Lore:Ashpit

Ashpit
Type	Plane
Realm	Oblivion
Appears in	Lord of Souls

Ashpit is a realm of Oblivion ruled over by Malacath, the Daedric Prince of Outcasts. The exact manner and time in which the realm came to be, and whether and how it might be tied to the commonly believed transformation of Trinimac into Malacath, are not known. Orcish spellwrights call for boons from the Ashpit and rarely any other realms. That included conjuring Flame Atronachs. The Ashpit is hard to access, as the pathways to his domain take on a characteristic level of concealment to protect the disenfranchised and cast out.

The realm mostly consists only of dust, palaces of smoke, and vaporous creatures; anguish, betrayal, and broken promises like ash fill the bitter air. Few mortals manage to reach the realm, where levitation and magical breathing are necessary to survive. The Mages Guild have been known to bottle this thick, roiling vapor.

The Spine of Ashpit is a surprisingly light skeletal spine found in the realm. It is made from a grey dust, and fragments of bone have been known to be taken from it and brought to Tamriel. Sheogorath claims that the spine is the metaphorical "backbone" of the realm, which he looks down upon.

However, some areas of the realm are safe for mortals. In 4E 48, Malacath chose to bring Sul and Prince Attrebus Mede to the Ashpit, where they found a garden of slender trees, and "vines festooned with lilylike flowers" wound about the trunks; a "multitude of spheres moved, deep in the colorless sky, as distant and pale as moons". This garden seems to have some emotional significance to Malacath, who describes it as a "shadow of a garden", and an "echo of something that once was".

The Ashen Forge sits at the center of Malacath's own stronghold in the Ashpit. For the Orcs that revere Malacath, the afterlife promises rewards of immortality, abundant food and drink, and constant battle deep within the Ashen Forge. It is also said that, as the ultimate expression of the Orc stronghold, the Ashpit bastion stretches endlessly across the planes, extending even behind the stars to Aetherius, granting access to every worthy Orc who crosses from this life into the next. In Malacath's stronghold, every Orc is a chief, every chief has a thousand wives, and every wife has a thousand slaves to cater to their every need. The stronghold's walls rise one hundred feet into the smoky sky, constructed of polished steel and worked iron. Inside the walls, stone keeps, iron towers, and massive longhouses surround the central square that houses the Ashen Forge.

The endless space within Malacath's smithy is filled by the Ashen Forge, a massive hearth which burns with a fire hotter than the Sun, said to be kept alive by the adherence of the Orcs to the Code of Malacath. The heat powering the forge comes from white hot coals said to be the very manifestation of the Code of Malacath, it is described as a flame of emptiness, betrayal, and broken promises, which imbues each newly forged orc with a foundation of resentment that will take them far in the mortal world.

Culture

Bolg of Wicked Barbs, an Orcish spirit affiliated with Malacath

Grubduthag Many-Fates, an Orcish spirit affiliated with Malacath

Orcs that pass onto the afterlife are "thrust into Malacath's coals", honed, tempered and made whole in the cleansing fires of Malacath through a process called the ritual of tempering, which all Orcish souls bound for the Ashpit must undergo when entering the realm. The grudges and fury of these Orcs are heated and melted within the flames, and are eventually forged into the next generation of mortal Orcs. With their grudges returned to the living world, the immortal Orcs of the Ashpit are thus freed to create new grudges. Some of the most memorable of these new grievances are folded and hardened on the Anvil of Ash to create weapons and armor of legendary stature.

There is said to be no place for a gentle soul in the Ashen Forge, such souls are instead believed to be given to Trinimac, who watches over all those who have fallen and guides them to their final reward. Orcish spirit-legions can be found in the Ashpit. Dremora of the Doomdriven Clan serve in these spirit-legions as marshals and commanders. The Doomdriven also serve as emissaries to Malacath's mortal followers on Nirn. Some Orc spirits that serve Malacath have been known to manifest in the world of the living in order to test the living followers of Malacath, with some among them even summoning Daedra from the Ashpit such as Flame Atronachs to aid them, as was the case in the training grounds of the Oathsworn Pit.

"By the Ashpit" is an expression among Orcs.

Mythology

According to the myth recounted in From Exile to Exodus by Tarvyn Aram, during the Velothi exodus, the Velothi encountered the followers of Trinimac, who outnumbered them three to one. While Trinimac remained silent, his followers called the dissidents rebels, traitors, and filth. Boethiah then intervened, revealing the truth about the followers' identity as Ornim that had forgotten their days of iron and wood, sea and fire, and become convinced they were elves. Boethiah revealed that they had been deceived by the curses of a demon, who'd made it so that when they looked upon him they saw Boethiah herself. But it was Boethiah who'd brought them the Orichalc, who'd taught them the benefits of war, how to hold their blades, and how to reach beyond. Boethiah then gestured with her hands, forming a triangular sign that could only be true, and walked in a way that revealed the path to achieve an Exodus. Thus the curse was lifted from their eyes. Where they once saw Trinimac, Greatest of All Warriors, they now saw Malak, the King of Curses. And where they once saw Boethiah, Daughter of Blades, they now saw Trinimac, as she had always been. The Warrior of East and West and of the Starry Heart, who once bore the burden of separating divinity from her beloved. Enraged, Malak uttered an unknown curse and jumped into Boethiah's, into Trinimac's, throat, entering her very being and causing her to collapse in agony, retching blood and ichor. Thus Boethiah-Trinimac collapsed, seemingly lifeless and her followers despaired.

