Lord Herod Ashington
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This section contains canon info from officially published sources |
Lord Herod Ashington was a member of the Ashington noble family and lord of Ashington Manor. He became cursed by Rozaleen for her abuse and murder, trapped with her other abusers in an endless cycle of madness and murder doomed to repeat every 17 years.
History
Herod Ashington was thoroughly corrupt and depraved, displaying dark tendencies from a young age with the abuse of his servants. As he matured into adulthood, he led the Ashingtons in decadence and depravity. For a time, he led a gang of so-called adventurers that held a reputation more of fear than of admiration. Following the passing of his parents, Herod Ashington returned home to become the next lord of Ashington Manor. As with his father and grandfather, Lord Herod was a dabbler in the occult. Though not a true spellcaster, Lord Herod was nonetheless somewhat informed on arcane lore- and in particular Vistani magics- thanks to a friendship he had with a pair of darklings[1].
Lord Herod gathered with some of his fellow corrupt nobles multiple times in a month to engage in various vile drunken debaucheries. Beyond perversions, they would sometimes descend into outright sadism, as unfortunate passersby from the road were taken in as "guests" and "party favors", sometimes dying before the nights were over[2]. One of these kidnapped unfortunates was the Vistani runaway Rozaleen. Although his friends Hanford and Rostoff had captured her for the purposes of sexual exploitation, Herod recognized her divination talents as a Vistani seer. He thus commanded Rozaleen to provide he and his guests with a night of entertainment via the reading of the tarokka[3].
Seeing doom in the tarokka readings, Rozaleen offered to perform some other venue for entertainment. However, Herod beckoned she continue, threatening Rozaleen with further harm should she not give them more entertaining readings instead of frightening portents of doom. Rozaleen warned him that none would depart Ashington Manor with their lives intact should she not. However Herod- unknowingly under the baleful influence of the vehrteig bard Maekon's rage inducing poison, began strangling Rozaleen in the middle of her final reading. Before she died, Rozaleen fully turned her warning into a curse. The following night, Herod gathered again with his friends, only to turn on them for showing regrets from the previous night and fears of the curse. Still under Maekon's influence, Herod slaughtered all of his friends present at the manor. Herod himself was struck dead by Maekon's death gaze[4].
Rozaleen's tarokka deck, a powerful magic item and heirloom of her Zarovan ancestry, transformed her curse into a powerful temporal distortion that affected the entire manor house with a powerful temporal distortion that has repeated the night of betrayal and murder every 17 years since Rozaleen's murder eight and a half decades ago. Herod and Rozaleen's other victimizers- Hanford, Rostoff, Blaumann, Melanie, Hannah, and Ivana- became cursed to serve as stand ins for the individuals present during the manor's timeshifts of the murder cycle's temporal echoes[5].
In every temporal echo, Herod takes on the role and guise of a person who committed the murder of a young woman before ultimately committing mass murder and perishing themselves on the manor grounds at a later night.
Lord Herod's Stand In Roles by Manor Timeframe[6]
- The Hospice Era: Gavel, cruel mercenary leader
- The Inn Era: Jack Sallow, traitorous innkeeper
- The Asylum Era: Dr. Karl Ildgaard, callous alienist
- The Ruins Era: Dagger, bandit leader
Game Statistics
male human aristocrat 2/expert 2/rogue 4; Neutral Evil[7]
