Abrikhosh

“Did you hear that? That lilting laughter on the wind? Light and airy. Filled with secret promises to be shared. You really didn’t hear that?”

“No. No. It wasn’t children. There are no children out here on the edge of everything. There is just the course sand and the gray ash from the Red Mountain. Just the waiting before I go to the Mountain to die.”

“No. No. I didn’t lose any children. That’s not why I keep… No it was her. Her whispers haunt my dreams. Memories of her skin. Her touch.”

“Ha! Wife? No. She was… She was something else. Something marvelous and terrible. Thinking of her fills me with hatred and love. It is hard to explain, but she is why I sit here having my last drink before I go out into the desert.”

“Oh yes, I hate her. Hate her for what she did to me. What she made me do. There is blood on my hands. Their blood and it is her fault. Her fault that they are dead. Her fault I did what I did.”

“No I won’t tell you more. Goliat curse you, this is my story, not yours. I choose to keep it. I choose. Not you. Not her. My choice. It was her fault, but the story is mine.”

“Wait, did you feel that? Like a soft warm breeze on the back of my neck. You didn’t feel that? No. I have to go. I have to go now. If she is here she won’t let me go. Won’t let me make it right. I have to go.”

~ From Taubha’s Lesser Book of Names

Most scholars believe that before the Madness took Abrikhosh, she was a young woman, beautiful, but not instrumental to the journey of Yggdrasil. In all likelihood, she was the child of someone important, which would logically explain both her behaviors and her position within the House of Sonegh. However, logic doesn’t rule reality, and it is entirely possible she was someone else, someone important, who the Madness simply reshaped into some reflection of their inner worse self.

In play, Abrikhosh works well as a puppet master behind the scenes, working through a powerful person she beguiled into desiring her. Perhaps the captain of the border fortress the adventurers use as a base camp suddenly turns on them, making everything a bit more difficult. A friend of a character could be exhibiting strange behaviors that lead to an unintended adventure for the group. The important thing is that she works through an intermediary, never directly, which despite her power levels, makes her so dangerous.