• Akasha

Akasha is... well, theatrical. How many actors have you met? She's a bit too much like most of them. If she's enthusiastic, she's exuberant. If she's sad, she's despondent. If she's angry, she's infuriated. While not unaccustomed to hard living and not getting everything she wants, she still frequently seems to think she can do anything. Sometimes it's admirable, other times she merely seems deluded. Rarely does anyone have a truly unkind word to say about her, though. Oddly-enough, her frequently over- exuberant attitude is rarely the first thing you'd notice about her. That'd more likely be the pipe and the odd smoke emitting from it. Akasha's primary means of bringing food to her table is that of a performer and storyteller. A talent at which she excels. Whispering tales and secrets with such earnest conviction one sometimes forgets they could ever be fabrications. She weaves her words as she weaves her smoke, tendrils of the dark vapors cascading into another, twisting together and blossoming apart to create anything she can imagine. Great monsters, huge and terrible, to something as small as a breezie or less, hundreds if needed. Sometimes she even sets up great bonfires, and breathes her pipe smoke into the inferno to craft the smoke into castles and giants far above. She's not known to ever be without her pipe, wisps of smoke twisting around her in innumerable patterns and shapes, obeying her whims even without the theatrics and reflecting the thoughts and desires of the chain-smoking zebra. The smoke, for its part, isn't bad-smelling. A bit like burning pine and nettles. If asked Akasha generally replies it's zebra alchemy and, respecting a magician's secrets, most leave it at that (and get a bit of their own animated-smoke pipe stuffing for their interest).

Blue-green eyes and a fairly dark grey, even for a zebra, coat with darker stripes that complement the tendrils of smoke idly twisting about her very nicely. Her mane's composed of white and black, but "styles" as more of a mop than a mowhawk. Her tail has a bit of a messy braid that quickly undoes itself not far from the base.

While she wears jewelry from time to time, especially for a performance, her only consistent adornment is a necklace with many colorful, eclectic, irregular beads. If asked she'd admit that while many of the beads bring memories of places, people, moments, stories or jokes, many more are simply very pretty. The resulting piece, though... is less so:

Her birthplace is Agister.

In the course of PRPG2 she became immortal as a result of a wish made to a Draconequus, granted for finding a way to cheat in an inter-dimensional mindgame by calling her Starbeast, Starwing, to aid her.

She would also come to own a Shamir named Silky.

Inventory

Akasha carries a lot of stuff, though most of the following is kept in one of three trunks in her trailer.

Money: $527 in bits, with $29,200 worth of masterwork jewelry/gems and $143,143 of precious metal coins/bullion (gold, silver and platinum).

Her necklace: Her necklace contains many precious, semi-precious and non-precious materials, but looks fairly dirty and cluttered such that it's difficult to tell what it's made out of at a glance. A high-quality magic-sensing totem, small lapus lazuli gemstone, a small loop of light and shiny metal, a hornstar, two hornrings set with garnets, a bent bit, eight beads consisting of one of each of the primary and secondary colors, an uncut diamond, two small shells (one black clam and one swirled pink/orange conch), a minotaur's tooth, a very low-quality and malformed pearl, a crystal forest crystal stained with blood, a geode, an emerald, a polished piece of coal, the petrified tail of a small lizard, two lumps of amber (both deep red-orange), a rainbow-colored beetle shell, a catseye marble, the sun-bleached head of a small fish, a chestnut, a hoof-sized wooden claw with its tip clipped off, a key to the trailer, a key to her locked trunk, and a small red cinnabar crystal. All of this held together by dried reeds and ropes with a bit of alchemy mixed in to keep anything from falling out or degrading. The necklace obscures skrying of itself and blocks TK used upon it.

Her armor: Very attractive-looking white leather armor with gold trim.

Her bags: Weather resistant, obscures skrying of its contents, blocks attempts to manipulate it with TK, latches are coated with a contact fear-poison. In it she mostly just carries products of alchemy, food, money, and quest items. Namely:

• A Shamir she's named Silky (a tiny squiggly worm thing about the size of a grain of barley) in a wooden, lead-lined box with cotton padding inside.
• Brush of the Astrolabe
• Crown of Honesty (and +1 Charisma)

• Icon of Fluttershy ( https://derpibooru.org/114785 ) hangs from the bags on her left side.

