Ashling
| Ashling | |
|---|---|
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Ashling of Tanufel Matchstick (Lorwyn) The Extinguisher The Destroyer (Shadowmoor) | |
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| Information | |
| Colors |
 (Lorwyn) (Shadowmoor) (Rimekin) |
| Species | Elemental |
| Jobs | Shaman, Sorcerer, Wizard |
| Birth, Life & Death | |
| Birthplace | Mount Tanufel, Lorwyn-Shadowmoor |
| Lifetime | Mending Era, c. 4520 AR |
| Sources | |
| Lorwyn, Morningtide, Shadowmoor, Eventide | |
| Scryfall Statistics | |
|
9 artworks  22.2% 11.1% 11.1% 33.3%  22.2% | |
Ashling is a female flamekin from the plane of Lorwyn-Shadowmoor. Although she did not know it, her destiny would lead her to become one of the most preeminent figures in shaping the course of the plane as she herself was transformed by her own extraordinary circumstances.
History
Pilgrimage
In 4520 AR, Ashling journeyed on a pilgrimage through Lorwyn, serving occasionally as a messenger for various races. She was searching for a greater elemental, a mythical embodiment of higher principles, whose call she subconsciously followed, though she did not know where it might lead.
Ashling had accepted a seemingly innocuous messenger job from the treefolk sage Colfenor, whom she was to meet in Kinsbaile; she had been tasked to find and retrieve the sage's apprentice. Along the way, Ashling picked up the company of the mischievous fae siblings, the Vendilion Clique, unaware that the very queen of the fae herself had secretly taken an interest in her service because of Colfenor's involvement. Kinsbaile's leader Gaddock Teeg worked as an intermediary and sent Ashling on her way, along with a Kithkin folk hero, Brigid Baeli, to serve as her guide as she departed the town. Between Brigid's constant boasting and the Clique's grating frippery, Ashling begrudgingly resigned her pilgrimage (meant to be one of contemplative, self-reflective solitude) to one of numbing interruption for the time being.
Ashling's task in Kinsbaile intertwined her fate with Colfenor's aforementioned disciple, a Gilt-Leaf elf named Rhys, who was outlawed from his tribe. Rhys had an encounter with a greater elemental in the Porringer Valley, and the flamekin decided to keep close to Rhys. Her meeting with Rhys also brought her into the orbit of an uncanny elf named Maralen. Although immediately suspicious of this woman and her intentions, Ashling was relieved that Maralen quickly began to shoulder the brunt of the Vendilion Clique's irritations. The truth, as Ashling and the others would later find out, was that Maralen was a fae duplicate that bore a piece of the faerie queen Oona’s soul, and was groomed to become her successor.
Her return to Kinsbaile with Rhys and the others coincided with the beginning of the annual Festival of Tales, and the party was summarily ambushed by Gilt-Leaf soldiers that had been hunting Rhys. Ashling protected her new friends valiantly, repelling volley after volley of poison-tipped arrows with sheets of fire and, pushing her power to newfound limits, willed the flames wreathing her body to burn so hot that they incinerated all arrows within a few feet of reaching her. Thanks to her protection, they escaped and made their way to the Murmuring Bosk where Rhys was to perform his duty for Colfenor— the cascading events begot by Ashling's simple messenger service were about to unfold.
On their journey to the Murmuring Bosk, Ashling was nearly killed by Brigid under the presumed instruction of Gaddock Teeg, unaware that the directive was modified by Colfenor to suit his own ends. Instead of subduing Rhys and bringing him back to Kinsbaile to win Nath's good favor, Brigid doused Ashling in water and brought her to her clachan. Ashling was then placed in the custody of Colfenor. In her final hour, before her flames would be extinguished forever, Ashling was approached by the greater elemental she had sought. A surge of energy from the elemental's blessing rekindled her fire and set Colfenor ablaze, obliterating the yew.
Abused and Angry
Unbeknownst to her, this all was a plan of the ancient yew sage. He captured the elemental himself and, in fact, forced it to get in touch with Ashling. Though rekindled, Ashling quickly became uneasy, nervous, and angry. She devoted her life to the pilgrim's path thereafter, trying to find her element and meet it at the right time. Now, she was forced to meet him far in advance, and she was not prepared for it, and neither was the elemental, who, instead of joy and enlightenment, was displaying terror before rekindling her. This was not as it should be. Ashling felt worthless, having failed her true path...or worse, having been made to fail by another's plot. Thanks to the contact, she also ascended a step on the Path of Flame, from a red flame to a white one. From time to time, a seizure-like state occurred when she heard and felt the presence of the elemental near her, unable to perceive anything else. She helped Rhys and Maralen to free Brion and Kiel from the embrace of nettlevines, but then her mind snapped. Instead of guarding the giants and helping the group, she decided to take her path now, to hunt and punish the elemental.
The Ember Fell Monastery
Using the borrowed power, she flew to the place of her birth, the Mount Tanufel. Here she was attacked by the flamekin monks of Ember Fell monastery, who asked her to enter the order and make her ascension in the Path of Flame properly. Ashling refused, and the monks animated a huge stone titan to fight with her. With the unexpected help from Colfenor's sapling and the groundling fae under the leadership of Endry, the giant was bound to the ground. Later, she freed the giant again to attack the monastery itself. The leader of Ember Fell let the giant crush the walls and gates, then obliterated him. He repeated that Ashling must undergo a certain ritual to ascend her path properly.
