Arch Evoker, Lord Commander Sutherland Dash
Paragon Senator
“Precision is power. Anything else is waste.”
Origins
Angels were born when the First Three gods said no to the Fourth. From their defiance came the cleansing flame of the Defiant Aasimar.
The Dash family has always carried that flame. Always Paragons. But where others saw fire as destruction, the Dashes saw discipline. They feared chaos, honored control, and aligned themselves with the Abjuration half of the Paragon doctrine. To them, fire was clarity. A heat not meant to burn, but to cauterize. To dispel. For generations, their bloodline shaped that flame into radiant barriers, divine deterrents, and precise bursts of denial. Sutherland broke with that doctrine. To his elders, it was dangerous. To his peers, thrilling. To Sutherland Dash, it was just geometry made holy.
Aasimar Sutherland Dash was born to legacy. His late father, Dash Sr., was the decorated Paragon Marshal of Plate 2. His mother, a high elf of the Vorn line, was a renowned professor of arcane defense. His grandfather rose to Arch-Abjurer the same year Sutherland enrolled at university. His path should have been predictable: wards, shields, discipline. Another Vorn in posture and purpose. But Sutherland was never interested in safety.
He wanted victory agains the Unraveling.
At the Paragon Military University on Plate Two, he chose Evocation over Abjuration, scandalizing both sides of his family. He argued that defense was for those preparing to lose, and the only good defense was ending a fight before it begins. Even then, he believed the battlefield was a problem of geometry, not sentiment.
He was, of course, top of his class.
The Spark
During his university years, Dash and his roommates began experimenting with alternative casting methods. They weren’t interested in bigger spells, but better ones. What they built would become the foundation of spellweapons: precision-guided magical payloads launched from arcane bows, spells delivered like arrows, detonated on impact.
In his final exam duel, Dash used a Firebolt-charged spellweapon to cut clean through a Fireball, disabling both it and his opponent in a single, surgical shot.
He graduated into legend.
The Azure District Victory
Years later, when a rare incursion of the Unraveling appeared deep within the city on Plate Three, the Senate called for Abjurist specialists as they always do. Dash brought his battalion anyway.
Equipped with experimental spellweapons, they didn’t just hold the line, they pushed the Unraveling back. A thousand synchronized impacts. Targeted strikes. Oracles confirmed what everyone feared to believe: for the first time in Wuh-Zhei’s long history, the Unraveling had been moved.
No one else has ever replicated it.
Rise to Power
Matilda Brightside saw the opportunity. Sutherland Dash didn’t want politics, but he wanted resources. She offered him both. And when the time came to replace the Paragon Senator, Dash went to Orbash Grent, his commanding officer.
The story goes… one night First Lieutenant Sutherland Dash arrived at Lord Commander Orbash’ office with a manilla folder and a six pack of Impact Point IPA Light. The two spoke privately for an hour. When the door opened, it was no longer Orbash’s office.
Dash ascended. Lord Commander. Arch Evoker. Senator.
Role in the Bloc
He is the newest sitting Senator of the council’s five. He rarely attends Senate meetings. That duty falls to Commander Gael’da Vorn, a towering elf of the old guard and Sutherland’s grandfather who votes in Dash’s name.
Dash supports the Bloc. He trusts Matilda, respects Sintetra, and considers the Gilded Gaze irrelevant. So long as he is left to do his work, he allows others to do theirs.
Philosophy of War
Dash believes the Unraveling is not a uniform force, but a broken shell containing resonant pockets of former reality. In his view, attacking it broadly is folly. Victory lies in precision.
He trains his forces accordingly. He believes every able-bodied child should learn Evocation. He believes in deployment before debate. In crisis, he will declare martial law without hesitation. To him, it isn’t tyranny. It’s duty.
Personal Character
Despite his fame, Dash is not a loner. He maintains ties with his old university crew, still drinks with them on quiet nights. All but one: Favian Underhill, his closest collaborator in the early days of spellweapon design. Favian was exiled to a lower plate under undisclosed circumstances.
Dash never talks about it.
He adores his mother, despises inefficiency, and dreams, quietly, someday, of becoming a professor just like her. But for now, he remains the sword (or bow) of the Senate.