• A luchadore mask (White with grey smoke about the eyes) hangs from her bags on her right side.
• Two smoke pipes, one somewhat ornate and the other rough-hewn.
• Two small dolls, one of a zebra and the other of a dragon.
• A large wool blanket, large-enough for a queen-sized bed, strapped loosely to her back outside of her bags, alchemically enhanced to stay clean and never wrinkle or tear under normal conditions.
• A canteen, the inside metal of which has been alchemically treated to sterilize liquids placed in it.
• ...and the following products of her alchemy:

  • One potion that makes a plant grow to full maturity within a minute.

  • An adhesive that, when applied to her hooves, allows her to traverse walls or even ceilings.
  • Perfume that smells like wildflowers and alchemically amplified to smell particularly fresh and suppress all other smells.

  • Incense that erodes the will of others and compels them to obey the one who's magic infuses the smoke.

  • Incense that keeps bugs and some other simple-minded predators away.
  • Roughly half a pound of "story dust" in a saffron bag.
  • Alchemical earplugs.
  • A few doses of perfect super potion that can bring people back from the brink of death.
  • An alchemical pellet of currently-unidentified usage
  • An aerosol parasite-killing potion. Enough to fill a large soup pot, topped with a wax seal.

  • Several very-deadly firebombs

  • A cloak of invisibility. Not as flexible or effective at hiding flying equines as Qotho's, but perfect for sneaking on the ground.

Her trunks (all trunks have enchanted wheels that allows them to travel along behind her as she travels)

• Trunk 1 (sturdy, expensive-looking, with an un-pickable lock)
  • The majority of her wealth and jewelry.

  • A brilliant, silver sphere that is surrounded by three gimbals and has a mounting point on its base. The gimbals have markings and fine adjustment screws. The sphere has a clear portal on one side and a magical sensor of some kind on the other. Through the portal can be seen a battered golden tiara, in which a star-shaped purple gem is set. Pulses of harmonic magic escape the sphere at irregular intervals.

  • A non-magical silver medallion on a nylon ribbon that reads "KINGSLEY XI REGINA LEONUM" with the image of a lion.
• Trunk 1.1 (large trunk made of ivory)
  • Roughly $60,000 in ivory treasures depicting figures from religions, myth, and folklore
• Trunk 2 (red, simple, taken from a dorm in a tower)
  • Obscure magical equipment obtained from a mage's tower
  • Alchemy equipment
  • A fairly large supply of various alchemical components as well as a supply of native zebra herbs and spices, including:
    • A set of changeling fangs, ichor and chitin.
    • One big pod of silver poppy seeds and a mess of additional seeds in a jar.
  • Several jars of various colors to hold potions.
  • A Null Box containing unfinished and unstable versions of the hoofrot cure.
  • Several versions of a super healing potion.
• Trunk 3 (green, simple, taken from a dorm in a tower)
  • One large, overstuffed, battered and weatherworn book of both stories and alchemy written in zebra.
  • A set of alchemy tomes.
  • A very detailed alchemical reference book.
  • A storybook Gabrio bought her.
  • "The Magical Properties of Zebra Arts."
  • About two dozen pamphlets to different religions, and pages ripped from books containing myths and legends.
  • A crushed, simple green dress, alchemically enhance to stay clean and never wrinkle or tear under normal conditions.
  • An armored, ceremonial white robe.

Her trailer

• Three two-pony beds, a sink, cabinets, countertops, and a non-working gas stove. Oh, and a cannon that fires a wrestling ring on top.

• Bauble with a continually burning flame inside hangs from the ceiling in this alchemical workshop area.