Destiny Fulfilled
Ashling reluctantly agreed and was faced with a shadow reality with distorted, feral flamekin. She reinstated their fire with her borrowed power and learned what she was destined to do: to be a vessel to bring the flamekin fire through the shadowy future. This should have been made by uniting with the greater elemental and Colfenor's sapling, who bore the ancient wisdom of yew sages. The ritual began at the top of Mount Tanufel at the precise time of the Great Aurora. For sixty heartbeats, the sunny Lorwyn and its shadow counterpart reality, Shadowmoor, should coexist before the shadow takes its place. The unity of the sapling, Ashling's greater elemental, and herself, the last flamekin child of Tanufel, should have produced a supreme being that would rule and endure the shadow, as Colfenor planned. However, Ashling had had enough of being used. In the culmination of the ritual, she seized the unsuspecting elemental's power and the sapling's wisdom by force. The elemental was absorbed by her, and Endry and the groundling gang attempted to rescue the burning sapling. Part of the energy was also diverted to Maralen via a faerie mushroom ring at the sapling's body. Lorwyn gave place to the dreadful Shadowmoor, with Ashling becoming one of the mightiest beings on it.
Advent of the Destroyer
In Shadowmoor, Ashling became the Extinguisher, also known as the "Destroyer" to the other races. She was both worshiped and hated by the cinders, the creatures that the Great Aurora had changed the flamekin into, who blamed her for their wretched state. Unable to control the elemental rage and power and driven by her desire for revenge on those who abused her, Ashling laid waste to many places in Shadowmoor. She was repelled from Mistmeadow at the cost of the life of Vigilant Eidren of Wilt-Leaf, and from Kinscaer by the protective magic of the kithkin augur Warree Tarcha. The combined effort of Maralen, Brigid Baeli, Captain Sygg, and the Source of the Wanderbrine managed to subdue the Destroyer. Oona stepped in and tried to gain the elemental power for herself, but Maralen, aided by the scroll of Rosheen Meanderer, gained the power instead. Ashling, reduced to a flamekin again, repented for her actions and tried to atone by helping Maralen's party defeat and destroy Oona.
An unchanged heart
After her adventure with Rhys and the others, Ashling returned to her solitary life as a pilgrim and lived nomadically, although keeping in touch still with Maralen and making infrequent trips into Glen Elendra where the newly-crowned faerie queen dwelled. Most recently, Ashling had settled into a copse along the Wanderwine River in boggart territory. She ran the length of the river and back again, carrying stories and secrets to Mount Tanufel. Ashling was now free of her Destroyer persona; she now became a rimekin when entering Shadowmoor, and her encounter with her bonded elemental made her mind immune to the changes of the aurora, and allowed her to keep those near her in their Lorwyn form when passing into night.[1]
Ashling was approached by Maralen in her time of crisis, forty years into her reign, as Oona’s consciousness seemed to begin reasserting control over her. Maralen had entered into a death pact with Rhys when she ascended to queenhood to ensure that Oona would never be able to return through her, and now found herself fleeing his company as she was not yet prepared for herself or Rhys to die. Maralen traveled with two wayward students from the plane of Arcavios, and together they brought Ashling news of Shadowmoor's elemental incarnation, Isilu, walking out of accordance with the recently rebalanced cycle and of the Gilt-Leaf perfect Morcant’s plot to destroy the creature to bring about endless daylight in which she could rule. The group traveled down the Wanderwine by boat to Goldmeadow, which had recently been enveloped in unnatural night by Isilu.[1]
Ashling and the others then contended with the Shadowmoor-afflicted kithkin of Goldmeadow and the legion of Gilt-Leaf elves who came to slay Isilu. The elves carried with them imprisoned sunlight elementals to protect themselves from the gloom, which Ashling felt particularly affronted by. The elves were repelled from the fray as combat inevitably cost them their sunlight reliquaries, and they were transformed into their Shadowmoor selves, who had no bearing in the conflict. Although the threat to Isilu was subsiding, Rhys managed to catch up to Maralen and fatally struck her just as their pact had demanded of him.[2]
Marlen lay dying, poisoned by Rhys. Fortunately, the scattered elves that came to hunt Isilu happened to have the very cure needed to counteract Maralen's poison.[2] Her apparent brother Oko, who had followed them to Goldmeadow disguised as a faerie, revealed himself as the orchestrator of the ordeal: he had Isilu turned loose to upset the careful balance of night and day, and falsely convinced Maralen and Rhys both of Oona's return. Making amends, he cured his sister, and the two were able to reconcile.
The elemental incarnation of Lorwyn, Eirdu, was impelled suddenly to Goldmeadow to right the celestial imbalance it had sensed. Ashling beheld the twin elemental gods' reunion, a breathtaking act which rebalanced the cycle of the plane as Isilu was beckoned back into its natural slumber. In the restored daylight, Ashling informed Rhys that without the pact's magic binding him, he would die. Rhys thanked her and the others for saving Maralen, and Ashling then watched as he dissolved into Eirdu's light.
Gallery
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Ashling Magic: The Gathering Arena avatar released for Modern Horizons 3.
Story appearances
In-game references
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- ↑ a b Seanan McGuire (December 12, 2025). "Lorwyn Eclipsed Episode 5: If We Shadows". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ a b Seanan McGuire (December 15, 2025). "Lorwyn Eclipsed Episode 6: Full of Hateful Fantasies". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.