Ashrima "Ash" Shaw

## Appearance

"I will do the Justicemaker's will, for so am I called."

A human woman in her early twenties, at first glance, Ashrima's pale skin, freckled cheeks, and the small scar on the upper left of her lips *could* be the most notable thing about her, if it weren't for silver eyes that shone with wisdom beyond her years, her dark hair, interspersed with glossy feathers - often in a braid, and the silver, metallic marking of a dragon in flight that curled around her right eye and down her jaw.

Dressed in simple clothing, often in shades of gray, the only thing that truly seems out of place among her adornments is the ornate silver glaive upon her back - "Hope's Edge".

## Background

Born in the Sohmish village of Arrowrun, the second youngest of four children, Ashrima, nicknamed "Ash" by her family, always knew she was different than her siblings. Her first words were not Sohmish, but Celestial. Her hair had glossy feathers that were naturally dispersed among her dark brown locks, her eyes gray, unlike the blue of her brothers and sister, and bordered on a metallic silver.

From a young age, strange and wonderful things seemed to happen around her - she often told her grandparents of the “angels” that would comfort her when she was upset in any way. They had dismissed her claims as “imaginary friends” at first but after surviving an accident that took the lives of both her parents, and injured her siblings, while she herself came out of it completely unscathed, telling her Nana the “angels” had saved her, her Nana and Pop-Pop, as she called them, began to believe there might be something to the fanciful stories their granddaughter told.

These odd happenings that followed Ash wherever she went came to a head as, upon the week of her eighteenth birthday, she suddenly fell ill with a high fever, and a platinum-silver marking in the shape of a flying dragon appeared over her right eye. At first, her family believed she had acquired some strange disease. However, they were quickly proven wrong - the night before her birthday, in the wee hours of the morning, they awoke to her crying in pain. As they rushed to her room, they were awed - and somewhat terrified - to see the spirits of her parents attending to her while a pair of ghostly, skeletal “wings” grew from her shoulder blades.

### Called to Serve

When she regained consciousness, to her family's astonishment, she spoke of a vision in which she was told by a woman with Draconic wings and bathed in light that she was to take up her late father's glaive, Hope's Edge, and go to the capitol of Sohm Al, Thornreach, to enlist in the Militia and gain the training she needed to combat a "looming threat" to not only the country, but to the world.

She immediately packed her things and took the glaive from over the mantle, and left for Thornreach the same day. There, she was accepted into the military, under the command of The Azure Dragoon, Ashter Woodguard, and trained for five years, honing her skills with Hope's Edge, and becoming better and better each day, until...

### The Second Call

Upon the night of March 12th, 4937, as Ashrima slept and dreamed, the winged woman returned. She was told her time of training had been accomplished, and to seek service under the banner of a "mighty Phoenix, bathed in flame". She hurried to her commander the next morning and told of her vision, and within a day, she had a signed invitation to the Burning Phoenix Guild.