Ashtara Walnut

“Power is not taken; it is offered by those too weak to wield it and too blind to see the strings it weaves.” – Ashtara

Background

Nothing of her early life was ever written down. She had lived in Harad for some time before any of this.

Appearance

Ashtara is the picture of elegance, scarlet hair draped loose over her shoulders. She favors a sleek, form-fitting gown the color of blood and wine, with intricate patterns embroidered in dark thread along the seams, and she uses her clothing to tempt and to intimidate. In colder weather a heavy, obsidian-black owlbear fur mantle goes over it, and she looks every bit the cunning aristocrat she is.

Her makeup is bold, smoky eyes and deep rouge lips that curl into a smile giving nothing away. The angles of her face are sharp and the gaze is direct. The gold on her is a single ring with a red gem and matching earrings.

Personality

Ashtara is ruthless, ambitious, and wickedly charming. She has befriended high-ranking officials in several city-states and mid-level ones in a few nations, which gives her a degree of influence over the people who control trade routes and political intrigue. The mind under the manner is a sharp one, and she uses her beauty and her wits to manipulate the people around her toward what she wants.

Power is the motive she shows, and it is the only one that was ever discovered. She calculates every outcome before she moves, whether the move is an alliance or a betrayal.

Relationships

She was one of the Ten Lashes’ chief members. She is also connected to the leadership of effectively all the city-states of Idir, and there is enough evidence to place her among the well connected in the Bardh and Yovincia regions of Peredhel. How much further her reach goes was never discovered.

Current Role

A critical member of the Ten Lashes, until the ring came apart around her.

Campaign Updates

The party came at her from below. A slaver crew was broken in the Haudh-Gwenn ruins, and every one of them who was made to talk gave up the same description: a beautiful red-haired woman with a lash tattoo, estates in Haudh-Gwenn and in Harad, wintering north. Her name came with it (S1E07). She was seen in town shortly after, walking beside a well-dressed white-haired man (Malik, a sorcerer and an old associate of hers), who took offense at being asked about her and then guided the party to the cage-hall anyway. She had taken him to see the cages herself on one of their dates, so he knew the road. With the crew’s ringleader freshly beheaded he was frightened of being next and wanted out of the trade altogether (S1E08).

She held the captives. She held the key. Among them was Cleven Gemsmith, whose father had hired the party in the first place, and whom she was holding for the fat ransom she expected out of him.

When the Ten Lashes came apart at the end of that season she was exiled rather than killed. That distinction she bought from the party with paper, surrendering what she held on the ring for the right to leave Idir alive, and it leaves her alive somewhere. She also gave up Beltran Grayeras’s name (S1E11), which is the single most useful thing anyone in that organization ever did for the party.