Asha is a half-elf scholar from the Kingdom of Artmegía who was raised among oral historians and star-readers in the long shadow of The Academy of Arcane Arts. Gifted with an unsettling ability to remember fragments of knowledge she was never taught, she ignored her mother’s warnings not to dig into pre-Severance lore and pursued forbidden cosmology at the Academy during a time of growing political scrutiny. While translating a damaged star-tablet tied to the White Forest, Asha spoke a name meant to be erased, and something answered—not with power, but with recognition. Her research was quietly denounced, her mentor recanted, and her academic record was expunged to protect the institution. When she returned home, her mother had vanished, leaving behind only a note that read, “I told you the truth would cost you.” Now exiled from both Academy and home, Asha wanders Astrodia bound to an obsolete cosmic truth that remembers her, seeking to understand what was buried after the Severance—and whether some truths should remain forgotten.
Session Events
Session 0
Met Úlfr on the road about a day west of Bayhaven — she screamed upon seeing him but he calmed her with his unexpectedly rich voice. She offered to guide him to the Academy in exchange for a travel companion. At a small village, Asha was recognized by an old acquaintance despite trying to hide — a villager who knew her as a child. She successfully deceived (DC 15) the woman into thinking they were taking “the scenic route.” The woman mentioned she’d lost touch with Asha’s mother.
Session 1
At the village, Asha searched for signs of her mother (investigation 18)—no leads, but she noticed the town was preparing for a festival or marketplace.
Asha explained to the group that in the Solemn and Beyond cosmology, the Agents are like “the hands of God”—each managing a domain. Believing in one Agent essentially means believing in all of them.
Before bed, Asha searched her mother’s notebook prompted by Red’s dream about three spheres. She rolled a Nat 20 and found a triangle of orbs drawn in the notebook, colored red, blue, and purple, with the word “Venus” written next to it. She has not shared this discovery with the group.
Asha rolled insight on Lucian Cugg—he seems genuine about being robbed, but she suspects he’s understating how valuable the Golden Chalice actually is.
Asha overheard Leif’s conversation with the potion seller about Professor Lang at Witherbloom College.
In combat, Asha landed a max-damage Firebolt that charred a goblin to death instantly, and contributed quarterstaff attacks against the bandits.
Session 3
At the Academy, Asha tried to sign a fake name on the Arcane Reclamation Initiative disclosure form, but the enchanted pen and paper revealed her true name. She rolled poorly on deception; fortunately Ms. Maris didn’t recognize her, though someone in the party noticed (DM private message).
Smoothed things over with Tobin after Úlfr’s failed intimidation/grapple. Got Tobin talking — he revealed the chalice matches one of several specific items the Initiative was told to watch for, called “the Something Spoils” (full name unknown). It’s the first such item to come through, and there are 3 other item types on their watch list. Tobin also recognized Asha and knew about her academic trouble.
Asha mentioned the Oracle of the Academy — supposedly the most powerful being at the school. She noted the 3rd floor of the Biblioplex is where she was caught previously.
Session 4
Asha rolled a nat 20 on history/arcana (25 total) during the Giant Frog incident at the Fire Jolt Café and identified Murgaxor — an expelled Bullywug student — as the likely culprit behind both the mimic and frog incidents.
In the Lost Library of Leith Chantos, she used Mage Hand to raise an iron portcullis and used her mother’s notebook reaction ability to subtract a d6 from a warg’s escape roll. She killed two hobgoblins with Fire Bolt in critical moments — including the last one as it tried to alert goblins in the circular library.
Mystery: Asha had a private supernatural event during the night on the road to the library (DM private channel — unknown to other players). She also received a private DM message about something unusual with Leif’s Starry Wisp.
Session 6
This was Asha’s session. In the Lost Library of Leith Chantos, she cast Detect Magic as a ritual on the sentient axe (Leith Chantos’s Legacy) and later spotted the concealed wall vault that the armoire key opened — revealing 2 Potions of Healing and jars of jade, gold, and ruby dust (spell components). On returning to the Academy via teleportation circle, the party reached Level 3, and Asha learned the Identify spell.
That night was the session’s single dream check; everyone passed except Asha, who was pulled aside privately by the DM. (Asha’s private night event remains unknown to the other players — no details shared.)
Central revelation: at Myrna’s safehouse in Lathen, the S.A.T.O. (Students Against Tyrannical Overreach) revealed that the group formed around Asha’s own expulsion — she had been expelled for her forbidden research into a White Forest artifact, which they consider an abuse of academic freedom. Their mission is to discover why the topic is forbidden and clear Asha’s name. Asha alone refused the drugged wine in Pillardrop, staying awake through the journey, and vouched that the students were trustworthy via her insight read on Myrna.
