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I don’t know who or what that is.

The human essentially gone, the powers at full, reckless capacity, always on. You get the part where you’re repeatedly torn apart, but it’s more of a twenty-four seven, every second of every day thing than it is a once-a-night thing.

Chicken Little and Tattletale, From Within 16.8

Ash Beast is a major threat S-class by any definition, but for its slow pace making it easy to track, enough to evacuate people out of its path.[2]

Appearance[]

Ash Beast is described as an unending explosion, a person standing in the center of a rolling mass of fire and smoke. Within the flames, he changes shape, sometimes growing wings or leonine claws.[3]

Abilities and Powers[]

Ash Beast's power is not fully understood, but relies on a conversion between mass and energy to constantly surround himself with some kind of explosion. He seems to possess a regenerative ability and exhibits partially uncontrolled shape-shifting.[4] His explosions are comparable in power to the destructive capabilities of an S-Class threat.

Has a shapeshifting beast form generated through constant matter/energy and energy/matter conversion[5] allowing him to replace and rearrange parts of himself. This kept him far healthier then he should have been.[1] He could absorb fire and presumably other forms of energy to augment his form.[6]

Ash Beast was shown to be capable of matching Scion for an indeterminate period of time. In that fight, he was able to regenerate even as Scion tore into him.[7]

Drawbacks[]

According to Tattletale, Ash Beast's power is always on at full capacity. He is one of the earlier examples of a Shard overtaking its host completely where the human experienced a form of ego death.[8] This loss of self gives his Shard more control over his actions, similar to Khepri or Night Hag; his Shard takes advantage of this opportunity to rampage.[9]

Jack Slash's secondary power is better at sabotaging him compared with the typical parahuman.[10]

History[]

Background[]

Although Taylor believes the Ash Beast originally triggered in Matruh, Egypt,[3] he might have drunk a Cauldron vial to obtain his powers.[11] He has been roaming around Africa ever since.[3]

People could see him coming from miles away because he usually traveled on foot. As a result, by the time he reached a settlement, it had been evacuated.[3] Although people tried to control Ash Beast, to steer him in the general direction of their enemies, it rarely worked for long.[2]

Gold Morning[]

Khepri created a bubble in range of Ash Beast before using Doormaker to create a portal so she could exert her control over him. She had Trickster bring Ash Beast through the portal before sending him against Scion.[1] Ash Beast and Scion started to tear into each other as Khepri pulled her front-line capes back.[7] Khepri sent other capes to assist Ash Beast including one that fed fire into his body.[6]

He was killed by Scion while controlled by Khepri, erased alongside a number of capes including Othala and Trickster.[12]

Chapter Appearances[]

Worm Chapter Appearances
Extinction
1. Extinction 27.1 Absent
2. Extinction 27.2 Mentioned
3. Extinction 27.3 Absent
4. Extinction 27.4 Absent
5. Extinction 27.5 Absent
x. Interlude 27.x Absent
y. Interlude 27.y Absent
Speck
1. Speck 30.1 Absent
2. Speck 30.2 Absent
3. Speck 30.3 Absent
4. Speck 30.4 Absent
5. Speck 30.5 Debut
6. Speck 30.6 Absent
7. Speck 30.7 Mentioned

Fanart Gallery[]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 I moved a forcefield cape to the Ash Beast’s location, and then created a bubble, putting it in range of the being. I made a portal within the bubble. More forcefields encased the bubble on my side for safety’s sake. My power operated through the forcefield, and the connection formed.

    I identified a young man, at the center of it all, and I could now think of the Ash Beast as a ‘he’ instead of an ‘it’. He was surprisingly healthy, but he had a power that kept him in good physical condition, a natural breaker-class adaptation that came with his power. Energy to matter and matter to energy. - Excerpt from Speck 30.5
  2. 2.0 2.1 Creating a portal to give me access to it was troublesome. Others had tried to control it before, to steer it in the general direction of their enemies. Warlords, villains, masterminds. It rarely worked for long. When working with power on this scale, chaos had a way of trumping order. Too much energy disrupted the portals. - Excerpt from Speck 30.5
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 I reached out to Ash Beast, a living force of nature. It had originally triggered in Matruh, Egypt, and had been roaming since, making its way across Africa. All of the destructive power of any class S threat, tempered by the fact that it usually traveled on foot, and people could see it coming from miles away. When it reached a settlement, that settlement was usually evacuated.

    An unending explosion, a rolling mass of fire and smoke with a person at the center. Here and there, it took physical form. Whether it was the fire or a massive leonine claw that tore into the ground, it produced the debris, dust and ash that was its namesake, driven along the ground by the perpetual storm of fire. - Excerpt from Speck 30.5
  4. Bringing him through a doorway was hard. He generated so much heat, and while his shape and form were malleable, they weren’t wholly under his control. - Excerpt from Speck 30.5
  5. Ash Beast Shapeshifting beast form generated through constant matter to energy and energy to matter conversion Independent Breaker Changer - Parahuman List; bolded edit by Wildbow
  6. 6.0 6.1 They appeared behind Scion. Glaistig Uaine distracted, with one ranged cape hitting Scion full-on in the face, another feeding fire into Ash Beast’s body. - Excerpt from Speck 30.5
  7. 7.0 7.1 Shaping the fire, driving it out to the sides.

