Witch, Ash

Ash Witch

“Sure, I could’ve taken it. It wasn’t no god or nothin’. It’s just that… it was like there weren’t no person there; like I was hitting bags of ashes.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“I mean, I felt so stupid, like part of the plane had decided to wear clothes, and here I was pounding on the whole plane. It kept staring at me, with a face like a wall of ash with not even an eye to give it personality, and everything started feeling so hopeless, like what was I doing here anyway…”

“So… you just left? That doesn’t sound like you at all.”

“I dunno… it’s just that, I mean, you weren’t there…”

Ash witches are extremely tall and thin female forms composed of gray ash, with no faces. They wear long ash dresses and pointed, broad-brimmed ash hats. They carry brooms, which they use to sweep vainly at their surroundings.

COMBAT: Ash witches are magi, often necromancers, of levels 3-5. They can strike with their brooms for 1d6+5 points of damage. The witch may, once every five rounds, attack with a blast of the poisonous essence of ash, a truly ghoulish thing that inflicts 5d4 points of damage and afflicts its victim with a wasting curse, causing 1d4 points of damage for 2d20 rounds thereafter. A remove curse spell halts the loss, as does leaving the plane.

The ash witch can also create weakness in its opponents by gazing at them with its blank ashy face. A saving throw vs. petrification is required, or the victim loses a point of strength each round. The witch can only affect one character at a time, and the strength drain stops when the witch is no longer concentrating.

An ash witch only attacks to preserve its solitude or in self defence. They don’t like to be bothered, but won’t pursue.

HABITAT/SOCIETY: Ash witches are hermits, living in small caves and huts or found wandering. Occasionally one will be found in an advisory position among a group of quasi-elementals or ruvoka, the creatures the witches find most worthy of their time. A school of ash children will usually be found clinging to the ash witch’s skirts. Ash witches never talk to each other, although they will make soft murmuring sounds to the ash children under their care. When casting spells or advising allies, the witch speaks in an almost unheard whisper.

ECOLOGY: A night hag named Hateful came to the plane of Ash quite a long time ago, fleeing yugoloth creditors. How she created her servants is unclear, even to them. Perhaps she used her dwindling supply of larvae, used a variant of the mephit creation spell, or somehow mated with an ash quasi-elemental. There is evidence that it was a combination of all three things.

The draining effect of the Ash plane was one that even the hag, who understood the Waste so well, couldn’t comprehend. The ash witches served the hag for few centuries until one day they conferred with each other for the first and only time. They then coldly killed their mistress and wandered off to explore the plane in solitude.

CURRENT CHANT: An elder ash witch has been dismissed from her position in the Citadel of Former Flame, but was apparently (and evidently mistakenly) left alive and whole. Everyone from the efreet to the ruvoka to the mephits want to talk to it and find what secrets it knows, but it has thus far evaded or slain all investigators.

Source: Rip van Wormer