Ashenfang
The Ashenfang are a corrupted splinter of the once-proud Tuskbreaker lineage. Where the Tuskbreakers honored death as an end and a memory, the Ashenfang saw only potential—a resource to be weaponized. Seduced by the forbidden crafts of the Ashenfang Artisans, they broke from their kin, discarding old traditions in favor of darker ambitions. Now, they walk clad in ash and bone, a mockery of the life they once cherished.
Rite and Origin
The Fall from Tradition
Their rites are drenched in soul-binding, in the forced union of lingering spirits and shattered remains. They believe true power lies in conquest—not only of the living but of the dead themselves. Life should serve death, and death should serve ambition.
The Emberbinding
Their origin traces back to the Emberbinding—a ritual stolen and distorted from the Emberglass Artisans’ techniques. When the Ashenfang first arrived in the Skein, they were desperate and bone-poor, hunted by creatures half-buried in the dust.
To survive, they crafted their new bodies from brittle bones of ancient behemoths, emberglass fragments, and smoldering prayers of fallen shamans. They embedded emberglass slivers into their marrow, awakening a spectral fire that smolders beneath their ashen skin.
The Ashenfang clan primarily consists of Orcs and Dragonborn.
Housing
The Ashenfang live in scattered holds dug into the shadowed cracks between colossal ribs or hollowed within skulls large enough to house dozens. Their settlements, called Cinderspires, are ruled by mastery over the Ghostflame—a memory-fed fire that coils around their bodies and sears the unseen threads of reality.
They weave alliances with the shamans of Gorgrath’s Wrath and secret dream-merchants from the hidden enclaves of the Dreamweavers.
Objectives
The Ashenfang seek nothing less than total domination of the Skein of Bones and the Mistveil Marshes.
Harvest the Bones
Strip the Skein of its last sacred relics—the towering ribs, ancestor remains, and fossilized echoes. Even scale fragments from Irion’s fall are melted and reforged into ancient-hungry weapons and armor.
Bind the Souls
Raid the Mistveil Marshes, capturing wandering spirits once safeguarded by the Ogres of Glutt'thar. Force these spirits into hollow boneframes—twisted mockeries of life designed by the foul remnants of Graveflame Artistry.
Forge the Army
Bones alone are brittle. Souls alone are fleeting. But together, they forge an unbreakable army: silent, tireless, immortal. This host will not merely conquer the Skein—it will smother Iridia under a tide of ash, bone, and ghostfire.
Tactics and Methods
The Ashenfang do not fight like living armies. Their assaults are relentless, coordinated, and merciless.
- Bonebound Constructs: Twisted fusions of skeletal beasts and stolen souls lumber beside their warriors.
- Soul Nets: Ethereal snares woven from spirit-thread and black bone, capable of dragging souls from bodies.
- Ashen Rituals: Warpriests daub ash and blood onto warriors before battles, hardening them against pain and fear.
- Desecration March: After conquest, they sow curses into the land itself, preventing any regrowth.
Followers of Skul’Kruk
Skul’Kruk’s tremors are both curse and covenant. The Ashenfang believe the great dread whispered a fragment of sorrow into their bloodlines.
When the ground hums, they listen—laying their scarred brows to the earth, straining for echoes of the Threefold Coil that the Tuskbreakers and mad scholars like Dorn of the Withered Ink seek so greedily.
Culture
Despite their grim reputation, Ashenfang humor crackles like embers. They joke that to court an Ashenfang matron, one must survive a week alone under the glaring sun with nothing but a cracked jawbone and sheer stubbornness.
Many suitors have tried; few return. Those who do often claim the Skein itself whispered advice in the voice of an irritated grandmother.
Relations
- Tuskbreakers: Viewed as weak, nostalgic fools clinging to dead honor.
- Verdant Claws: Hated coldly—the Blooming Skein's rampant growth threatens their dominion over death.
- Ogres of Glutt'thar: Once respected as fellow death-keepers, now seen as hoarders of power to be seized.
Current Conflict
The unchecked expansion of the Blooming Skein threatens to bury the Skein of Bones under living roots. If the Ashenfang cannot harvest the relics soon, they risk losing their supply of raw materials forever.
Simultaneously, the Mistveil Marshes grow restless. Raiding parties bearing cursed bone-lanterns skirmish with Ogre soulwardens. Each captured spirit is a small victory; each delay risks their timetable for raising the Unbroken Host.
Final Warning
The Ashenfang are on the brink. Triumph will unleash an unstoppable plague of bone across the land. Failure would see their embers extinguished forever beneath vines and sun.
And they will not fail quietly.
The Ashenfang are not merely survivors of desolation—they are its heirs, its wardens, and its final warning:
Beware a land where even the dead are not done speaking.