Ashley Hughes
Ashley Hughes (a.k.a. Ash)
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Slim runners physique with long legs
Facial Features
Missing right eye (arrow) and right ear (same battle), large facial scarring from saving Tweet from less friendly Meadowbeaks
Identifying Characteristics
Her bright white hair, large facial scars and eyepatch
Physical quirks
Androgenous (the twins were almost impossible to tell apart)
Apparel & Accessories
a small piece of her brothers armor kept on a chain
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Ash was born in Xarnen a wealthy city built of white stone to Erwin and Elizabeth Huges along with her twin brother. From they day they were born the twins were inseparable, could easily pass for one another and often finished each others sentences for this reason their parents decided to break with tradition and gave them the same name "Ashley" to forever enshrine them as one person split across two bodies.
While fairly poor the Hughes lived a comfortable life in the poor district of Xarnen, looking up at the towering white walls that kept them separated for the "better" people.
Ash was 11 when magic arrived in the world, she and her brother were off playing while their father worked and their mother was at home preparing dinner. The stone walls began to flow like liquid and the low lying poor districts were flooded with stone which hardened shortly after into a solid impenetrable block. Elizabeth was lost that day as the tide of liquid stone poured into their home entombing her there forever. Erwin rushing home as fast as he could found the twins clawing at the stone above their home, bloody streaks making where they desperately tried to free their mother, but nothing could be done. They packed what they could and set off for a burgeoning village in the middle of a verdant prairie where they could hopefully begin again.
Sorrow took Erwin no more than 6 months after they arrived in Fools Bargain, leaving the twins alone. While the town swelled up around them to ease their loss they knew that all they were going to have is each other and promised to stay together no matter what. They both readily joined the Explorers Guild as squires and assisted the guildmates in finding new resources and peoples to bring home to them.
During the attack on The Tall Mans' army Ash's brother was cut down by a goblin who she dispatched soon after. while she cradled her dying brother he told her not to worry, he will always be right here and pointed to her chest before falling limp and succumbing to his injuries. Ash cut a bloody path through the goblinoids, fueled by rage barely slowing down when she took an arrow straight to the eye. She snapped off the shaft and continued her warpath with no intention of stopping until either the job was done or she was with her family again. that was until she stood before what appeared to be a small child, the limp bodies of its parents lying beside it. She had just taken everything from this poor child just as everything had been taken from her, tears in her eye Ash threw down her weapons, scooped up the child and left this cursed place.
Taking the child back to Fools Bargain, Ash made a firm vow, she would never allow this child to be lost like her brother, their parents and her parents before them. She still gets nightmares of that awful time, but she cant let it drag her down, she still hast to take care of Tweet Tweet, and while his antics drive her up the wall she still loves him.
Gender Identity
While Ash my often dress as a man she still thinks herself a woman
Sexuality
Ash is presently not interested in romantic relationships as aorking and caring for Tweet leaves her with very little free time.
Education
Home schooled by her mother (Elizabeth Huges). Recieved combat training from The Explorers' Guild
Employment
Current member of The Explorers' Guild
Accomplishments & Achievements
Survived the assault on The Tall Man's goblin armies while only a squire at 12
Failures & Embarrassments
Killed Tweets parents
Couldn't save her twin brother
Mental Trauma
PTSD from the assault on The Tall Man
Survivors guilt
Intellectual Characteristics
Ash is suprisingly Charismatic for someone so withdrawn, its almost like she becomes someone else.
Morality & Philosophy
"We must be careful we do not become the monsters we seek to destroy"
“I see now that the circumstances of one's birth is irrelevent, it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.” - Mewtwo
Taboos
Ash doesnt drink Alcohol (it makes her nightmares worse)
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
To fufil her brothers dream of seeing the new world
To protect Tweet at all costs
Likes & Dislikes
Likes: Medowbeaks, Tweet Tweet, Exploring the Wilds, Spicy food, Quiet Afternoons
Dislikes: The Tall Man, Tweets Shananigans, Alcohol (Gives Nightmares)
Virtues & Personality perks
Caring and Patient
Vices & Personality flaws
Hides her true self away behind other peoples faces, keeping others at arms reach
Hygiene
Ash tends to bathe either alone or only with Tweet (when he cooperates) in order to hide her true self from the world.
Social
Contacts & Relations
Fethersong - Mentor
Tweet Tweet - Little Brother
Family Ties
All her family is dead
Social Aptitude
Both a charismatic socialite and a hidden recluse
Lightly mutilated member of The Explorers Guild. Ash seeks to not only make the best world she can for her adopted little brother Tweet Tweet, but also to carry on her twin brothers spirit and fulfill their dream of seeing this new world together.
