My tumblr’s titular Ashmaw served underneath the yoke of the Scourge. To this day, his singular purpose is undoing some small fraction of the ills he perpetrated during that time (even the least of which is, to him, unforgivable). There is one entity that can grant him reprieve from his sins, and it’s not some Warchief who no longer holds the title. That kind of amnesty isn’t given by mortal men.

Until the Earthmother draws him into her embrace, he will put no hoof on Mulgore, he will hunt no beast, pray no prayers, he will not wear the colors of his tribe, will not use his living name. He has stumbled a few times: begging the Earthmother to judge him in his moments of weakness, standing on the zeppelin that docks with Thunder Bluff, stalking the occasional darkhound through the forests near Brill.

Everything he did under the Lich King was, in hindsight, a nightmare for the tauren now called Ashmaw. Unlife alone was a spit in the face of everything he’s ever believed, and every life he took was one doomed to never be an ancestor -- to say nothing of those he gleefully cursed with half-hearted reanimation.

But he loved it. Gone were his worries of succor to the defeated, gone was the guilt of slaying thinking beings, this was what it was be a huntsman. Prey that can fight and think and suffer. Every swing of a rune-forged axe was more exhilarating than the best meal, the most exciting night with his wife, the greatest hunt, the birth of his son. It was purpose and joy and relief each time his blade bit into something alive and ended a destiny. 

Worse yet, he did these crimes with others. He and the Spectres of Mord’rethar who would scout ahead of larger forces and determine one of a few outcomes: can we do this ourselves? Can we start this and wait for the teeming dead to back us up? Should we return to the larger force? More often than not, they’d simply engage. A hungry runeblade does not for a patient death knight make.

In the aftermath of all that, yokes snapped and chains broken, Ashmaw still has those black desires. Every breathing person he meets is a potential moment of relief from that gnawing thing in his gut that tells him to hurt his friends. 

Most: Seedy Bar. Either because they are poor, alcoholics, looking for drunks to procure reagents from their sleeping, intoxicated blood, or they’re looking for informants. A few, like my worgen, go for an atmosphere most like home. My hunter goes because she gets ignored, and her anxiety requires as few people speak to her as possible.

…oh, wow.  This is hard.  I’m not even really sure how to quantify bottom (least fun?  Most embarassing?  Played in the worst games?) but finally settled on “Five Characters That Worked Way Better In My Head.”  Because I’m prone to those.

Falls Seven Times.  Red Talon… philodox, I think?  Might have been ragabash.  Either way: I fell in love with this weird Special Snowflake idea about a Red Talon (lupus, obv) who’d been orphaned as a cub and picked up by a rescue organization, so that when her first change happened and her tribe showed up to claim her she was like “What do you mean, kill all humans?  These humans have been pretty cool to me,” which of course put her on the outs with her tribe and on the ins with… almost no one.  Given that the vast majority of Werewolf characters struggle with coming to grips with their wolf side I was kinda trying to turn that on its side and it just didn’t work.  I had fun while I played her but it’s no wonder she didn’t last.

K.C. Jackson. Malkavian, compulsive liar.  I wrote a really cool story once (three-part, even!) about a teenager being stalked and ultimately Embraced, and I thought it would be fun to actually play this chica one day when I needed a new LARP character.  Unfortunately, while K.C. in the stories was cool enough (at least in my head; I did write them when I was 18, and long ago lost them to a hard drive crash, so they were likely not near as good as I remember), the stories basically contained everything that was cool about her, and didn’t leave me with much to build on!  Like a dismal film heralded by an amazing trailer made up of all the good parts, K.C. did not live up to my expectations.

Valia.  Lost, and I don’t even remember her kith now.  I liked Valia, mind you, and I liked the game I played her in; I liked the idea of the pawn rising through the ranks to seize power for herself.  I liked the games/gamesmaster aesthetic I had going for her.  I liked her as the tin knight in piecemeal/toy armor.  But I think I tried to do too much with her?  She never quite gelled the way I’d hoped.  I still think she’s got a lot of potential in her, so she might see a revival someday, but she’d require a lot more work, and maybe just more time. 

Tempre.  Aurin spellslinger.  Man she’s cute.  Fucking adorbs.  I still have her, cheery and adorable on my login screen.  I liked the little touch of tragedy I gave her too.  But I can’t figure out what the fuck I’m doing with her.  She’s too many things at once, and has no focus… and I don’t really know how to give her one.  So there she sits.  Occasionally I go putter around with her house.  Maybe I’ll figure out something for her eventually?  But I think it’s more likely that by the time I figure out what I want to do with her, I might as well just roll another aurin…!

