.  She loved life and all the meanings of life, and to win life she courted death.  She could not bear to think of growing old and shriveled and worn, and dying at last as hags die.  She wooed Darkness like a lover and his gift was life - life that, not being life as mortals know it, can never grow old and fade.  She went into the shadows to cheat age and death.

She survives her encounter with Conan, so she still makes for a formidable foe in a Hyborian campaign.

Combat
The Will save against this vampire's charm and the Fortitude save to regain levels lost to its energy drain, have a DC of 28.

Undead: Immune to mind influencing effects, poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, and disease.  Not subject to critical hits, subdual damage, energy drains, or death from massive damage.

Howard wrote The Hour of the Dragon in four months at the behest of a British publishing house, in hopes he could finally become a full fledged novelist.  Unfortunately, as described in the afterword, the publisher went under and Howard ended up selling the story to Weird Tales instead.  The magazine published it in five issues, the last issue coming out only two months before Howard died.  It was thus the last Conan story which he saw published.

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