Captain Ashlen Darund

Captain Ashlen Darund

Ashlen Darund has lived a life of war. Her mother Ailen was a captain in Calona's Mountainguard before the world died, and died defending the walls in 21 AD, when Ashlen was only ten. Ashlen followed in her mother's footsteps and trained most of her young life to defend the citadel. Around the age of 25, she joined the Wallguard as a recruit and served on the wall for 20 years. At 45, she was promoted to Captain and joined the elite Mountainguard. She was 59 when the Calona-Severing ocurred and the citadel became isolated. She continued to defend the citadel from wave after wave of Ironwrought Crusaders until the year 82 AD when the plan to repair the bridge was made public. Despite being one of the most senior members of the guard at that point, when Captain Darund called out the plan as reckless and doomed to failure, political manuevering silenced her and got her dishonorably discharged from the guard. The governor was her friend at the time and tried to settle things quietly for her and let her keep her rank, but Ashlen was too proud and noble-sighted to let that get in the way of what she thought was right. Her reputation, awards, and honors tumbled into the mud alongside her, and all she could do was watch from inside the walls as the repair expedition, 1000 men strong, went on without her. Unfortunately, Ashlen was correct, and the repairs failed with only 208 survivors making it back. Her relations with the guard command were too damaged for her to return, however, but the governor had other plans. She had Ashlen's rank as Captain restored and put her in charge of a new organization with a different approach to succeed, Calona's Spear. Suddenly, Captain Darund had all the resources she needed to do whatever she saw fit to see Calona succeed. Her renewed confidence inspired all the best fighters, mages, and specialists in the city, and the organizations ranks swelled quickly. After five years of immaculate planning and training, Captain Darund personally led the first Expedition of Calona's Spear. It too was a catastrophic failure. Ashlen and slightly over a third of the expedition made it back to Calona after a month, having only made it as far as the head of the Lordtide River. Despite having only superficial scars and minor injuries herself, she came back a broken woman, unable to find a balance between her old optimism and confidence with her feeling the expedition's failure was completely and totally her own fault. She had called out the citadel's expedition to repair the bridge, but she could do no better herself.  Ashlen has continued training and rebuilding Calona's Spear, but she no longer sees herself as the "hope" of Calona as she once did. The best she feels she can accomplish is maybe training someone in the next generation that could do better. Despite how she views herself, or whether others view her the same way, Captain Darund is still undoubtedly the most capable fighter in all of Calona, and under her subdued leadership, Calona's Spear has still been able to recover make itself finally ready for a second better attempt at an expedition.

Alignment

Lawful Good

Current Location

Calona

Species

Dwarf

Year of Birth

11 AD 89 Years old

Birthplace

Calona

Pronouns

she/her

Aligned Organization

Calona's Spear