While most Tieflings found their homes in the cities of the Fallen Stars or in the transient cities in the southern deserts of Evaressemme after the great cataclysm that brought down the mighty empire of Bel Terath, there are some who remained loyal to their dead empire, and made their home in the wastelands of Kakhabad. Existing in small tribes deep within the deathly landscape, they call themselves 'Ash-Tieflings', and are arguably considered to be the toughest people in all of Allansia. Kakhabad is notorious in modern day Allansia not for its disastrous history, but for its extreme hostility. Once a traveler passes beyond the eastern gate of Khare (now a ruined city infested with demons since the infamous 'Eclipse') he must traverse hundreds of miles of ash covered flat-lands, even before he encounters the haunted valleys of inner Kakhabad, or the volcanic horrors of the Ximon mountains. All a traveler will encounter will be vile and ancient monsters, foul undead and devilish remnants of the Cataclysm. However, he may be lucky enough (or unlucky) to encounter a tribe of Ash-Tieflings. If not shot with a well aimed hunter's arrow, or skewered on the end of a tribesman's spear, a traveler will be able to explore the leather tents and ashbricked huts of the numerous tribes of Kakhabad.
The tribes vary in size and hostility, but all are united under two common beliefs. The first is a rabid (and slightly odd for scattered, anarchic tribesmen) patriotism for the lost empire of Bel Terath. They all believe themselves to be the children of the greatest civilisation that Allansia has known, and one day it will emerge anew from the blasted landscapes of Kakhabad. The second belief is their religion. Shying away from the loose pantheon-ism of the rest of Allansia, the Ash-Tieflings have their own cosmology that revolves around the harsh conditions of Kakhabad itself.
The religion itself is known as the House of the Ash Triad, and rejects the legitimacy of all gods apart from three, albeit a heretical and twisted versions. At the foot of the Ash Triad are the 'godwives', or the 'two mothers of the grey land'. These gods are Sehanine and Melora. Sehanine is known as the 'wife of the night', and held in high regard, as the sun is seldom seen in Kakhabad, and its twisted vegetation is nourished only by moonlight. It is under Sehanine that the Ash-Tieflings commit their schemes and murders, praying to her to bring down vengeance and bloody death upon their rival tribes. Melora is known as 'she that stalks the wastes', and represents the inherent danger of the Kakhabadi wilderness. She is prayed to by huntsmen, and petitioned by her priests to keep the more dangerous denizens of the land away from the tribe. She is also called upon to fight the 'Great Enemy', a shadowy antagonist who is known to the rest of Allansia as Asmodeus.
At the head of the Triad is 'the all-encompassing father', a figure that is considered omnipotent by the Ash-Tieflings. Most would know this figure to be the greatest sorceror in all of Allansia: the Black Mage of Mampang. While existing as the highest god in the religion, he is feared and placated with sacrifice and bloodshed. Even his priests are feared, and often live outside of the tribes, only turning up to enact the twisted and cruel whims of their master. At a young age they are identified by the tribes as being especially sociopathic, and sent on a pilgrimage to Mampang itself, the feared tower of the Black Mage. If they are not killed on the journey, they are taken into the tower and subjected to unknown rituals. Then they return to the tribes, and instruct them on the wishes and demands that issue forth from Mampang. It is also common to see these priests travelling with the infamous Red Men, the mercenary killers loyal to the Black Mage.
The Ash-Tieflings may be savage, violent and worshippers of possibly the darkest force in Allansia, but it is folly to judge them as evil. As one of their proverbs goes, 'a paladin walks a mile in the ash, a mile more and he eats the flesh of his children. Ash shapes a man in its image, greenwalker.'
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