Description
Forty. Twenty-two years in Bengal. Arrived as a junior writer at eighteen. Wife died of fever in 1806, never remarried. India is his life, his purpose, and his blindness. Speaks Bengali well enough to hear petitions without a translator.
Stat Block
| STR 50 | CON 55 |
| DEX 50 | APP 60 |
| POW 70 | EDU 75 |
HP: 12 | MP: 14 | SAN: 70 | Luck: 55
Damage Bonus: 0 | Build: 0 | Move: 7
Skills
| Skill | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Accounting | 40 | Revenue oversight, Company ledgers |
| Credit Rating | 65 | Senior EIC official |
| Fast Talk | 35 | Not his style, but twenty years of politics |
| History | 45 | Bengal and EIC history |
| Intimidate | 55 | Institutional authority, not personal menace |
| Language (Bengali) | 60 | Hears petitions without translator |
| Language (English) | 75 | Native |
| Law | 70 | Primary professional skill |
| Library Use | 50 | Thorough with administrative records |
| Listen | 55 | Twenty years of hearings and informants |
| Persuade | 65 | His most dangerous skill against the investigators |
| Psychology | 60 | Reads people well. Twenty years of judging liars |
| Spot Hidden | 50 | Notices inconsistencies in testimony and paperwork |
Combat
Carries no weapon routinely. Flintlock pistol in his desk, cavalry sabre on the wall.
| Weapon | Skill | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Flintlock Pistol | 25 | 1D6+1 |
| Cavalry Sabre | 20 | 1D8 |
Background
A lazy or corrupt official could be bypassed. Ashworth cannot, because he’s competent, principled, and everywhere. Informants, sepoy patrols, a memory for detail. He notices things.
Motivations
Maintain order. Protect twenty years of carefully built trust between British administration and Indian religious institutions. He is defending something real and valuable, which makes him harder to move than a fool or a coward.
What makes him breakable: Pride. His identity is built on knowing Calcutta, knowing its people, knowing who can be trusted. Proof that he was wrong about Ghosh threatens his entire self-conception.
The Confrontation
His Persuade 65 is his weapon. He asks precise questions that make weak arguments collapse. Psychology 60 means he reads the room. He knows when someone is lying to him.
Reputation Downriver
Confirmed canon, Session 7. His name travels badly among Company men leaving Bengal. At a cellar bar in Suez, a westbound Company man named Pew — newly back from Calcutta, and a stranger to the party — heard that Freddy was bound for the city and volunteered, unprompted, that he should watch out for a man named Ashworth.
Nothing further was said. No grievance was named, no incident cited, no distinction drawn between dangerous and obstructive. Whatever it is, it is common enough currency among returning Company men that it gets handed to a stranger over a drink at a transit port four thousand miles from the Hooghly.
The party therefore has his name and a bad character reference weeks before they set foot in Bengal, and no detail behind either. Elizabeth Ashby was in the room when it was said.
The traffic runs both ways
World evolution, Chapter 4 Session 7 (2026-08-17). In-game: early October 1814.
While Pew’s warning travelled west with the party, three things travelled east toward Ashworth’s desk, none of them yet arrived and none of them yet connected:
He remains entirely unaware and entirely unchanged. He is doing his job in a city where nothing is wrong. The material for his eventual suspicion is assembling itself in a drawer he has not opened.
Connections
In Play
Chapter 4, Session 8 (8–9 October 1814) — named twice, met never. His name reached the party first as a courtesy: Pratap Singh presented himself at Chandpal Ghat with the compliments of the District Magistrate, offering a guide and liaison to visiting Britons of standing. A messenger arrived at the Cavendish estate during dinner that same evening with an invitation to dine the following night.
He was seen but not spoken to at St John’s on the Sunday morning, seated among the senior council and pointed out by Meg.
The party’s only other information about him is Pew’s warning at Suez — a bad character reference with nothing behind it, now sitting directly against two acts of hospitality. The dinner itself carries forward to Session 09.
Chapter 4, Session 9 (9 October 1814) — met, and he gave away the only thing that mattered. He greeted each of the party by name in the churchyard at St John’s, unhurried and precise, and moved on with the efficiency of a man who owns the city. That evening he hosted them at Garden Reach (Ashworth Dinner Garden Reach).
At table he told Freddy that the Charter Act’s sovereignty clause troubles him more than its trade clauses do. Speaking French with Adrien about the Bourbons he revealed himself a Francophile, invited Adrien to assist with the Chandernagore repatriation, and recommended he break the journey at Baranagar with his personal friend Devendra Ghosh, a charitable and hospitable gentleman, one of the finest men he knows.
Nothing he said was a lie, and Pew’s warning still has nothing behind it. The dinner was interrupted before the final course and has not finished.
Appearances
Relationships
- Located at Calcutta 1814 — Resident in Calcutta
- Trusts Acharya Devendra Ghosh — Twenty years of acquaintance. Ashworth regards him as a remarkable man and an ornament to the city.
- Commands Havildar Pratap Singh — Recommended the escort to the party as a routine courtesy to visiting Britons of standing.