Alexandria Ashwood

**Alexandria Ashwood** (born 25 August 1972) is the current Thaumarch of the Thaumatarchy of Albion and the current matriarch of the illustrious and infamous Ashwood lineage, a dynasty of Welsh nobles and occultists.

## Alexandria Ashwood

### Aliases

The Loremaster
The Illuminated One

Mistress of the Mystic Arts

The Scarlet Hands

Big Sister

“Oh God it’s her!”

### Occupation

Thaumarch- Elected Monarch of the Thaumatarchy of Albion
Mother of Elizabeth Ashwood

Practitioner of the Mystic Arts

Creator and Spokeswoman of the Illuminist Movement

## Biographical information

### Place of birth

Northern Wales, United Kingdom of England and Northern Ireland

## Physical description

### Eye color

Grey (organic)Purple (cybernetic)

She began her reign as the Thaumarch on March 30 2009, the same day the Thaumatarchy was founded following the British Civil War. She is also the mother of Elizabeth Ashwood, her designated heir. Alexandria is also well known for being one of the few first generation metahumans involved in Hammer and Columbia's coup to not become a Great Lord when the Dynastic System was first established.

## Early Life

Alexandria Ashwood was born in 1972 in Wales, daughter to a wealthy family of lesser nobles or barons. While the family in public was no different to any noble family in the increasingly post industrial Britain the truth was that her family carried a long tradition of collecting esoteric lore and occult power. Born during the latter years of the Cold War she wasn’t exposed to much of the metahuman activities as her parents instead taught her magic in private while providing her tutors for mundane subjects. It was with these private lessons that her gifted mind was first demonstrated as she not only understood her subjects quickly but she was able to excel with her mystical training.

When she was old enough her parents would have her attend the most prestigious academies they could enroll her in until eventually she was enrolled in Cerridwyn University within her home town of Lludw Cigfrain. It was after her time in the university she would leave to make her own journey in exploring the world to explore old ruins and gather artifacts, both mundane and occult in nature.

In the years she spent exploring throughout the world she became an unofficial heroine as during her hunt for artifacts and tomes she had faced against cults searching for the same items, supernatural threats related to them, and even metahumans seeking more power or who worked with the superpowers in an attempt to use magic for their own gains.

However during her journey she was contacted by the UK government and forced to perform missions for them. During such missions she encounter the surviving Nazis hiding out in South America still lead by Dr von Eisenfaust at the time in an attempt to steal several occult items the Nazis still held when they fled. It was an assignment she barely escaped from and until his granddaughter's ascension caused Alex to be pursued by assassins and agents of the would be Fourth Reich for some years.

Other missions the UK sent her on had her go to the remaining colonies the UK still had and having her use her magic to try and convince the locals to remain loyal subjects of the decaying empire with other metahumans under their employment. It was with these missions that she and other metahumans would secretly express their dissatisfaction of being used as enforcers to maintain an empire that was crumbling as many of them were those who wished to protect the people of the UK, not be used as weapons.

By the 90s the feeling of dissent grew with both her and the other metas, particularly those who have magical inclinations, as Parliament began to pass more laws that put tighter regulations over magic. For Alex she saw several of her family members being arrested due to these new laws and much of her family’s arcane collection being confiscated, forcing Alex to find someplace secluded to hide as she feared she would be the next target despite all the work she had done for the UK.

These acts and more to control the metahuman community would have already caused the witch to begin whispers of overthrowing the government when Columbia would find the witch in her hideout. The first meeting between the two was rocky as the American metahuman had to face magical defenses and familiar servants acting as guards but the meta would convince Alex to hear out her plan on rebelling at New Years. Seeing the advantage of such an assault and knowing that other members in the meta community have heard such rumors she agreed to assist her in the overthrow.

## The Millennium Coup

The last years in the 90s were spent with Alex arranging everything she and the other metas would need to overthrow the UK government. Once the time came for the rebellion Alexandria would order all members of the resistance cell to strike.

As the old world began to crumble in secrecy behind the festivities Alex and most metas would find to their shock that not only did the Royal Army had new weapons made to fight against metahumans but they even manage to brainwash mages and metahumans they have capture for breaking their increasingly draconian rules against them fighting against their own kind. What was worse, the one leading the government’s retaliation was the first publicly unveiled British made Metahuman and national icon, Captain Britain.