Character Location
Alignment
Neutral Good
Age
17 Years Old
Date of Birth
17th Summer, -11 Old World
Birthplace
Xarnem
Children
Current Residence
Fools Bargain
Gender
Female
Eyes
Brown
Hair
Snow White
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Mid yellow-brown
Height
5'8"
Weight
110lb
Quotes & Catchphrases
*sigh* - When Tweet is up to his usual
The long road to Fellin
Week 19, Year 6 New World
During the first week of travel a huge storm rolls in and as the week progresses it only seems to get worse, we also manage to get struck by lightning before we decide to seek shelter. The storm eventually breaks and we manage to hunt 3 bears for rations, while Jeremiah fins some berries.
We encounter a beautiful flowering tree with two strange twig men wielding clubs standing in front of it with hostile posture, i really don't like this tree, Kaiden throws some meat at it that the twig creatures feed to the tree and we spot a rotting foot sticking out of its base. we mark off a safe perimeter and leave it be, much to my chagrin.
Near the outskirts of Fellin we find an abandoned inn fallen into disrepair what would serve well as a staging ground once its repaired.
We approach the city and find a large encampment and are stopped by what seem to be guards asking for our business, we inform them whats going on and they take us to Susan who appears to be in-charge.
Rusty also flops out of Kaidens backpack.
The Investegation of Plorpa
Week 15, Year 6 New World
Just outside of Plorpa we encounter a friendly traveler who seems very happy to have encountered other travelers on his journey. Jeremiah was creeping on him a little and it appears to have made him uncomfortable with probing questions. I offer him some supply's which he politely refuses before going on his way. Jeremiah is adamant that he was one of the concepts, Chaos aka The Traveler.
We arrive at Plorpa and are greeted by a massive ravine where the city is supposed to be, its so deep we cant see the bottom of it and a pushed rock and a torch make never seem to hit the bottom when thrown in. We see the temple of Death sitting atop the canyon that runs alongside the ravine.
The journey up was arduous but shorter than we were expecting, at the summit we are greeted by a priest and welcomed to the temple as pilgrims. We explain to him the purpose of our journey and he takes us to the great clock which can tell the amount of time a person has left, and the people that disappeared when Plorpa fell into the ravine must still be alive because their time is still counting down. In exchange for assistance with the descent we agree to tell them what we find down there, if we make it back.
We rest for the night and prepare to head down in the morning. The trip down only seemed to take us about an hour, it seems like time works differently here. After discussing our plan for the decent we start making our way down into the ravine. The journey is slow but we were making good pace.. until a shadow crossed above us severing our lines and sending us hurtling into the pit.
We are being attacked by a Wyvern looking for a meal. Kadien grew to prestigious size and managed to halt our descent and allowed us to defeat the Wyvern. Our decent continued for what felt like days until we woke up in an unfamiliar place crafted from starlight. Jeremiah informs us that this looks like Plorpa and we head towards it to investigate, all around us is an infinite expanse of starlight with Plorpa being the only visible thing around. In the city we find its still populated but like the city they to have been turned to starlight, we try to communicate but they pass straight through us. I try carving a message into what would be a door but the tip of my dagger begins to be infected with the starlight slowly creeping across its surface. We start trying magic and manage to make some headway and soon make contact and we are directed to the library to find out what happened here. There we find out about a device that should be able to take us back but its guarded by a guardian to prevent any of the star-cursed from leaving and potentially destroying the world. We make a copy of the book and head to where we suspect the device is. We find a giant mirror on a dais which seems to reflect the courtyard of the temple of death. We are engaged by the guardian which seeks to prevent our exit and after managing to distract it we make our way through the mirror and fall into the courtyard.
We fill in the priests on what we found and humbly requested that we could stay here a while to rest and recuperate before our journey home, the monks gladly accept.
A small respite at The Temple
Week 21, Year 6 New World
We take a week to relax and enjoy the amenities of The Temple, we have earned a small holiday at this point. I dedicate my time to trying to shape the blowing branches for my bow, the going is slow at first until I accidentally over-boiled the sap which began to release a vapor that once it had begun to soak into the wood made it soft enough to shape. i also poured out the now crystalline sap onto a stone to cool, it continued to glow quite brightly as it solidified into a solid mass of crystalline sap.