• A set of spiked horseshoes.
• A buckler

Her parents run Akashic Labs

Post PRPG2

Almost immediately following PRPG2, before she even had a chance to ask for such a thing, Agister’s Lord Sun Folio immediately declared the house of Akashic to be a noble one, which naturally overjoyed Akasha. That said, she declined any further invitation (including one offering matrimony) from the lord of her city, leaving immediately for the Red Barony with her companions Qotho and Elly. There they swiftly ended hostilities in the wake of the bringing of harmony. In acknowledgement of her position as bearer of honesty, Akasha personally vet each member of the provisional government established to govern the region with the utmost integrity as Elly helped with the reformation of a more benevolent and democratic government.

Following that affair the group had had their fill of politics for quite a while, and instead took to hunting down bandits and monsters. One would think the return of plenty to the Island of Yore (if not the entire planet) would have calmed tensions, but well-fed people can war far better than starving ones. Notable accomplishments include, but are not limited to:

• The devastation of two warring vampire cabals that had long inhabited the Cake Islands
• The renovation and dramatic expansion of the partially-destroyed Temple of the Undying Sun in New Canterlot into the Grand Cathedral of the Moon and Sun. During its construction the Shamir was put at its true purpose to great effect and with only a single notable misstep when it disintegrated a grim engraving in the bowels of the old temple.
• Complete exploration of the ruins of Canterlot Castle, which turned out to be an extremely dangerous endeavor due to its infestation with chaotic and wild curses and creatures due to both its previous draconqeuis resident and its proximity to Everfree.
• The recovery and return of several long-lost books and artifacts from the depths of the dread dimension, the remaining “survivors” of the loss of the Arcane Helix.
• The eventual capture and imprisonment of the serial murderer, torturer, and rapist Malign Gaze Jr.

After some time she slowed her adventuring to raise a family in relative safety, if still remaining nomadic. This changed after Elly took ill and, eventually, sacrificed herself to end the threat of the Dread Pantheon. For a time, Akasha grew sick of adventuring, and settled amongst her fellow zebra on the Hayminnow Islands (with frequent trips to see family and friends). While most bearers avoided public office Akasha gladly took to it, leading to decades of prosperity for the tribes of the islands under her guidance. Prosperity mostly driven by her ability to identify fellow zebra of high ability and integrity, to delegate any task that went too far over her head, her ability to make quick and decisive decisions based on strong instincts, and the supplementing of the islands’ treasury with the rewards of both her adventuring and those of adventurer parties she commissioned. From her post she created multiple roaming schools to go out across the island of yore teaching a wide variety of subjects. Magic, alchemy, medicine, languages, swordplay, archery... what was lacking in depth of material was made up for in the breadth, with dues paid out of the fees accrued from the contracts and bounties the students of the schools completed.

Eventually Akasha would retire from public office to take care of her husband. Following his eventual passing she left Hayminnow islands, never to return again. The loss of its long-term patron led to a fairly steep decline in the standard of living across the islands and the growth of a sense of stubborn fundamentalism has become a significant barrier to progress.

It’s at this point that her travels became less easy to follow, in no small part to an extended exodus to mainland Ponyland lasting nearly one and a half centuries. It is known, sometime after her return, that she traveled to Tephra Island to learn under the fire sage there and, after nearly a decade underneath its volcano learning the secrets of fire, she left with her eyes forever-after flickering with orange light upon each nightfall. Her shows, now rarely held with audiences less than several thousand-strong, could now turn the night into day, or vice versa, as she combined alchemy, draconic magic, and “the fires of En-Bequ’avar” into unbelievably dazzling displays of light and sound. She increasingly became the target of various plots and dissidents, typically due to her continued tendency to stomp out evil wherever she found it. That said, sometimes the motivation of the attacks has been more dogmatic with many ponies unwilling or unable to accept a non-alicorn being both so powerful and so utterly immortal, as any account of her being injured is inevitably followed by her miraculous and instantaneous recovery.

Among the zebra faithful and across the centuries between PRPG2 and PRPG3 Akasha’s own story has slowly merged with that of the zebra from which her name was derived, for better or worse.

Present day Akasha’s become the subject of many rumors and legends, with little consideration given to what might be fact or fiction anymore.

Something Akasha, herself, quite enjoys.

CategoryPlayerCharacters CategoryZebra CategoryCharacters

Akasha/Journal