    Shaping the flesh. From energy to physical form. Wings. Catlike legs to spring into the air.

    The Ash Beast lunged into the air, above the water, and he streaked towards Scion like a comet. The forcefield cape followed, to maintain the connection.

    I moved Alexandria, Legend, Moord Nag and the others on the frontline through doorways as the Ash Beast struck the golden man. Golden light tore into flesh that had been forged of fire, and more flesh was created to replace it. The Ash Beast tore into Scion, and the flesh was replaced just as quickly. - Excerpt from Speck 30.5
  8. “What happens if they’re unlucky?” Chicken Little asked.

    “Maybe don’t answer that,” Rain said.

    “Something like Ash Beast,” Tattletale answered it anyway.

    “I don’t know who or what that is,” Chicken Little said.

    “The human essentially gone, the powers at full, reckless capacity, always on. You get the part where you’re repeatedly torn apart, but it’s more of a twenty-four seven, every second of every day thing than it is a once-a-night thing.” - From Within 16.8
  9. Many breakers can go permanent breaker. Shadow Stalker, for example, doesn't have any strict forces in play that forces her to conserve the breaker state or balance her living & breaker state.

    But it's still bad times for those who go that route, because they're forced to or because they prefer life in the breaker state to their ordinary life. Breakers have a closer connection to their passenger than any cape, and in the course of diving deeper into their breaker state and not, for lack of a better phrasing, surfacing for air, they begin to lose themselves and the shard gets more of a say. This is, very obviously, not a good thing. We see this sort of mentality in Khepri, and we can assume something like it in Night Hag.
    [...]
    The breaker document includes some examples (the Atropos breaker, the consequences for death breakers in general) of ways the passenger might seep in or that life might suddenly get harder, when one lapses fully into a breaker state.

    So just wanted to point out that this is a thing that happens - and ego death often goes hand in hand with it. By the flip side of that same coin, to finally get around to answering your question - ego death, momentary, partial, or permanent, would destroy the Self and insert more Breakerness into the void that's left behind.

    Most of the time they rampage - Ash Beast and Night Hag and the like. But if the shard isn't equipped to take advantage of the opportunity (Cauldron shards, Eden shards in general), maybe the self comes back and you get a Grumman. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  10. Depression-the-Game: Alright so, Jack Slash doesn't lose against parahumans. What about shard controlled Parahumans? Like Ash Beast or Khepri.

    Wildbow:For an analogy, think of boomers trying to use an app a bizarre sci-fi megacorp designed to kill an executive officer of that megacorp's company. And that megacorp is monitoring them and they control their internet, the data they see, and you're tracking them. The boomer, for whatever reason, can't ditch their phone (In setting, it's stuck to their brain).

    Because they're boomers they don't really understand the tech and a lot of it is screened off from them, right?

    Boomer has an app that mail orders feral bears? "I guess we have to deliver, but let's just order some really shitty bears and have the driver honk his horn to alert the CEO, and if our boomer makes any mistakes in the ordering and isn't focused then we'll just empty the truckload of bears right in front of him."

    App to get someone killed? They hook it up to your boomer's pacemaker and reserve the ability to stop his heart when his lifespan (going by compiled insurance data from up to 150 providers) is halfway up, in exchange for giving him data to call in accurate hits. He just made that install and your tracking indicates he's intending to call a hit in on your CEO? Use just the two providers that give the shortest lifespan, cut that in half, (he should be in 4 minutes, according to sketchy companies A and B? hit that button to stop our boomer's pacemaker!) Or lean on your megacorp's subsidiary companies and track what he's doing on the internet to slow him down. Mess with his head.

    Utilizing a shard-controlled parahuman is getting deeper into the megacorp's control.

    The way it works is that you want to rely on someone who isn't using the megacorp's tech or who isn't tracked and monitored by the megacorp. Anything else is going to see the executive officer getting a courtesy phone call and your tech guys are going to do everything they can to mess with your potential threat.

    Anything else is liable to be a "Gee, why can't I use my app from megacorp to destroy a megacorp executive officer?" - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  11. For the vials, it might give you a Legend or Eidolon on your side, but it might give you a Siberian or Ash Beast, or worse. Each try of vial or bigger project is a gamble, whether you're talking about giving a good candidate an extreme vial or giving a powerful and frequently unbalanced parahuman the ability to create an army. Every time, you're flipping a coin. Early on in the Cauldron efforts, they didn't know any better, so there were lots of coin flips, and they mostly made out okay. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  12. The portal was wiped out. Without any barrier in the way, the beam radiated forward to wipe Ash Beast, the cape with the pole, Trickster, and Othala from existence. - Excerpt from Speck 30.5

Site Navigation[]

S-Class Threats
Endbringers Behemoth Leviathan The SimurghKhonsu *Tohu *Bohu *
Titans The Kronos Titan Titan Eve Titan Fortuna The Nemean Titan Titan Arachne Titan Oberon The Ashen Titan Titan Skadi The Ophion Titan The Strange Titan Auger Titaness Amenonuhoko The Flowing Titan Drillbit The Liminal Titan Pouffe Valkyrie  • Morgana  • Yakshini  • Ashoka  • Ghast 
Groups The Slaughterhouse Nine Three BlasphemiesThe Machine Army
Parahumans Ash Beast Echidna Khepri NilbogPastor Scion SleeperThe Tower 
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