Soon our week was up and we began our way back home, the trip down the path was as usual significantly faster than the journey up. it wasn't ling until we arrived out our first campsite the mirrored lake. As we lay down to rest we were all gripped by strange dreams, which seemed to disturb all of us except Tweet (the joys of youth). We awaken to find that only a few minutes have passed, I get up to investigate the lake but after diving into it i am quickly and unusually thrown free, this place is definitely strange and i think the lake is the source of it. I spend a few minutes sitting at the edge and staring into the mirrored surface trying to figure out what is going on. my reflection starts to resemble my brother who just shrugs when i ask him what I'm to do. I get out of the water and go back to bed, the rest of the night passes uneventfully and so does the rest of our journey.
We arrive back at Fools Bargain and head to the Explorers Guild to debrief with David. He thanks us for our work and we are promoted to "Fixers" the main advantage of which is that we are now able to choose our own path for further exploration. Hearing the news about Fellin we all agree that it is the most pressing matter on the table at the moment, setting it in as our next destination. We are given our MANDATORY 3 days off and after a strange request from tweet he and he alone was given permission to visit the tower of the great Roc, which he sets out for immediately. I escort him to the gates and begrudgingly send him on his way, waiting at the gates with great anxiety for his return.
The long walk to Plorpa
Week 15, Year 6 New World
We board the Rail Cart to Krath Draco, while utilitarian the trip is quite comfortable and we make it to Krath Draco in about day. While there we make a quick stop to the markets to grab some last minute adventuring supplies, I pick up a pair of backpacks for myself and Tweet.
We head out of the gates and over to the now collapsed side of the mountain that once contained the colossal gem drake that erupted forth 5ish years ago. the land has since settled and formed a basin that is now starting to bloom with grasses and small plants. As we make our war across the basin a shaking comes from the inside of Kadins backpack and Rusty's limp body erupts forth and begins to slowly reinflate. We fill him in on what he has missed and sally forth.
The journey continues fairly uneventfully, we hunt for some food and make good time toward Plorpa.
We arrive at a glowing tree that seems to be made out of light with a small creek of liquid light flowing from. We collect some of the liquid and i harvest a particularly nice branch for my bow. From the top of the tree I can see what looks to be a pool of liquid starlight off in the distance, we make a not of it to check it on the way back and head to the outskirts of Plorpa.
Guild mandated time off
Week 11, Year 6 New World
We have been commanded to take the next three days off, and as the others disperse through the town I have a funeral to prepare. I choose a quiet area outside of town and begin by digging a 10ft wide hole to be filled with layers of wood and iron-grass before topping it with a sheet of woven iron-grass. I then craft a rudimentary stand to hold the pot of oil I intend to use to light it out of the spare wood scraps i had and some simple rope. As i head back home to gather the bones and oil I grab the attention of each of my party members and ask if they could meet me at the pyre just before sunset and head home. Once inside I loosen a few of the floorboards and uncover a secret space beneath the house, pulling out 2 bags of bones (Erwin and Ash's) and a large ceramic pot of oil. Replacing the floorboards and grabbing the bones of my mother (Elizabeth) i make the final preparations, laying out each of the bones carefully and suspending the pot of oil above them. Once done I sit down and prepare the fire arrow until the rest of the group arrives.
I call Tweet to my side and ask him to get out his tinderbox as we will need it in a second, I equip my bow and knock the fire arrow gesturing for Tweet to light it. Once lit i aim and fire at the pot of oil and douse the rest of the pyre in now flaming oil, it is rapidly engulfed in flames as 2 silhouettes appear in the smoke plume. I ask Jeremiah to give them their last rights and I can finally say my goodbyes as the spirits of my parents follow the smoke into the sky and off into the night. To the parties surprise a ghost materializes behind me with his hand on my shoulder before wiping away my tears, nodding to each of the party members before turning to eldritch smoke and being absorbed back into Ash. As the pyre buns down and the last of the ash blows away Ash picks back up the shovel and fills the pit back in before replacing the grass, the only evidence of the funeral being slight scorch marks around the circle of grass. We all retire for the night.
Day 2 i try and secure some armor as up until now i have been getting by on guile alone, but alas all the armors are too rich for my blood and i retire home empty handed.
Day 3 i begin preparations for our upcoming expedition and acquire an antique set of woodworking tools from before the collapse, these will be perfect for fletching arrows.
