Pronounced: "TER-juh man-DEN-siss"
Height: 6'4"
Age: 28
Race: Zidnorian

Turja Mandensis is the protagonist of "The Lizard Queen Chronicles". She is the former queen of planet Zidnor by heredity, and the current queen of planet Geckoworld by marriage. Zidnorians are a race of bipedal saurian creatures which evolved from a species of intelligent velociraptors. For the last 800 years, Zidnorians had a reputation throughout the galaxies for being fierce and merciless marauders--basically, your stereotypical "evil alien race that wants to conquer everything". But after eight centuries of conquest, Zidnor was no longer able to sustain its empire. Queen Turja recognized this and turned her attention toward culturally modernizing Zidnor. She began to relax Zidnor's draconian laws, which made her very popular with the commoners, but despised by most members of the royal family, who tried to block her efforts at every turn. The royal family pushed her to keep expanding the Zidnorian empire instead, even though it was no longer feasible.

Turja had always been a renegade. She resisted her strict upbringing, neglecting the social graces her family tried to teach her, sneaking out to heavy metal concerts with her best friend Leogard, a gold dragon who was a pilot in the royal squadron, and questioning the traditional Zidnorian idea of reptilian racial superiority.

Finally, the royal family had had enough of Turja's recalcitrance. The hard-line faction of the royal family, led by Turja's uncle Hul, called her into a meeting. Leogard was there, restrained by several palace guards. The royals confronted Turja about her dereliction of duty and blamed Leogard for "corrupting" her. Hul ordered the guards to kill Leogard on the spot for his "crime". But Turja and Leo escaped and fled to the hangar where an experimental warp-speed space cruiser was stored. They commandeered the cruiser and rocketed away from Zidnor. Turja decided that they would head for a planet that Zidnorian astronomers had just discovered. The warp-speed cruiser was the only Zidnorian ship capable of reaching this planet.

Turja and Leogard finally landed on the new planet after a six-month journey. The planet was called Geckoworld, named after its king, Tommy Gecko. Turja was looking forward to starting a new life as a civilian, believing that no one would know who she was here. But she quickly discovered to her dismay that there were Zidnorian settlers here, who immediately recognized her. This ended up working in her favor, because once word got out that the former queen of Zidnor was on his planet, King Tommy invited her to his palace. Turja was pleasantly surprised to discover how down-to-earth Tommy was. This was because Tommy was not born into royalty like Turja had been--he earned his position by leading a successful revolt against a cruel warlord who once brutalized the residents of the newly-settled planet. Despite Tommy's heroism and newfound nobility, he didn't take himself too seriously. He also showed a sensitivity that was largely absent from the men Turja had met on Zidnor. Those things, along with their common love of beer, video games, and loud rock music, made Turja and Tommy a beautifully matched pair. It was only a matter of time before the two of them got married.

Turja ascended to the throne once again. Now she's going to be the kind of queen she wants to be. And she's going to take a decidedly hands-on approach to protecting her people.

Notes:

-It took me several hours to get that lizard-demon on Turja's shirt to look okay. By comparison, the Mortal Kombat-style portal behind the demon was relatively easy to make.
-I originally wanted the background here to be white, but it contrasted so strongly with Turja's dark color scheme that it was hurting my eyes. So after trying several other options, I went with the gray.