Captain Britain was the first meta to have heard of the plan to overthrow the old world and while he participated in the meetings to plan out the attacks he had reservations about the idea. He may not have liked the politicians in charge but he still had loyalty to the queen and country. More importantly he was concerned that if his fellow metahumans took over most would abuse the mundane for a misplaced feeling of retribution. Thus during the years of planning he acted as a spy for the government, giving them ample warning and time to prepare for the strike.

Alex was forced to call a retreat as the attempt to take over failed, making the survivors slink into the shadows to plan out the civil war they now found themselves in.

As the rest of the world fell in place the UK became a battleground as the old power fought against the metahumans that they had created. When news of Captain Britain's betrayal reached the metahumans aboard many decided that the UK was free reign for any meta to claim if they can kill Captain Britain.

During the civil war Alex would not only fight against the UK forces but other metahumans who had intentions of claiming the UK for themselves. While she was reluctant to fight against other metahumans she ultimately chose to fight and even kill what were rivals for her chance to claim the title lord of the British Isles.

The war lasted for five years. In that time she discovered elements of the Fourth Reich attempting to find a secret vault where the UK stored the magical relics they stole. She would follow them and after the Nazis dealt with most of the security forces and systems she would kill them and claim the relics as some within belonged to her family. It was also during the latter years of the war that she discovered that her family was murdered sometime before the rebellion, with a few being turned into monstrous creatures now being used as living weapons . Each one being used for experiments that either killed them or they were executed once their use was done.

This realization made her fall into a deep depression but also made her enraged to the point that during the final years of the war her tactics became far more ruthless against her enemies. When the final battle was waged she would face Captain Britain and during the fight she would get the traitor to confess on why he betrayed his kind during the fight, a request he followed through in an attempt to convince her to see reason.

In the end his attempts failed to sway Alex to his side as she can never forgive the government for the atrocities they committed against her kind and family, yet when she killed the former hero she found herself feeling saddened that such a good man had to die for a rotten system. After the fall of Captain Britain she would hunt down the prime minister and most members of Parliament, killing most of them including the Prime Minister.

However her attempt to find the royal family failed as they and several loyalists fled the UK sometime after Captain Britain's death. Worse still they left by the use of magic. Yet Alex didn’t have time to think on the implications of the royal family either having a mage or having a family member being a mage as she needed to clear out the remaining threats to her rule.

A few months after she had defeated the last of her enemies she was awarded the right to rule the UK as she sees fit, an award she found little joy in. During the war Morrigan was able to take most of the former UK, leaving Alex trapped in the English Wastes with most people who did not fit with Morrigan’s new world order.

For years she would rule a dictatorship co-run by an oligarchical council to manage settlements of survivors as they fought off raiders, disease, traitors, and anomalies until finally they would construct a floating city to leave the wastes and create their own country in the sky.

She would allow the metahumans and mages who fought beside her the titles of Manus, the Hands of her new Thaumatarchy of Albion. Each Manus would control key districts of the city state  while Alex would create a council of powerful and wise mages who were skilled in both spellcraft and leadership called Magisters to lead the various spheres of influences of her new Thaumatarchy, known now as the Sequences.

Despite the neo feudal nature of the new world order Alexandria was not one to just rely on prestige and familial connections, she understands the value of merit and hard work. As such she made sure her new state was a magical technocracy of sorts; one where one's skills and expertise mattered more than raw power. However magic users often found themselves in higher positions.

Over time the damages caused by the civil war would begin to heal as new culture was almost forming as it coexisted with the existing British culture that was still alive in Albion. More importantly thriving new industries would emerge as not only were artistic industries allowed to flourish without the fears of censorship but new scientific industries and magical industries would grow in the city.

More surprisingly the laws she had on mundanes was in fact fair as she still treated them as value citizens, allowing them access even to magitech to improve their lives and giving them a role in her new state. These acts of benevolence are done because she agreed with Captain Britain that if any other metahuman took over they would have most likely abused the more mundane population, something she wished to prevent. But besides moral consideration she also has a more ambitious one. She wishes to turn her normal populations into metahumans.