Simone’s map of magic showed a huge divine spike in the White Forest. Tobin revealed the Academy is hunting the Seeker of the Sinful Spoils — a woman in black and red matching Asha’s dream figure (and Úlfr’s) — who appears connected to her. On her missing mother, Tobin and the S.A.T.O. agreed to watch for leads. The party named themselves The Fallen, with their next destination the White Forest via the Quandrix campus and a Nephthys temple.
(Kenyaita was absent for Session 7; Asha traveled with the party but stayed out of the spotlight.)
Session 8
Traveling north from Quandrix College, Asha fought the bandit ambush in the woods — raining Fire Bolt and commanding her hawk familiar, Astra, to dive on the enemy — and used one of her Portent rolls to turn one of Úlfr’s misses into a hit (earning a Bardic Inspiration die in thanks).
Her dreams took center stage. Asha connected several recurring visions into a theory about the Sinful Spoils: a winged, taloned woman in black and red holding the chalice, and a second, godly woman robed all in white who drinks from the chalice while holding a book, a lance, and a white gown. Tallying the objects — chalice, lance, book, dress — the party now suspects these are the Sinful Spoils. Crucially, neither woman matches the Academy’s wanted poster of the Seeker. The party relayed the item list to Tobin via the Sending Stones.
At Freedale, Asha investigated the town’s buildings (spotting the private residence, the stable, and the tavern) and joined the break-in at Morgana’s wizard tower — though she and Aren were left stranded below when the climbing rope snapped. The party reached the town 17 days out from the chalice’s repossession.
Session 9
Asha’s session, and the biggest personal development of the campaign so far.
Inside Morgana’s Tower she was the party’s interpreter for everything magical. Running Detect Magic continuously, she found the evocation cloak in the third-floor chest that everyone else had dismissed as laundry (she checked whether it matched the robed figure from her dreams — it didn’t), identified the fourth-floor storage room as a witch’s spell-component stock worth up to 500 gp of material components, and turned up three spell scrolls in the library: Leomund’s Tiny Hut, Sleet Storm, and Erupting Earth (all 3rd level — held to transcribe once she can cast them at level 5). She also identified and copied the runes of the roof’s teleportation circle.
The orb corridor. Wearing the cloak, Asha walked into the second-floor ring alone, pacing herself with the patrolling orbs, and forced open the inner door. An orb caught her with a lightning bolt — and the cloak revealed itself: resistance to lightning damage, halving the hit. Behind the door was the scrying pool from Morgana’s journal, built so anyone Arcana-proficient may use it once per day, free.
She found her mother. Between how well she knows her and the mother’s notebook she has carried since Session 1, the save was at -9, and it failed:
Her mother is alive, in the White Forest, tied to a tree in a clearing near the forest’s edge — beside a second captive, a woman all in white with long blonde hair, also bound.
The thread the S.A.T.O. promised to “watch for leads” on in Session 6 is now a rescue with a location. The party’s answer was immediate: “We’re definitely going to save your mom, Asha.”
The amulet. In the basement, her Detect Magic caught a faint emanation from the dead witch’s pocket — the Guardian Command Amulet. She cast Identify on it for free using the components found upstairs, walked up to the shield guardian holding it out, and shut the construct down. Her follow-up history check produced the session’s other major revelation: the guardian is an older model of the constructs posted throughout the Academy, and since each amulet binds one guardian, the Academy must keep a control room holding all of them. She wears the amulet now.
She also spotted the barred basement door while the rest of the party was busy congratulating itself on sneaking past the guardian, and rounded out the night with a bad dream roll and a library in Freedale she never got to enter. Her hawk Astra landed the killing blow on the ghast.
(Asha, like Úlfr, came out of the night with something she hasn’t yet told the party.)
Session 10
Asha was the party’s eyes all session. She identified the Endymion Empire’s banner — a sword crossed with an axe — off Red’s eagle-scouted description when nobody else recognized it, placing the party inside Empire territory.
At the market bookstall her investigation turned up The Biography of Rellyona, and a history check named her: one of the Magistus, and the woman who founded Pentamarone. Asha bought it together with a history of the Greater Endymion Empire, haggling 30 silver down to 15. She has not read either yet. She also priced armor at the blacksmith before being gently told that wizards can’t cast in it, and bought an ornate curved dagger for 2 gold instead. She cast Detect Magic over Leif’s new glassware to be sure nothing had followed them; it was clean.
