Ashen Man

Ashen Man

(Person)

Alignment

Chaotic evil

Ancestry/Species

Hundun

Gender

None

Source: Doomsday Dawn, pg(s). 90

The Ashen Man is a hundun in league with Nyarlathotep and associated with apocalypses, specifically those caused by entities associated with the Dark Tapestry. Instead of directly setting these events in motion, he prefers to let the doomed world's inhabitants bring forth their own end. He is aware that countless apocalypses await Golarion and wants to assess those who seek to protect the planet.

Appearance

The Ashen Man appears as a towering hundun with blood red arms, wearing a hooded cloak of wafting ashes and carrying a twisted staff on which a web of organs are threaded.

In the Inner Sea region

The Ashen Man is attracted to places where potential world-ending events are initiated, such as the actions of Ramlock, or where heroes might try to prevent them.

In -5300 AR, the Ashen Man gave the Void Mirror to a Thassilonian astronomer whose name has been forgotten, to help an entity named Tchekuth cause a potential apocalypse.

In Sandpoint, a mysterious man clad in a pale grey hooded robe is selling a vial of ashes that he claims are from the Ashen Man's cloak and grant 'visions of the Forever' to those who rub the ashes across their closed eyes. This merchant is seen only by potential buyers and vanishes without a trace after he sells the vial of ashes. If a buyer follows his instructions, they dream of a supernaturally long life that ends far in the future when the world crumbles to ashes. They then risk feeling watched when near ashes from a fire for the rest of their life.

Since 4719 AR, Kralte Grisham has been plaguing his rival Judae Tarshem with visions of the Ashen Man; after Judae bumped into the Ashen Man on the way home alone, she has had regular nightmares of Absalom crumbling to ashes while a thundering voice calls out 'I shall visit you all!' However, Kralte has himself started to receive even more terrible visions, and has started to fear that the Ashen Man is real and has started to pay attention to him.

Agents of the Pathfinder Society have reported more and more evidence of the Ashen Man in the form of ancient memoirs and recently discovered prophecies invalidated by the Age of Lost Omens. According to these predictions, a creature resembling the Ashen Man would usher in a calamity when a dozen hopefuls simultaneously contend for the Starstone, with dire consequences for Golarion and the Great Beyond. While the prophecies were originally forgotten after they failed to manifest on its predicted year, they have recently been brought back to the limelight by increasingly urgent reports on the Ashen Man.