Ashlands

The Ashlands are one of the planes that exist within the Hydrus dominion in the darkness of the Shadow Realms. Once a realm of dark forests, treacherous rivers, dangerous canyons, and peaks where nothing could live. In this realm were the hunters and the hunted. The hunters were considered the finest hunters in the realms and often journeyed to other realms for sport.

In a time long forgotten the Ifrit invades this realm and destroyed all they touched. The hunters tried to defend their lands but they were too few in number and ill-suited to working together. Each hunter took hundreds of ifrit heads, but the invaders numbered in the thousands. Then the ifrit left the only thing that remained was a featureless field of white ash still smouldering from the fires.

The ash hunters are little more than flame-hardened black bones, held together by will and power alone. The hunters draw the ash to them in a mocking shape of their bodies, but there is no more skin or muscle. The hunters retain the ability to manipulate the ash as if their own bodies. They can form their weapons and clothes and supplies from ash. They live on ash, but still preform their duties as hunters.

Their very bones cursed by ifrit magic to burn and smoulder for all eternity. The fires never consume them but never afford them a moment of peace. Many have been driven mad with rage, but most have a simple and clear purpose. With their weapons of bone they hunt those who destroyed their realm and any who would shield them.

A hunter is alone without their hounds. The hunters never work together, but a hunter is never without their hounds. Their pack may number from 1 to as many as a dozen, but all of them are unshakably loyal to their hunter. The hounds embody the very heart of the fire that destroyed this realm. The ifrit burned the hounds and loosed them upon the world. It was the fires from the hounds that destroyed everything before them.

Their pack master, an ash hunter, holds them together. They keep the rage and pain chained to the good of the pack. Should a hunter fall in battle the pack will avenge them then follow their pack leader into the darkness beyond.