In "A History of Ashes," you'll be introduced to a wide cast of misfits, troublemakers, heroes, anti-heroes, and outright villains. The complicated part? For many of these NPCs, which of those roles they'll end up playing will depend on how the PCs interact with them. One such character is the mysterious Cinderlander, a man whose family was slaughtered by the Shoanti, leaving him with nothing but a burning need for vengeance. He abandoned his former life and walked into the Cinderlands, where he became a figure of legend—many Shoanti believing that the Cinderlander can't be a living man, but rather a spirit of wrath fueled by men slain during these raids into the southern lowlands.
After years of hunting and killing Shoanti, the Cinderlander gradually achieved two cynical epiphanies—first, no matter how many Shoanti he killed in his lifetime, there would always be more; and second, that the Shoanti were already a doomed culture, gradually being crushed between civilization to the south and more brutal orcs to the north. His righteous fury largely exhausted, the Cinderlander now rents himself out as a guide for those who seek to cross the Cinderlands in safety, facilitating the inland travel of southerners. He secretly resents the paradox that over the years he has gradually become far more like the Shoanti he hunts than the Chelaxian heritage he thought he was defending, yet he knows little else.
As inhospitable as the burning plains of the Storval Plateau are, several species actively seek to claw a life from the hard clay and lifeless ash.
Gargoyles: Bands of savage gargoyles have long made their home on the Storval Plateau. In the Cinderlands particularly, the ashen and brick-colored gargoyles of the Ashwing tribe soar from aerie to aerie, snatching up whatever meals they can and taking wing when the fires of the land grow too near.
Orcs: Raiders from the Hold of Belkzen and brutes from Urglin frequently prey upon the same animals as the native Shoanti, and upon the Shoanti themselves. Fearful of the deadly land, they rarely linger for long, yet it's not uncommon to fine the charred remains of orcs who were unable to outrun an emberstorm.
Shoanti: The Shoanti tribes of the Sklar-Quah wander the Cinderlands, preying upon the lands' deadly predators and following migrating aurochs. The flames of the land have long held a place in the faith and traditions of these warlike barbarians, most noticably in the fearless charges of the burn riders and in the rite of passage all quah members must face: the Burn Run (see "People of the Storval Plateau" and the Pathfinder's Journal
in Pathfinder #7).
Varisians: The wandering cousins of the Shoanti occasionally make their way through the Cinderlands, always either on their way somewhere else, or just to say they've been.
In Pathfinder #10: "A History of Ashes" the players leave the city of
Korvosa for the first time and set out into the wilds of Varisia.
Check out the monsters, foes, and encounters you'll face when
traveling the wilds of the fabled Cinderlands!
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