Dawn of the forth day begins with us meeting up at the Guild hall and planning our next expedition. We decide on journeying to Plorpa to see the Temple of Death and investigate how deep the ruins of the old city goes. We are issued 10 days of rations and head to the Deep-road tram station to take a shortcut to Kraith Draco from where we will begin our journey in earnest.
The Return
Week 10, Year 6 New World
We start our journey home from Xarnem, our trip back greatly assisted by the markers we placed on the way here. We make excellent time during our first week of travel and manage to steer clear of any misfortune on the way, covering twice the ground we were expecting to.
The second week goes much slower comparatively but fairly average in the grand scheme. In a small clearing surrounded by grasses we find a 10ft wide pit filled to the top with solid crystal, it appears to be about 7ft deep and suspended in the center of it is the vague outline of a humanoid. We try our best to collect samples of the crystal but the most we can achieve is for Kaden to imbed a frost rune across its surface with his magic, it appears almost immune to damage and we are forced to continue on but not until we make a special marker for this location.
During week 3 we cross back into the Emerald Plains and as we cross the treeline the party triggers an arrow trap. I manage to dodge out of the way instinctively as i hear the arrows loose but unfortunately my party does not manage to clear it in time. After a closer inspection it appears this was one of the traps set by the goblin invaders during the The Tall Mans war against Fool's Bargain about 5 years ago, we thought we managed to clear all these traps with the goblins help but it appears we missed some.
As we swiftly cross the plains during our last week we manage to spot a familiar face, Daniel the Awakened Bear notices us and moves to greet us. I invite him to join us on the last leg of our journey and he humbly accepts. We escort him to the town gates and inside to the Explorers Guild to make his introductions and to complete our quest, people are hesitant and distrustful of Daniel at first but quickly accepted him as yet another member of the Foolish. We debrief David, complete our quest, and are commanded to rest for at least 3 days before setting out again (Guild Law).
Investigating the melted city
Week 7, Year 6 New World
We enter the melted city of Xanem it's eerie and very quiet, a strong feeling of sorrow permeates the air. This was once one of the great cities home to tens of thousands of people, most of which never made it out. The stone statues that were once the Xarnish people give us constant feeling of being watched.
As we make our way into the city we come across puddles of what looks to be still liquid stone, which should have all solidified near half a decade ago in the aftermath of the calamity. Jeremiah investigates one such puddle and after placing his hand into it is struck by a psudopod made of the liquid stone as the puddle begins to rise up and move toward him. After subduing the puddle we make the wise decision to steer clear of any future puddles that we find.
We make our way to my old house, soaked in solidified stone but the door looks as if it has rotted away enough to be able to be smashed open. Inside i find a collection of bones draped with an old rotting dress, the one my mother was wearing on the day we fled the city. I had hoped that she would have at least dies quickly but that does not appear to be the case, it appears that she slowly starved to death begging for help to no avail. In-front of her bones lay a message "I'm Sorry" and a small figurine of Ash and My favorite animal, a rat that appears to have been shaped out of slowly solidifying stone. I let Tweet keep it as i gathered her bones to take home to be with the rest of her family.
We leave the cottage and head further up into the city to see the spires and are greeted by a religious group that appears to worship the living stone and tell us that we should go see the church-castle and see the miracle for ourselves. Jedediah is slightly put off by their demeanor and is suspicious of their deity, meanwhile Tweet managed to slip into the spire and have a look inside while we were talking to them. On one of the larger floors he found a 12 pointed star surrounding a risen dias holding a large bowl filled with liquid stone. After making his escape and relaying what he knew Jedediah identified it as a place of worship but not the traditional kind, the kind where something is exchanged with the deity in question. We continue on.
As light begins to fall the mortar in-between that stone of the buildings and the road begins to softly glow and before we know it all the stone soaked corpses begin to loosen up and move around before turning towards up with malicious intent. I call out that we need to get out of the street before grabbing Tweet and running to a suitable house on the side of the street. The door is stuck, jammed by the drooping doorway but Tweet somehow grabs and shrinks the door before running inside followed by Jeremiah. A stone man moves up and tries to maul me, i see his half stone half rotting face and see that this was once David a fellow member of the Oldtown slums. I try my best to put him out of his misery, knocking him down before sinking my dagger deep into his heart. But it wasn't enough so I took the opportunity to run inside followed by Kaden with Tweet refilling the doorway with the now resized door. The stone men seem to have lost interest and we settle in for the night, which passes uneventfully.
After breaking back out of our temporary abode we find the stone men dormant once more and make our way to a high end shopping district before moving on the the church-castle. We loot what we could, Jeremiah finding a present for his grandfather and tweet finding some new toys.