At the WitchCrafters guild hall she ran the interrogation. Her insight said not to let the Golden Chalice out of the party’s hands, and her persuasion got them escorted back to Genni rather than waiting at the desk. She then cast Detect Thoughts on Genni — surface only, deliberately declining to probe deeper because Genni would have felt it and Asha wanted to keep her trust. The read came back clean: Genni genuinely didn’t know, and was already planning to take it to Madame Verre.
She found the safe. Walking the perimeter of the study, Asha spotted a safe under Genni’s desk bearing the symbol of the magic the Endymion Empire uses — the same symbol on Genni’s own staff. The party read it as guild-held Keystones; nobody has ruled out worse.
She finally told the party about her vision from the Session 9 rest: a figure matching the Seeker’s poster — white hair with red tips — hurling magic at a heavily built man with a long blond-grey beard in a whitish-yellow robe. She reminded them she cannot tell past from present from future.
And she drank from the chalice. What appeared behind her was her missing mother, exactly as Asha last saw her in person — real to the touch, blank, unrecognizing, carrying nothing, everything taken from her disintegrating on removal. Asha hugged her, said “I will find you,” and walked out of the room.
She failed her dream roll and took exhaustion, with no dreams left in the bank to receive.
Session 11
Asha read the contract. Before anyone signed the WitchCrafters agreement over the Golden Chalice, she went through Marka’s draft line by line — “we got burned with the fine print at the Academy” — and her investigation came back clean. Given that the party’s last signed document handed the chalice to the Arcane Reclamation Initiative, this was hard-won caution.
She spent the research montage in the archives with Genni and Marka, hunting records of the Sinful Spoils on History — with a Portent die behind it. (She rolled a 20 and a 5; the 20 replaced a natural 1, and the 5 went unspent.)
She got Genni to talk about her past. Asha raised the Endymion Empire symbol she’d spotted in Session 10 — on Genni’s staff and on the safe under her desk — first with the other witches at the tavern, then with Genni directly. What came back: the triangle is the mark of the Empire’s power stones; Genni grew up close to the Citadel and learned magic on them; she still has family there; she hasn’t been back in a long time; and she is not related to the Emperor. Then she changed the subject. Asha, who is herself in exile from an institution that erased her, let her.
She also tried to get Madame Verre’s anti-aging secret out of her and failed the persuasion — “I like to be a girl’s girl, but it’s too good.”
She has now read both of her books, delivered privately by the DM and not yet shared with the party: the history of the Greater Endymion Empire on the first night, and The Biography of Rellyona on the third.
When Howl bolted, Asha stayed at the guild hall with Aren to keep eyes on the chalice, and missed the fight with Cocytus.
Session 12
Asha opened the session at the guild hall, and told the WitchCrafters more than she has told most people. See Session 12 Recap — Something from Nothing.
She explained her mother. When Seed asked about the copy of the woman from the library, Asha confirmed it was her mother. She told them she was expelled for doing magic she “shouldn’t have been doing” and for going into the White Forest, for reasons that “don’t really add up, because I’m not the only one who’s done this.” Her mother went missing after that, and Asha believes she is in the White Forest. The WitchCrafters offered to provide supplies for the forest if the party goes.
She finished the montage on History and sat on the history team with Genni, Marka, and Aren. The report traced the Golden Chalice to dragon-worshipping clans of Caelwyrm: a white-dragon clan’s ritual object that could conjure whatever the dragon required, fought over in the region of the Great Ravine and last recorded a few centuries ago. It’s unconfirmed that this is the same object.
Her idea: enchant the copy. When the report established that chalice copies are physically perfect but carry no magic, Asha proposed making a mundane duplicate and then imbuing it with magic of your choosing. Genni confirmed it would work. It sits on the party’s list of untested experiments, possibly as a decoy for the Academy.
The report was blunt with her, too: the copy is not your mother, has no connection to your mother, and feels nothing.
At the Temple of Venus she read the mural’s history. It shows the Solemn and his host casting the Morning Star’s armies down to earth. Her read:
- It is old, probably a couple of centuries, and well preserved.
- It wasn’t painted here. It was brought from elsewhere.
- The style points to the South, to cultures that revere the higher beings: the oceanic kingdoms, Fire King Island, and the Phoenix worshippers. It isn’t the work of plain Pantheon worshippers, and it’s unsigned.
Red then found the deliberately added flaming meteor that the priest tied to She Who Fell Before the First Fall.
(An observation from the recap, not established: the Solemn in the mural is a heavily built man with a long white beard in pale robes, close to the man in Asha’s Session 10 vision being attacked by the white-and-red-haired figure.)
(Still carried forward: Asha’s undisclosed dream and her two books remain unshared with the party. Next destination is open between the Nephthys temple and going straight to the White Forest for her mother.)