#this is The Big Aashi Lore Post

[motheatenscarf]

WHO WANT SOME AASHI LORE?

So I’m not 100% sure on this because my DM is a cagey motherfucker who reveals none of their cards (which I love them for but FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF), however, I’m pretty sure Aashi has inherited some sort of necromantic powers and/or curse from her father who VERY LIKELY possessed the Eye of Vecna when she was conceived.

So at the beginning of the campaign, I told Kings, my DM, that the point of Aashi is that she’s a terrible elf who aside from the pointed ears and foresty green eyes is as human as the gruff mercenary mother who raised her. She never knew her father, so Kings had free reign of if/how he would wind up being important. For a long time I actually thought she was gonna wind up being half-Drow since we had 2 Drow in our party (there was an insane theory for a hot minute that our Cleric was potentially her father). The other thing that made her a terrible elf was that she didn’t use a longbow but rather a crossbow, since it fit the bounty hunter aesthetic better, and I justified it by saying she only had one eye and couldn’t aim for shit anymore.

I couldn’t come up with a good story for how she lost the eye, though, so I just connected it to her driving motivation. 

She started out the campaign hunting down a bounty on the wizard who burned down the slums where her family ran their tavern from. The city was corrupt as all hell and no one in power would lift a finger to help the victims get back on their feet, so her uncles along with countless others were forced to go to The Pact, a very evil criminal syndicate. They wound up deep in debt and unable to dig themselves out, so to buy them time, Aashi promised to track down a high paying bounty for The Pact if they’d keep their sharks off her uncles’ backs until she returned. They wanted something of hers as collateral to ensure she came back, though, and despite offering plenty of valuable things, the only thing they accepted was one of her eyes.

I chose this to illustrate just how much Aashi was willing to sacrifice for her family, but after we returned with the bounty on Aashi’s wizard nemesis to pay off the debt, Kings had the tricky motherfuckers give her a magical fake one that she could still see out of and was disguised to look like her real one. The “eye” they returned to her was an aberrant insectoid from hell that did a shitton of psychic damage when MONTHS LATER a series of headaches caused Vas and our wizard friend to discern what it was. 

So that was horrible, and Aashi was down an eye again. She persevered, however, and even had our wizard friend find a way to transfer the enchantment into a new fake eye so her enemies wouldn’t know she was onto them and so she could buy her uncles time to escape their clutches.

At the time we all figured they only kept Aashi’s eye to keep scrying on her, but would later find out some things that made that less certain. In the meanwhile, though Aashi wanted revenge, but that required fetching her mom from where her mercenary band was hired to stop an insurgent rebellion. While we were there, we discovered that the mysterious rebel leader was none other than Aashi’s father, both of them being played against each other’s forces by a manipulative green dragon we wound up uniting them against and killing.

And Aashi’s dad, who we thankfully did not have to kill, turned out to be a sketchy necromancer wizard, because Kings loves that irony shit, and he also only had one eye, the false one being a black void with a GLOWING GREEN LIGHT coming out of it, as his most unique identifying feature which Aashi’s mother told her about and inspired her to offer sacrificing up her eye to The Pact. He also only had one real hand, the other being a mummified replacement he attached with necromancy to replace a lost one. And then, when he mentioned that it was ironic that Aashi would wind up becoming a Hunter, he mentions that he too is a hunter of sorts, and asks if Aashi has ever heard of VECNA. 

🙃

And Aashi, with an Intelligence of 12, is like, “Who dat?” and gets a lore dump on her about how he’s been tasked by his people to go out into the world and be the hands and eyes of the liches who rule his people to look for signs of Vecna’s schemes and put a stop to them.

And all of that is concerning in and of itself, but we’ve grown to trust Kasoreth, Aashi’s dad, against probably our better judgement, and we part on friendly terms with him and promise to be in touch after we’ve removed The Pact from power.

The Pact, however, had fallen on hard times in Aashi’s home town and were forced to pack up and leave after they were caught in the wrath of some roaming paladins. We had to move onto our Barbarian’s story pretty quickly after since it was nothing but dead ends all around and his stuff was time sensitive, but we did discover that a.) The Pact knew we’d be coming after them, despite Aashi’s caution, and b.) they had packed up everything but one artifact which only Aashi caught a glimpse of before their headquarters exploded with us inside them, and it proved that they were connected to an insane conspiracy connecting the drow, memory erasing aberrations that removed people from existence, and quite likely the primordial source of darkness in the world. Which only proved that the Pact were even WORSE than we thought.

So, the facts as they are;

Fact One: The Pact would only accept Aashi’s eye as collateral when it came time to making a deal with them to buy her uncles’ a stay of execution. 

Fact Two: Kasoreth has a mysterious glowing green lich eye and hand and a connection to Vecna. That alone is like, three red flags.

Fact Three: Kasoreth’s good eye is brown, as are, according to him, the eyes of what few family members he knows of, and the same can be said of Aashi’s mother and her side of the family. Aashi’s eyes are green. She always just figured it was an elf thing. It still might be. But it’s a weird coincidence. 

Fact Four: Aashi has a special homebrew feat granted by our DM called (Un)Dead-Eye where she crits on a 19 when fighting Undead. I just thought it was because Undead were one of her favored enemies. It still might be. But it’s a WEIRD coincidence and the phrasing of it alarms me.

Fact Five: Kasoreth FOR SURE has the Finger of Death spell, we’ve seen him use it. He is a necromancer and might just know it in his own right. But he has a mummified hand and a connection to Vecna. It might be a coincidence! ARE YOU NOTICING A PATTERN, THOUGH?

Fact Six: The Pact, who are WAY WORSE than we thought they were, are not just accruing power and wealth for the sake of having power and wealth, but appear to be in service of some ancient evil, wittingly or not, and are orchestrating the means to some nefarious end. And they wanted Aashi’s eye. Specifically her eye. It mighT. Be A COINCIDANCE. HOWEVER....

All of these on their own can be easily dismissed and might be red herrings, but I am very concerned about what is going on with that missing eye of hers that was stolen and what might come of it in the hands of The Pact, who CLEARLY wanted it for some reason, and I don’t think it was just to keep an eye on a two-bit bounty hunter who didn’t pose any real threat to them at the time. 

And every time I ask my DM about it they just send me this gif;

and I send them this one,

and that’s as much as I’ve been able to get out of them on the matter.

But I DID figure out that Kasoreth was Aashi’s father, and I did figure out that the dragon was the one behind the conspiracy in Lasondrand where we met him, and I’m good at figuring out Kings’ narrative beats so far, and I’m like 99% sure I’m right, and I’m AFRAID of what that means for my girl.

Also, after our cleric cast Regeneration to regrow her eye so she could be free of the cursed fake, his player came up with the phrase, “Infinite Eye Economy” which is The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Heard, but also makes me wonder... if that’s maybe going to factor in somehow.... oh god...