This plan would either involve creating the same process that most world governments had or turning them into mages. This plan, known to most as The Awakening, is the driving motivation of the Thaumatarchy as many believe that mankind is on the verge of achieving greatness, they only need to transcend past the limitations nature made into them.

It was during the time she was making her nature that Alex became pregnant. For most the pregnancies were sudden as none knew who the father was. But in secret Alex longed to have a family to fill the void that was left by the death of her family. She decided to create a child that would have traits of not only different metas but creatures. To become a living symbol of the Thaumatarchy’s transhumanist beliefs.

However each attempt failed in creating a stable child. In desperation she would contact a being of greater power to aid her. This aided her with supplying the necessary ingredients and knowledge to perfect her chimerical experiment, it even offered her it’s seed. Alex would used what she had gather to perform artificial insemination in private, becoming the crucible to create the heir to her magic kingdom

Nine months of a pregnancy triggered by strange symptoms and anomalies, she would give birth to her child, Elizabeth Ashwood.

In recent times she spends her time governing the Thaumatarchy, spending time with her daughter, or engaging with her own personal projects. The days of exploring ruins and fighting against treasure hunters and occultists were long over for the most part. Instead they are now replaced with raising her daughter to become a powerful witch and to bring forth The Awakening.

During the Dynastic Operations in Australia the Aerostatic Vehicle known as Camelot was shot down due to Morrigan’s dragon’s indiscriminate attack on both allied and enemy forces in the city of Canberra. At the time Alexandria was on board the Camelot and when the craft crashed into the city she would be the only survivor of the incident. She would be found by Yuan and Nazi forces and be taken to South America for an extensive operation that would completely remake her from scratch in order to save her life, turning her into a cyborg.

## Personality and Character

Alexandria is a complex woman: brilliant, erratic, passionate, committed, idealistic, talented, charming, insulting, bold, incautious, arrogant, and sometimes shortsighted when she lets her ambitions on a goal get the best of her. Yet she can also be cold, aloof, and ambivalent to some while also being kind, caring, and even showing motherly qualities as she tends to problems and raises the spirits of others. Both a great companion to have as well as a chore to be around, those are some of the words others have used to describe her.

While she displays great patience on certain tasks and matters once something sets her off she shows a fiery temper. To those that wronged her she takes an almost sadistic delight in extracting retribution from them. When she sets herself on a task she becomes dedicated to the task to an almost obsessive level until she is finished with the task. Otherwise when relaxing she shows an almost hedonistic delight in festivities as she shows off her more flirtatious and easy going side. It’s during these moments that she would try to skreet most responsibilities to enjoy herself, with the sole exceptions being magic and motherhood. Games of chance are a weakness as she can’t resist playing them to win something, even if it means she has to cheat to win.

Alex has a weakness for both sweets and cute things. As evident whenever her daughter is brought up as she ends up gushing about her, showing her love for her child. This love however can make her paranoid at times for her daughter’s safety. Alex’s sense of confidence can sometimes be admirable and other times it can be seen as narcissistic. She is a woman of endless contradictions and dualities.

Secretly she suffers from depression caused by the guilt she feels for the actions she had done to survive in the civil war and during reconstruction. This depression has caused her to stress eat as well as at times over indulgence in wines and fine dining, which alongside her larger appetitive and sweet tooth caused her to gain weight before she became a cyborg. She also hides the true extent of her pessimistic outlook on the world and the dynastic system but when consumed with rage some of her negative opinions can come out. A large part for her creating Illuminism stems from her wanting to believe that it is possible to create a much better world without relying on an archaic system that she sees as not only retarding human progress but would inevitably lead to extinction for all of humanity.

She is also a humanist at heart and wishes to see humanity and metahumanity improve themselves to make the world a better place. She is also a lover of knowledge as she would work to great lengths to not only obtain any knowledge she can get but even reclaim lost knowledge and preserve it. She firmly believes that humanity and metahumanity must move forward instead of becoming stagnant in the present or becoming overly attached to the past.

## Appearance

Alexandria is a diminutive woman of 154 cms whose very aura radiates that of smug confidence, playful misfit, and flirtatious mystique, with alabaster toned skin and flowing raven locks of hair that trails incredibly long, transitioning from a black coloring to a purple one (a dye job she applied sometime after her operation). Her formerly gray eyes are now a vibrant purple and the mole she once had under her right eye is now absent after her surgery as well as the age lines that surrounded her eyes.