Ascending the stairs to the Church-Castle we see many more of the stone soaked bodies leading up to the heavily damaged but still impressive church-castle with massive stone doors half opened beckoning us inside. As soon as we all cross the threshold the doors slam shut and Jeremiah is grabbed and dragged off to the fountain at the far end of the room by what looks like stone knights, we leap into action and give chase, Tweet doing a similar trick to before and growing Jeremiah to 4 times his size breaking the hold they knights had on him. The 2 persons in robes were trying desperately to get us to drink from the fountain which appeared to contain liquid stone, Kaden at this point also grew to a prodigious size and we all engaged the cultists in an effort to spare us from this fate.
As the combat continued Jeremiah kept pleading to a large statue on the wall which appeared to be the center of their worship, telling it that this is not the way, you cant just force convert people this isn't how this is done. Much to my surprise he seemed to have gotten through to him as all the cultists started weeping liquid stone from their eyes and were frozen in place. Seizing this opportunity Tweet suggested we flee through the pits to the left and right of the fountain through which water was flowing. We jumped in and found ourselves ejected from one of the fountains in the city.
having learned all we could we prepared to head back to Fools Bargain to report our findings to the Guild.
Journey to Xarnem
Week 6, Year 6 New World
We set out on or excursion to the melted city of Xarnem (Ash's Former Home)
Week 1, We encounter a group of cloaked humanoids who Jeremiah identifies as Death worshipers. After a brief introduction we find that they are on their way home to Plorpa, and have seen a strange sunken statue about 2 weeks east. Rusty knows of this statue and says it keeps moving and is never in the same place twice. The rest of the week passes uneventfully.
Week 2, we spot something red in the distance and come across a net filled with rusted swords, while trying to investigate them the net contracts and shoots the swords outwards injuring Jeremiah and sending a serrated great-sword height into the sky to be caught by Kaden. Jeremiah's wounds heal surprisingly fast.
Week 3, we are caught unawares by a sinkhole that threatens to swallow the party. Rusty and I manage to leap to safety but Tweet falls in. Tweet throws some rope out of the hole and we pull him free before continuing on our way.
Week 4, a very large black bear crosses our path and we all freeze in place, that is except Tweet who tears off towards it, Kaden tries to halt him bu grabbing his shirt but slips free. The bear is surprisingly quite friendly and introduces himself as Dave. He offers us his card after denying Jeremiah's request to join us, in return i offer him my guild seal to assist in a friendly introduction at Fool's Bargin.
Week 5, the melted spires of Xarnem break the horizon and the sight of it brings us all a deep sorrow.
New Beginnings
Day 1, Week 1, Year 6 New World
We started our day just outside the explorers guild ready to embark on our journey. There has been a rash of burglaries as of late and a large number of items have been stolen form the town. We head inside to register our new group and meet our liaison David who issues us some gear and gives us our first task. To investigate the burglaries and recover the lost materials where possible. Tweet finds a partially collapsed hole in the back of the Guilds storeroom leading outside, where Rusty picked up the trail of an Aberration moving towards the Deep Road. We follow the trail which ends abruptly at the mouth of the Deep Road, looking for clues we scour the area and Jeremiah hears from a guard that one of the older guards used to speak of this spotted quadrupedal beast that used to dart in and out of the deep roads at night, Rusty recognizes this beast and says he saw something similar eating scrap metal on the outskirts of the grasslands. Knowing this Tweet using his bird knowledge uses ball bearings to lay a trail of "lead-crumbs" to hopefully lure it further away from the city. We hear a scratching behind but when we turn there is only a large hole in the road, and all the lead-crumbs leading up to it have been eaten. Fearing for his life Rusty leaps onto a pile of stones while Tweet cowers behind me. The beast erupts from the ground and nearly takes a bite out of Rusty, Jeremiah tries to calm the beast which works for a second but a rune branded onto its forehead ignites and sends it into a rage. We manage to defeat the beast where it begins to dissolve into a pile of ash before exploding into flames. We managed to find the lost items but everything made of metal had been chewed and destroyed, only the rations were recoverable which Kaden in an impressive feat of strength lifted the full crate of 300 days rations onto his shoulder and carried it all by himself back to the Explorers Guild. Impressed with our work David makes us full members of the guild, grants us some additional items and asks us where we intend to explore first. We settle on Xarnen and set off south-east to see and explore the melted city. -Session End-
Comments