Ahsra

Art by Emmy Wahlbäck used with permission

   **Ahsra** (AH-srrah) is a New Moon Ascetic from The Ride.

## Description

Built with a tall, six-foot lean frame that has been carved by strenuous ascetic training, Ahsra is a willowy, human woman without much in the way of feminine curves. Her features long and narrow, and her hair black and limp, increasingly kinked as it nears the ends. Her limbs and digits are spidery, her hands ugly in aesthetic with their knots and scars, yet precise and functional. She comes from northern heritage with a predisposition for light skin, which her time in captivity had made even lighter. Since gaining her freedom, however, it has been tanned by the sun.

Ahsra typically speaks in a matter-of-fact manner, mildly deadpan, and heavily flavored by a main-lander accent with inflections somewhat out of place for Common. She consistently avoids eye contact, instead making ample use of averted vision to watch her surroundings and the others in it.

Though she often speaks in Common, the idiosyncrasies of her speech suggest that she has come by it only recently in her life. For those familiar with it, her accent could be pinned as western Damaran. She is a native speaker of Damaran and her regional tribal language, Erakic. Ahsra reads and writes Dethek passably, and is considerably less adept with Thorass. She is illiterate in the Draconic and Espruar alphabets.

She wears the sleeveless ascetic outfit of the New Moon almost exclusively when in public, and favors the cool-toned purple, blue, brown, and black seen in it. In private, she tends to wear simple, baggy trousers and tunics, or a plain dresses, typically in beige and dull reds.

## Personality

As far as most people would be considered, Ahsra is cagey and aloof.

Prior to her captivity, she was far more outgoing, exuberant, and lively, as well as being something of a firebrand and troublemaker. Sometimes, small embers of that still shine through.

Ahsra tested as ISFP.

## Abilities

Aside of her capabilities as a New Moon Ascetic, Ahsra is a capable carpenter and is also proficient in herbalism. She makes the medicinal supplies she uses, steeping her own restorative potions, and mashing her own salves and pastes.

## Possessions

The majority of Ahsra's few possessions are mundane in nature, namely tools that she uses in her crafts. The only weapon she uses is her own body, and she is a master of unarmed combat.

## Relationships

Bonds are few and far between for Ahsra. She is highly critical of anyone who is spellcaster of any variety, but especially wizards and sorcerers. Although she no longer has any reason to be personally concerned about them, Enchanters in particular face intense prejudice. Likewise, individuals with domineering personalities are similarly scrutinized or repellent.

She finds it difficult to trust others and is slow to form attachments with most people, but once forged, they tend to run deep and strong. Mathus Emmerech, her mentor in the way of the New Moon, is by far her greatest friend and ally.

Ahsra tends to favor mellow people, but is also drawn to rebels, who speak to her younger self. She enjoys the spirit of these individuals not content to maintain the status quo when there is justice to be done - despite how frustratingly temperamental they might end up being in the process. Sana Veskin is one such person, and Ahsra thinks of her much like an unruly sister.

## History

Born in the Ride, a stretch of grasslands and steppes northwest of the Moonsea, Ahsra spent her childhood with her nomadic people until puberty, when her sorcerous talent manifested. A people steeped in supersitions and fearing arcane magic, Ahsra's mother, Eala, was accused of laying with demons and subjected to punishment. Unraadun, her father, disowned both of them. Ahsra herself was not directly injured, as her people feared that spilling her blood would only spread a curse and invite supernal retaliation, she instead was chased out and forsaken, abandoned to her fate as the band picked up to move away from the site where her magic had manifested.

Believing herself accursed by Mystra but unwilling to consign herself to a death waiting in the steppes, Ahsra made her way south to a trade road known to her people. She traveled along it for a couple days, foraging from the surrounding wilds, until a Zhentarim caravan came upon her. They tormented her for entertainment until she instinctively defended herself from their predations with her magic, whereupon she was nonethless quickly subdued by the Enchantments of the caravan's own, far more experienced arcanist, and forced into what would be a long string of years in captivity.

## Rumors and legends

Ahsra’s ancestors were the Low Netherese, who during the diaspora were taken in by the Angardt group, and were later absorbed into the Rengarth.