Graced with a voluptuous frame that was toned due to past heroic activities she could have become a model if she was a normal woman. In her prime, Alex boasted measurements of 89/60/104 and a weight of 58 kgs. Following the creation of Albion, Alex began to put on weight, her body became soft and plump due to overindulgence of food and alcohol. Her weight expanded to 100 kgs, changing her measurements to 94/115/139 but after the cybernetic surgery that saved her life Alex had regained the body she had back in her physical prime. She had worn many clothing over the years with the most iconic being a witch inspired costume she wore when she was a hero. She now wears a purple business dress, with exceedingly long socks and extremely raised high-heels. She also sports jewelry in her earrings, necklace, and a singular ring on her left hand. She also wields a rapier with a white-dashed sheath, a smaller regular sword in a black, more generic sheath , and a massive great-sword on her back.

## Powers and Abilities

***Eldritch Magic:*** Alexandria's main claim to her metahuman status is her ability to shape and manipulate eldritch magic. The esoteric ability known as Eldritch Magic works by utilizing Alex’s own inner power, certain universal energies and extra-dimensional forces on one or more aspects of the infinite realities that are present within all planes of existence. A versatile and powerful ability it encompasses many different activities, including astral projection, divination, spell casting and teleportation, and includes the practices of many cultures and religions, as well as many books and writings from ancient times.

Alex has been reported to have blessed people with good fortune and cast curses that caused misfortune to others, used divination to locate lost objects and people and gather information on past, present, and sometimes future events. She has been known to imbue ordinary objects with supernatural powers and exploit hidden supernatural properties in ordinary objects. She has healed and harmed people in a variety of ways with her magic. She has used her magic to contact people and even bring people and objects to her location or move to their location. She is known to summon and bind supernatural beings, as well as banish them and any spells in place.

Well powerful it is limited by her knowledge of the spell and the fact it requires highly specific and exacting verbal, material and somatic requirements as well as symbolic connections and ritualistic actions, as well as each spell requiring time to cast (ranging from a few minutes to few days). To mitigate this issue she carries around potions, enchanted items, prescribed sigils for quick spell casting. Having powerful familiars is another way Alex can offset the limitations she has with her magic.

Certain sites of powers can augment her magic and specific circumstances can either greatly aid with some spells but weaken others; an example would be that a burning town would aid with combative spells but be poor for spells related to fertility. Also some spells and rituals may require her to perform them under a specific location, time and circumstance. Some locations can also negatively affect spells such as a spell to make ones attractive performed on a graveyard would only make those with necrophiliac tendencies attracted to the caster.

However, despite the great power that Eldritch Magicbrings, it comes with a heavy cost. It's an unpredictable and at times a horrific affair, and just interacting with it requires great sacrifice and communion with creatures from beyond one’s plane of existence, risking insanity and massive repercussions upon a sorcerer’s health, sanity and even their very soul. A botched ritual can also cause damage to a sorcerer’s surroundings, causing the laws of physics to break down and predators from higher dimensions to crawl into their reality. Hostile colours, vicious thoughts, monsters that can hardly be observed, let alone eliminated with martial force. More importantly, working with magic for long enough can induce in a sorcerer physiological, psychological, and even metaphysical changes into them, turning them into a being of magic. Such changes can be mitigated with great care but for some sorcerers such changes are accepted as they see them as a pathway to enlightenment and power.

***Occult Awareness:*** Alexandria can sense and identify occult, paranormal, and metaphysical forces, objects, and entities. She can perceive entities hidden behind illusions or are invisible, can sense magic around her, and is aware of any supernatural occurrences happening around her. This power greatly enhances her expertise when it comes to the paranormal and magic. This ability does not work against metahumans whose powers are technological or biological in nature. This awareness came to her due to long exposure to the eldritch forces her magic channels into her dimension.