Solitaire.  “Mortal-plus”; I wrote her up for stavier​‘s Second Sight game as kind of a modern-day bard in that she could influence emotions with music (or speaking, but music was her preferred method).  The idea was that we were all foster kids, so I based her mannerisms off a couple of girls I knew from high school (particularly one girl from choir who had the most gorgeous voice and eyes and perfect pitch but also major socialization issues) and so she ended up with a perfectly workable aesthetic but zero substance.  I played through an opening story with her before trading her in for a teenage sorceress with different socialization issues but also personal ambition and family ties, and that was the best choice.

ALSO: 

So the purpose of this meme is to give a little info on your muses without having to rely on others to fill your ask with meme questions. I know how disappointing it can be to come back to an empty ask so I wanted to create a meme that anyone and everyone can do (mun and muse). The rules are simple, you do not need to be tagged to fill out the questions, but once you have you must reblog and tag 10 of your followers to spread the love (as well as add a question of your own to the bonus section). You can fill it out as many times as your heart desires (we all know muses can change with their character development.)

Tagged by: ashmaw Answering for: Cassilda Brightwood

10 QUESTIONS:

1. What is your favorite word?: “Revenge.”

2. What is your least favorite word?:  "Captive."

3. What turns you on?:   "Trust.”

4. What turns you off?:  “Rum.”

5. What sound do you love?:  “Fire.”

6. What sound do you hate?:  "Waves."

7. What is your favorite curse word?: “Fuck.”

8. What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?: "I'd like to try Inscription, I think it would make sketching more interesting."

9. What profession would you not like to do?: "Blacksmithing.  I don't think I could even lift the hammer."

10. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?: "They're waiting for you.  Not that it matters: if there's a heaven, I won't be going there.  When I arrive at the other place, hopefully I'll be greeted with, 'He's waiting for you' instead.  Is that too optimistic?"

BONUS QUESTIONS:

1. Something most people don’t know about you?: "I do my best to keep my professional and personal lives separate so hopefully most people don't know how I spend my evenings.  Or with whom."

2. If you were one of the seven sins which would you be?: "Wrath."

3. What are some notable merits and flaws?: "I'm unstable.  Socializing doesn't come easily for me.  I have to hide my scars and it keeps me from experiencing a lot of things.  I'll never wield the Light again.  Merits have been difficult to think of but lately I've realized I have some.  I am powerful.  I sometimes feel beautiful.  My worth will not be decided by other people."

4. Sexual Preference?:  “Moderation.”

5. What position do you sleep in?: "Curled on my side.  I tend to thrash in my sleep.  Occasionally there's fire, but this is rare."

6. Favorite sexual position?: "...on top."

7. If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?:  "The trip." 

8. Do you see yourself as good, or evil?:  "Evil.  No matter how justified I feel in my pursuit of power and revenge, I know that I am no longer a good person."

9. Is there anyone, or anything you would die for? "There might be.  I hope I never have to find out.”

10. Do you find yourself attractive or not? "Not before I met him.  Now I know that I hold a certain appeal.”

11. What is your worst fear? "That I've placed trust where I shouldn't and I'm walking into the same thing I burned my way out of." 

12: How do you define respect? "Silence that's more than just waiting for your turn to speak."

13. A guilty pleasure? "Silk.  I don't get to work with it often, but when I do... I make it count."

14: What do you desire most? "I... I don't really know.  As a student of certain arts, my answer should be 'to complete my training' but I don't want that at all.  Maybe I desire to never be finished."

15: What can you never leave home without? "My sketchbook."

16: Who do you look up to?  "My teacher, of course, but also Lady Firewing."

“Montgomeri, your daughter will be here ANY MINUTE now for dinner, would you stop cleaning your rifle?  You’ll terrify the young man.”

“That’s the point, woman,” Monti muttered under his breath as he lifted the rifle and sighted along the barrel.  He wasn’t picturing wild game at the other end of the scope, though, but rather the chiseled jaw of yet another foolish noble-born boy who was undeserving of his daughter.  He liked his new son-in-law quite a bit more now that he was married to Camilla and not to Cassilda.

Dr. Yaza Wintermint was grading papers. Well, papers might not have been the precise term for the mostly-crayon-drawing-backwards-R-covered sheets piled before him. If one wanted to be technical, they weren’t even really on paper. There was no wood pulp to be found in the composition of the environmentally friendly sheets the school used. He considered them papers though, and that was what mattered. He took his job very seriously.