The Ashen Empire was a culture and presumed nation whose people lived throughout the islands of the Wounds many thousands of years ago. They are even more poorly understood than the Tomb-Builders, their contemporaries and evident rivals, owing largely to the paucity of ruins and other remains.
The clearest sign of the presence of the Ashen Empire in any given part of the Wounds is a layer of ash and charcoal covering Tomb-Builder sites, where any structures or other items once there were incinerated. The only locations that can be clearly shown to have been constructed by the Ashen Empire itself are small underground outposts, maze-like fortifications in lava tubes that are still guarded by traps to this day. Many believe the Ashen Empire to have been a subterranean people as a result, yet no city or even larger settlement has ever been found.