After surviving the disaster that was Canberra Alex undergone extensive cybernetic modification in order to save her life and to give her a working body that greatly improved her physical capabilities as before she was mostly human besides her magic. The effects of these cybernetic enhancements include:

**Enhanced Strength and Endurance:** The cybernetic limbs that Alex now posses can allow her to exert a force strong enough to close to Viktoria’s strength but never quite reaching the exact level, no doubt because to prevent her from defeating the Kasierrin in a physical battle. These cybernetics also allow her to jump much higher and endure far more damage than before.

**Enhanced Agility and Reflexes:** Alex can now bend her body in ways that even a master contortionist would find uncomfortable and can react much more quickly than before, catching blades from attackers before they can reach her or dodging bullets if given enough time and distance from the projectiles.

**Enhanced Mental Process and Speed:** Alex’s mental capabilities would enhanced to better adapt to the new augmentations she has and as a side effect can now think much more quickly and efficiently than before. There is even an device that can record what she remembers and witness to better help sort with the information she would gather. This device can even receive and transmit telecommunication signals such as radio waves and produce a video feed into Alex’s eyes.

**Hidden Weaponry:** A feature the Thaumarch still hasn’t quite used it but deep within her body are a set of weapons within. These weapon systems include hidden blades on the forearms, the arms being able to be fired off as rockets, the eyes producing direct energy beams, and even a minigun in her abdomen.

**Bio-Battery Pack:** The Bio-Battery Pack transforms nutrients such as fat, glucose, and adrenalin [sic] into an electric charge that is then stored in augmentation-specific power biocells. The Bio-Battery Pack also contains a variety of subcomponents that regulate energy use in different ways. It can even convert chemical waste and waste products of food into energy to power the biocells. This comes with the pleasant side effect that one can consume large amount of food without gaining too much weight, if at all, and can extract less bodily waste as well. However this was a necessary side effect as to produce the allotted energy need to power the augmentation one needs to consume large amounts of calories and nutrients.

**Sentinel Health System:** The Sentinel Health System is a massive and elegant augmentation made up of numerous units distributed throughout the body. The primary components are a series of hair-fine sensor probes connected to all vital organs; they provide biomedical data to a central health monitor unit. This unit tracks the medical condition of the user and triggers secondary modules when it registers critical damage through internal or external trauma. These modules are implanted in heart tissue, the lymphatic system, and adrenal glands, and utilize micro-electric charges and phase-released chemicals to stimulate the human body's healing reaction. The Sentinel Health System is in fact a Albionite variant that was installed sometime later.

**Icarus Landing System:** Essentially a safety device, the Icarus Landing System is an automatically-triggered augmentation that allows users to drop from extreme heights without incurring physical damage. The device has an accelerative descent sensor built in; in free-fall, the unit automatically generates a fixed-focus arcane field that alters the Earth’s gravitational field, causing the user to fall gently down on the ground. The system can be activated passively to reduce the weight of not only the user but any items they are carrying. Allow them to jump much higher than normal, carry heavier load, and even increase their speed. This experimental model of augmentation can only be found in Albion.

**Hecate Aetheric Resonator:** This esoteric device is a machine that can produce the ambident energies of the universe and channel forth extra dimensional energies used in eldritch magic. Augmenting it with the users own internal energies this device is used to make the process of magic far more quickly and in some cases augment the strength of spell. The most common use of the resonator is to make the usage of magic to become far safer in most academic settings. This augmentation variant of the resonator is an experimental model produced in Albion.

**Indomitable Will:** Through her own mental fortitude and sorcerous defenses Alex is protected against telepathic intrusions, psychic attacks directed at her mind, and can even resist mind control. Not even causing mental hallucinations will work. This strong will can even allow her to endure great physical pain and psychological trauma, and mixed with her own persistence can even push her to achieve feats that some would think are impossible. However, truly powerful psychics and sorcerers as well as magical beings can break through her defenses and ultimately she is still human meaning that her body would give up long before her will and spirit ever does.

**Occult Knowledge:** Her skills in magic are formidable but her powers would mean nothing if she lack the knowledge to understand the forces she is controlling. Coming from a family whose familial legacy is dabbling with the dark arts, Alexandria mind is filled with many information based all sorts of information about the occult. From hermeticism, medieval alchemy, pagan rituals, aboriginal charms and curses, and so forth. If one needs info on the name of a certain entity, the right item for a ritual, or which cult and occultist did what, Alexandria is always a good source for such information

**Fencer:** A fact often forgotten was that Alex was taught how to fence as a form of self defence. The tradition of fencing was something many members of the Ashwood family learned as well as boxing for some (even if most members would “fight dirty”). While Alex would never claim to be a master she is decent with the sword.

