Psssssst hi arlowe. First off, amazing campaign you're running, it's been super entertaining to hear about and so id love to pick your brain a little bit if you're cool with that. I've been dying to ask, what are the ashari like in ehas? It's been mentioned that thi and aierdyn left the earth ashari to go on an aramente, but not what that dangerous mission is, so I don't even know if that's something the rest of the party knows yet or not.? Also, what the heck is a secha consort? 👀👀👀
hi jen!! thank you for keeping up w our silly little (emotional, potentially lethal, "shrimp cruelty" menaceful) overall rollercoaster of a campaign thus far <33
AND FOR THE LORE QUESTIONS!!! for reference in terms of ashari and calamity lore, the bones of what one might know from a certain ttrpg show and dm are there but i've chopped it all up and done what i want to with the concepts and history of Oyoia because some of it was bad and boring and i don't like it and also i wanted to <3 who's gonna stop me <3
i promise the tangent i'm about to go on is relevant. mostly. this got long <3
knowledge of extraplanar cosmology is only culturally understood through myth -- the plane that oyoia is on has been shunted out of the great wheel alongside the four elemental planes -- basically no connection to other planes such as the feywild, somewhat accessible travel to the different planes of elemental chaos at the locations the ashari tend to which are spread across the world
the earth ashari and the blooming scar/scar of life which they tend are located on the continent of ehas where the campaign thus far primarily takes place. ehas was decimated by a long civil war in recent history, leaving two significant areas of the map practically uninhabitable to humanoids due to caustic and reckless magic use (which feeds into the culturally low magic/disdain and fear of magic present in the social aspect of the campaign) -- these being: the frigid bog (which is still highly dangerous but passable through as the party has successfully done, if you kind of know what you're doing) and the wastemarsh
the earth ashari and the blooming scar are located pretty centrally in the area that is now the wastemarsh. the wastemarsh is, think magically radioactive. during the war with the sundering of this area, many earth ashari were displaced, fleeing to other areass of ehas, oyoia, or through the scar of life into the plane of elemental earth, and many more died. the scar itself sustained damage enough to where the majority of the earth ashari's resources have gone into keeping it barely a flicker and have not had access through to the other side since the war ended (it has been. a long time. enough for thi and aierdyn to grow up with their parents having grown up in these conditions, possibly their grandparents too. which is why they've set out to do something about it). the other resources go towards survival. the rest of ehas in the modern day is under the general impression that the wastemarsh is uninhabited, the earth ashari are not a household name and are held within memory to very few, those who know of them likely assuming they have scattered, the blooming scar lost with them. hence the disconnect from the rest of ehas.
cateri is the current keeper of life, arriving home from her aramente to be leader to a decimated land and a scared people, to take over the scar just as it was dying out due to the war of the hollow lands. she is one of the oldest living people likely in the world, as she has not chosen another to undertake the aramente and attempt to be her successor since. in fact, few people of the younger generation even really know what the aramente is, as there is also little connection to the other ashari settlements.
"but wait? isn't aierdyn on the aramente??" well, you see. aierdyn doesn't Really know what the aramente is, and cateri certainly didn't choose her to go on it, but she knows that it's important and involves uhhh, talking to the other ashari, who haven't helped them, which they're mad about, and also that things desperately need to change, that none of them know how much longer they can really sustain themselves like this. so aierdyn got up and told thi "i'm going on the aramente" and thi was like "okay, i'm coming with you" and neither of them really know what that means. they just know it means their home is counting on them to bring back something that will help.
"why haven't the other ashari helped???" that is a mystery yet unknown to my players, so alas i must keep my mouth closed :))
basically, aierdyn doesn't know a lot about the aramente, thi doesn't either but knows a little more (thinks that aierdyn was chosen by cateri, even though she wasn't), and the rest of the party don't know yet that that's what thi and aierdyn are doing! angry knows that they're "out here to try and help their home" -- basically when this comes out it's difficult for the rest of the party to truly grasp the significance of the aramente, but it'll either be like 1) you know this is really important to them or on a high enough history check 2) you know that historically this is a really important undertaking, but you don't really know what it is about. fun soup of being on this journey but not actually knowing what to do there surely this won't have consequences!! [i know, and the players meta wise somewhat know that the aramente involves selecting the next leader for a particular ashari, by traveling the world, gaining wisdom and skills, and eventually undertaking trials at all the other ashari tribes for approval -- it's a process that in its long history is very understandable and respectable if one turns back on and it's not at all frowned upon to be selected for it, get out there and realize that you don't think you are cut out for the responsibility, in fact that's the most responsible thing that you can do BUT!! no one but me knows what it's really like and about anymore in the modern time of the campaign since no one from the earth ashari has undertaken it since cateri teehee >:) ]
as for the secha consort, modern day ehas has rebuilt itself into six large city-states, with no overarching governance between them, and villages/towns coming and going in quick succession everywhere else. and then there's the secha consort! it's a community not large or respected enough to be considered a city-state by the other six, but with a prominent enough collective identity, population, and footprint to exist in a sort of in between, well-established but not well-connected within ehas itself, territory. while the rest of ehas in general is more concerned with survival and sustainability through wealth for themselves with the war at their grandparent's backs: the secha consort is a collection of people concerned with history, the arts, and cultural preservation after experiencing the loss of much of it. it began during the war with a network of people collecting their family's letters, of wartime accounts, other letters, drawings, photos, paintings, and generally anything of historical or artistic value at great fire risk, trying to keep these safe -- with the survivors of this network coming together in the aftermath to sort through the pieces.
it's disjointed, not truly governed (doesn't want to be), and still trying to find its place in the world. among its primary establishments there is a grand library and expanding art museum, a monestary, a few magical research facilities, and many interfaith temples. people of a likeminded nature flocked and built up the community around it--leaders of the library/monasteries/temples come together when they need to but overall focus on their own jobs instead of trying to form a "proper" government. while the secha consort does not have good relations with any city-state of ehas, they do have international connections and are one of the only groups that know of the earth ashari. they don't have the resources or stability to send people into the wastemarsh to help but have been the point of contact for any earth ashari who have left the wastemarsh in recent history based on the path most people travel and also being known for it after a little while. so, while thi and aierdyn don't know much about the world beyond the wastemarsh, going to the secha consort for help starting the aramente was one of the only concrete parts of their plan (and then they did a ton of illegal magic, but mx. iseda the head librarian didn't mind but had to keep up appearances so gave them a slap on the wrist "community service" asking for their help in searching for one of their important employees who went missing w the promise to in return reach out to the other ashari about their travels for the aramente and oops that's how they wound up in the frigid bog w gunmetal group and party convergence happened).
