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Description
Tomyris was perhaps the ancient world's ultimate mad lass. She was the queen or the Massagetae, a culturally Scythian tribe which inhabited the Caspian Steppe in the 6th century BCE. Like many Scythian women, Tomyris was raised to wield a bow from as soon as she could hold one, and became renowned as a fierce warrior. Still, Scythian society was not entirely egalitarian, and while she was technically the heir to the king, she only came to the throne after the death of her husband. Under her leadership, the Massagetae frequently raided the borders of the Achaemenid Empire, and dealing with this would take up the final years of the career of Cyrus the Great. Cyrus attempted to settle the matter by proposing a marriage between himself and the amazon warrior queen, but she rejected him. Damn, sorry bro.

Like any man cock-blocked by a strong independent woman, Cyrus threw a hissy fit and set about making war against the Massagetae, though it didn't go well. Tomyris's son, Spargapises, drove the Achaemenids out of their camp and looted all the spoils they left behind in the rush to escape. This included vast casks of rich Persian wine, which the Massagetae got thoroughly inebriated on. You see, this was actually Cyrus's plan. He had the men abandon their camp without a fight intentionally, because he knew that the Scythians' intoxicant of choice was our good friend the devil's grass, and thus they weren't used to the effects of wine. This left their warriors vulnerable, and the Achaemenids decimated them in their drunken stupor. Spargapises was taken prisoner, but he was so ashamed of his conduct that he took his own life.

Tomyris. Was. Pissed.

She called Cyrus out for his dishonorable trickery, and after Cyrus presumably parroted her words back mockingly while doing the talking hand motion, she led her army into all out war. Cyrus the Great, king of kings, was slain on the battlefield. Tomyris, hardcore bitch she was, had his corpse decapitated, and stuffed his head into a jar of blood, declaring that she had at last "quenched his thirst for blood." Good lord, what a woman. Clearly reaching the peak of metal, Tomyris takes a bow out of the historical record after this incident. As such, her ultimate fate is unclear. Although, in the D&D game I ran where she appeared as a minor antagonist, one of my party members challenged her to single combat while on a mission to retrieve Cyrus's head from her trophy room for Darius. She nearly took him out but then he pooled all his spell slots to use one of his overpowered ice attacks to lob her head off. So in the Drake Hero universe at least, that's what became of her.

Design notes, there's no contemporary artwork of Tomyris to reference, since Scythian art usually focused more on animal forms. There's a handful of modern paintings depicting her, the two I took the most inspiration from being a 15th century piece by Andrea del Castagno, and Mattia Preti's two 17th century paintings both referred to as "Tomyris Receiving the Head of Cyrus". It's pretty clear from these and other paintings though that the artists had no idea what a 6th century Scythian warrior queen looked like, so I tried to draw the bare minimum from these references, and adapt them to look a little more like a uniform appropriate for the time and culture. In my campaign, Tomyris was very much a force of nature, driven to woeful delirium after the death of her son. The slightest thing could cause her to snap and go into a rage, which was a big obstacle when my party was trying to sneak their way out of her prison. And well, I already told you how that turned out in the end. Honestly, I don't think she would've minded how she went out. It was a good, honorable fight worthy of the king-killer.

Description
Tomyris was perhaps the ancient world's ultimate mad lass. She was the queen or the Massagetae, a culturally Scythian tribe which inhabited the Caspian Steppe in the 6th century BCE. Like many Scythian women, Tomyris was raised to wield a bow from as soon as she could hold one, and became renowned as a fierce warrior. Still, Scythian society was not entirely egalitarian, and while she was technically the heir to the king, she only came to the throne after the death of her husband. Under her leadership, the Massagetae frequently raided the borders of the Achaemenid Empire, and dealing with this would take up the final years of the career of Cyrus the Great. Cyrus attempted to settle the matter by proposing a marriage between himself and the amazon warrior queen, but she rejected him. Damn, sorry bro.

Like any man cock-blocked by a strong independent woman, Cyrus threw a hissy fit and set about making war against the Massagetae, though it didn't go well. Tomyris's son, Spargapises, drove the Achaemenids out of their camp and looted all the spoils they left behind in the rush to escape. This included vast casks of rich Persian wine, which the Massagetae got thoroughly inebriated on. You see, this was actually Cyrus's plan. He had the men abandon their camp without a fight intentionally, because he knew that the Scythians' intoxicant of choice was our good friend the devil's grass, and thus they weren't used to the effects of wine. This left their warriors vulnerable, and the Achaemenids decimated them in their drunken stupor. Spargapises was taken prisoner, but he was so ashamed of his conduct that he took his own life.

Tomyris. Was. Pissed.

She called Cyrus out for his dishonorable trickery, and after Cyrus presumably parroted her words back mockingly while doing the talking hand motion, she led her army into all out war. Cyrus the Great, king of kings, was slain on the battlefield. Tomyris, hardcore bitch she was, had his corpse decapitated, and stuffed his head into a jar of blood, declaring that she had at last "quenched his thirst for blood." Good lord, what a woman. Clearly reaching the peak of metal, Tomyris takes a bow out of the historical record after this incident. As such, her ultimate fate is unclear. Although, in the D&D game I ran where she appeared as a minor antagonist, one of my party members challenged her to single combat while on a mission to retrieve Cyrus's head from her trophy room for Darius. She nearly took him out but then he pooled all his spell slots to use one of his overpowered ice attacks to lob her head off. So in the Drake Hero universe at least, that's what became of her.

Design notes, there's no contemporary artwork of Tomyris to reference, since Scythian art usually focused more on animal forms. There's a handful of modern paintings depicting her, the two I took the most inspiration from being a 15th century piece by Andrea del Castagno, and Mattia Preti's two 17th century paintings both referred to as "Tomyris Receiving the Head of Cyrus". It's pretty clear from these and other paintings though that the artists had no idea what a 6th century Scythian warrior queen looked like, so I tried to draw the bare minimum from these references, and adapt them to look a little more like a uniform appropriate for the time and culture. In my campaign, Tomyris was very much a force of nature, driven to woeful delirium after the death of her son. The slightest thing could cause her to snap and go into a rage, which was a big obstacle when my party was trying to sneak their way out of her prison. And well, I already told you how that turned out in the end. Honestly, I don't think she would've minded how she went out. It was a good, honorable fight worthy of the king-killer.