Black Ashling

Black Ashling, the most feared pirate queen to rule the three seas.

Black Ashling takes her berth in Tareel where her ship, the Emberflight, is greeted with much bowing and scraping and fanfare. It's the only ship with scarlet sails in the world: mostly because Black Ashling torched the ship and slaughtered the crew of any other ship that dared have red sails, but also somewhat because when she started hunting down every ship with red sails it became a curse to have red sails.

Black Ashling started out Ailys Torbrynne in the port city Tareel. Her mother was a brewster and her father owned a small jewelry store. As she grew up, Tareel became a contested territory between her home country Yerdus and the ever-expanding Dey empire, Rishi. Skirmishes between Yerdusian and Rishin soldiers became commonplace and many of the denizens fled as their city crumbled beneath the onslaught. Young Ailys and her mother fled when her father's store was bombed with him in it. Her mother took shelter North toward Avaranthe, but Ailys soon left her mother's side to join the war effort and avenge her father.

As the years passed Ailys learned to fight and to steal, joining a guerrilla group of fighters and eventually leading raids against Rishin camps on Yerdus shores. Her career as a pirate began when she was passed the leadership role of her guerrilla force. Her next raids targeted ships; and from there she built her fleet, signing on new crew who were ready to fight the Rishins out of Yerdus. After the war ended and the Rishin forces were driven out of Tareel, Luana, and Keona, Ailys continued to pillage the Rishi coastline. The combined forces of the Agriope islanders and the by then massive fleet of the dread pirate Black Ashling drove the borders of the Dey empire further inland. Eventually a truce was arranged and the area between Agriope and the Rishi border was given to the pirate army and deemed Lapros.

Black Ashling is a Zanskyr elf with green skin as dark as obsidian and ember-orange eyes. She has a wild crimson mane of hair that falls midway down her back. She wears mostly sleeveless shirts when she actually bothers to wear a shirt and her broad, dark shoulders and well-muscled arms are covered with intricate tattoos that glow a deep red that pulses with her heartbeat. The tattoos lace across her entire chest and trail gracefully down her back. Her face is slender with high, slanting cheekbones and a delicately pointed nose. Her ears are large, pointed, and bristling with piercings. Tasteful gold hoops fill many of the holes. Her image isn't complete without her battered black tricorn hat with its plume of Dey feathers. Her battle-scarred visage is instantly recognizable to any coast-dweller worth their salt, and she is regarded with equal parts fear and reverence.