**Peak Mind:** Alexandria possess a far greater mental capabilities than most people. The most obvious is a greater degree of intelligence that she augments with her years of studying the mystic arts and gaining more knowledge through its use, learning more about the true nature of things. However this knowledge doesn't come without risks as some of the secrets that can be learn can be damaging to the minds of those who don't possess a strong enough mental fortitude. While she possesses such a will some of her eccentricities are a result of the secrets she learned. Other effects include her having an eidetic memory which due to her field is both a blessing and a curse and a greater sense of tactical planning, wit, and creativity. She is also more perceptive than most as she can spot even the most minute details in other people and in her surroundings. She can also learn things much faster.

**High Charisma:** Alexandria has an unnaturally high charisma, or charm, enabling her to gain the trust and loyalty of others and win them over to her cause. A combination of her charming aspects of her personality, her still effective beauty, and magic aided the witch in persuading people into following along with her schemes or to forge alliances or to distract would-be enemies from performing previous actions before her interference. It was this ability along with her magic and mind that allowed her to topple the previous government and forge her own kingdom on the British Isles.

**Multilingual:** Alexandria as learned different languages over the years. While never a master of the different languages, she has picked up just enough to talk with locales when needing help and when using them for incantations for her magic.

**Enchanted Dress:** The purple dress that Alex now wears has a complex array of runic matrices that creates a magical network that grants the dress a variety of arcane properties. The most prominent being runes that reinforce her dress, making it harden when responding to bullets fired by small caliber firearms and most bladed and blunt weapons. Powerful explosives, higher caliber guns, and metahumans with incredible super strength can still get through her defenses. Other arrays are capable of repairing the dress should it be damaged and others have minor duties such as drying the dress should it be wet and self cleaning.

**Sling Ring:** The ring on her finger is a tool used in the aid of creating portals that she can use to move around. She makes a circular motion in the air and a portal would emerge and performing the action counter-clockwise would close the portal.

**Amulet:** The necklace around Alex’s neck is an amulet used to store cantrips that when a few gestures and incantations can release spells she had in stored. These cantrips range from protection spells to spells that can cast curses to bring misfortune to her enemies or bring good fortune to Alex herself.

**Rapier:** The Rapier is constructed using presumably Levithan Steel. However runic arrays found on the blade grants the blade not only properties to self repair and sharpen, but to cut more spectral bodies. Useful against wraiths and demons when not possessing bodies.

**Sling Sword:** The second sword in Alex’s possession has the ability to create portals when an incantation is used to active the runic array. These portals can be used as a means of transportation but they can also be used for combat as these portals can absorb enemy attacks, move enemies around in the battlefield, or in risky moments can be used to suck enemies into a new location. However the latter is dangerous as anything can be sucked in as well, including allies and Alex herself.

**Effigies:** Alexandria carry with her a set of effigies in the form of various entities. These effigies are made from different materials ranging from glass, ceramic, wood, and even stone. When offered her blood and reciting a specific incarnation the effigies can act as a beacon to draw the entity the objects were made in the shape off with their destruction being the way to open a gateway to summon the entities in question.

## Trivia

**Trivia**

The secret behind Elizabeth’s birth is a closely guarded secret.

She has two pets. Her first is a Samoyd named Bones and the second is a penguin she named Pen-Pen.

In the Western European sphere Alexandria is regarded by some as being a rogue vassal for not always following Morrigan’s orders and for creating an ideology that goes against her great lord’s beliefs.

Alexandria has ownership of a small candy factory to provide herself with a personal supply of sweets. However sometimes she would give away the candy to children for holiday events and for charity.

Due to her erratic nature she can be found secluded away months for a time and in other times become a very public figure.

Alex’s theme song is Philip Bailey & Phil Collins - Easy Lover

Alex may have some interest in cryptography and cartography as in her book collection one can find books about codes and puzzles and maps are lined up on the wall in her studies. She is also a secret fan of trashy romance novels.