However, Mephala and Azura intervened, for though Malak had forgotten, to contend with Boethiah was to contend with the Triangular Gate. The two cast their own spell that echoed the music of Dawn, aiding Boethiah in casting out Malak and his curse. Malak rose covered in Boethiah's blood and bile. Yet he now appeared different, not as the wretched Malak King of Curses, but as something more akin to the Trinimac his followers had loved. He now wore new armor and held a gleaming red axe, and his helm bore a tusked visage of the spurned and the opressed. From beneath his new helm Malacath growled that Boethiah had forgotten what it meant to be an exile, and uttered a new terrible curse that had never been spoken. The sky split open with thunderous rain, the wind howled with a killing gale, and the very earth beneath them was sundered as fire and death rose from the pits. In the triangular field of divine chaos, Azura took a third of the followers and brought them to the star-wounded east, while Mephala took another third and took them to the southeast, for she alone did not fear the Hist. Boethiah than tore out the last of her guilt under the sun and transported the third of the followers that remained to Oblivion. The land they had previously occupied drifted into the sea, but was not wholly destroyed, as it still had stories to tell.

The followers found themselves in a deadened realm of smoke and ash. It was here that the worst of Malacath's fatal curse had been diverted by Boethiah. Malacath laughed that Boethiah had let him destroy her gift from the king that had been an idyllic paradise, but Boethiah responded her spheres were many and houses innumerable, and so she had no need of it.

Malacath attacked once more, claiming he'd never stop hunting Boethiah. But, with a single precise strike, he was cleaved into the ashen wastes, his bones forming a new foundation. His blood mingled with the ash and soon the realm was his. Boethiah then spent time with the surviving followers, their skins changing under her teachings and the influence of the realm. When Malacath's spirit reappeared, Boethiah addressed him, urging him to stop trying to enforce his will through curses both he and his followers knew to be untrue, but instead to seek glory through struggle and to understand the Will Against Rule. In this way Malacath could come to learn the proper tendencies of the hero and know something of [Love. She then formed a powerful sign with her hands, encapsulating Malacath and his followers into a singular sphere, casting it back onto the mountains of Nirn. Thus emerged the god Mauloch and the great Orcs, who would from than on build strength through adversity. Together, Boethiah and Mauloch tested and hardened their chosen peoples against one another, therefore guiding them further toward an Exodus.

History

Around 4E 48, a gravely wounded Prince Attrebus Mede and his companion Sul found themselves in the Ashpit while on a quest to stop the floating city of Umbriel. Fled there from the Scuttling Void while on the brink of death. Attrebus's wounds were tended to by an Altmer woman with pale skin, rosy gold hair, and green eyes named Silhansa. Silhansa questioned Attrebus on their circumstances, and the Imperial prince explained their quest to stop Umbriel. It was than that Silhansa revealed herself to be Malacath in disguise and grew to take on a different form, gray haired and gray eyed, and a hundred feet tall. Malacath claimed he had no interest in Attrebus, but he'd healed their wounds, and ultimately agreed to help the pair, due to his interest in Sul, whose motivation was revenge. Sul had made an oath of vengeance to Malacath himself, and the Prince had been delighted by the wizard's destruction of Morrowind, now no less an ashpit than Malacath's own realm, something which delighted the Prince. After extracting a promise from Attrebus that he'd call on him one day if he had use for him, and warning the pair to not disappoint him, Malacath teleported them to Solstheim, where they'd seek the Umbra Sword.

Gallery

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  A vial of Ashpit air

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  A bone fragment from the Ashpit's spine

Notes

Orcish wall-mounted masks

• There were early attempts to differentiate Orsimer from the Orcs of Middle-earth and move away from the noble savage trope, with the Samurai-style Orcish armor from Daggerfall inspiring an idea to explore Orsinium being a conduit to an extraplanar dimension containing an advanced Atlantis-type "Orc Prime" (similar to the backstory of the Goblins), where the "Teat Shoguns" gave mystical orders and wore strangely-sculpted Trinimasks. While this idea did not have much movement behind it, it did have some influence in other parts of the series, such as masks being a commonplace Orcish decoration (some enchanted to have magical powers) and certain mythological stories describing Orcs originating as a race while enduring the metamorphosis in the Ashpit.

See Also

• Goblin Gate

Books

• On Orcs and the Afterlife by Erisa Moorcroft, Scholar, Comparative Religious Studies — A treatise on the Orcish afterlife and the Ashen Forge
• From Exile to Exodus by Tarvyn Aram — A Dunmeri myth about Boethiah, Trinimac, Malacath, and the origin of the Orcs

References

Note: The following references are considered to be unofficial sources. They are included to round off this article and may not be authoritative or conclusive.