[Bio] <TRP 2> Aland Wood

[Nonfictionless]

Personality:
Before the Purging, he was a loving and compassionate man. He was a healer after all. No matter the injury Aland would treat it as if it was the most important thing. He often spent his time volunteering and became proficient in many skills just to help out around the town. Now though, fury consumes him. There is something left of his old self inside him but he guards it closely and trusts it to no one but other paladins. He focuses on the task at hand, the next evil thing to be purged from this world. It is all that drives him to continue living. The only real quality that survived from his former self that he can't ignore is his need to save people. He often sees the face of his wife and daughter in other women even if they look nothing alike and will stop at nothing to protect them. He doesn't consider it a weakness or a strength, just who he is.

Likes/Dislikes: Aland accepts and loves most people no matter how they act. The only thing that he truly despises is evil. Any form, no matter the intent. He accepts other forms of religion such as the Priestesses of Elune. Its more the acts behind the religion that he examines and uses to decide if they are evil or not. Recently though his perception of "evil" has been dramatically changed, but all in all Demons are still his most hated enemy.

History:

Aland was born in the early spring time in the city of Stratholm. He was born to a priest and a warrior, Martin and Alice. One a protector of the city and the other a healer of little renown, but this mattered little to Aland. He grew up within the cleaner parts of the city in a small house near a Chapel. From his early days as a child he attended church regularly and loved going around the town helping his father with his duties. Mainly just walking around the town keeping order but still to him it was amazing even when nothing happened. In fact especially on quiet days because he would get to carry one of his fathers swords, but in those early days he usually had to drag it behind him. His father would not offer to help but then again young Aland wouldn't of wanted it. Like most young boys he desperately wanted to be like his father. Most days though he would be with his mother in the Chapel helping heal the sick or preparing food to be given to the needy.

At the start of his tenth year he got his wish fulfilled and his father started to train him to become a warrior like himself. His father would spend every evening training with him no matter the day he had. It became their nightly ritual, Aland would always have their furniture moved aside and ready before they even ate dinner. All the while during the day his mother would teach him to heal and use the light properly to protect himself and more importantly, she always stressed, others.

When he finally came of age, his father got him an apprenticeship at his friends blacksmith shop. It wasn't what Aland wanted but accepted his father's teaching that he needed to know a trade to get by in this world, because he can't be a soldier forever. For two years he studied hard and became quiet handy with a hammer and forge but nothing close to a master. His father never said anything about it but knew that his son never really committed to learning the trade. All the while he became a better swordsman, whether Aland knew it or not the knowledge he learned in his apprenticeship helped his training and skills. After that though he joined his mother in helping heal wounded and tired refugees from the southern kingdoms. War had come to Stormwind. Terrible stories of savage monsters called Orcs floated into the city, with each new arrival. Aland wanted to fight and join the army to prove he was a strong fighter like his father but his father forbid it. He said that he was still too young and that he wouldn't lose his son before he truly became a man and married. He settled for helping his mother in the Chapel tending to refugees and listening intently to all the stories of heroism and horror that he could. This continued on for years until his nineteenth summer when the war finally was coming to an end.

Durring these few years of peace Aland settled down with a nice girl who worked at a local Apothecary, Miranda. She was a few years younger than him and a stunningly beautiful brunette from a lower class family that had came from Lordearon. It was love at first sight. She started working there shortly after the end of the war and from his many trips there for the chapel, most unnecessary, he ended up courting her and they married within the year. She became pregnant near the start of the Second War. This time though the horde was coming and spreading war all over Azeroth. When the Horde finally reached the shores of Stratholm, against his father's wishes he dawned his armor and sword and snuck into the battle to help defend the city. He fought hard but eventually ended up back in the city after his father had to rescue him from nearly being killed by an Orc spellcaster. His father scolded him quickly about training and battle being vastly different before moving back to the front line himself and left him in the care of his mother. He laid in that bed nursing his wounds with his own skills thinking about how much he really did have to learn. It wasn't until long until the horde broke through the gates of the city. He father rushed back covered in wounds he forced them to flee the city. However in their flight Martin lost his life. At this point he decided to devote himself to the light, if only he hadn't be reckless and went into the fighting he might have been able to save his father when the time came. They fled to the safety of Hearthglen. Once they were all safely inside the city he left his wife with his mother and went and joined the priests in the Church of the Light there and worked hard to help keep the soldiers defending and fighting alive.

For whatever reason it seemed that Hearthglen was almost immune to War going on at its doorsteps and never fell to the Horde, while Stratholm burned to the ground. Aland continued practicing his healing arts at the church there and worked tirelessly to save many lives. This went on for five more years until the end of the war. At the end he settled down with his wife and worked as a Blacksmiths assistant. During this time his daughter was born and was named Farah. Miranda and Aland raised her to become a strong young girl and passed on her mother's knowledge and skills for alchemy and they both taught Aland. A new family tradition was started, or rather continued with just a different focus. It wasn't until the rebuilding of Stratholm that Aland heard of a new order being formed, The Knights of the Silver Hand. Their fame rose almost over night from the exploits and achievements of its leader Alonsus Faol. They worked to save the poor, weak and homeless form the aftermath of the Second War. He knew this was something for him to get back into, he lead the quiet life in Hearthglen for far to long. Perhaps it was the suppression of his warrior side that urged him to move, he didn't know, but he quickly left and went to find out more. He left his daughter in the care of her mother and grandmother in Hearthglen while he went intending to find a new home for them before moving them.

When he arrived and found out what the order was he joined immediately. It was finally a way for him to honor his father and use all his training while remaining faithful to the light and using it to still save people. He quickly found a home for his family and brought them to the new Stratholm. He spent his time mainly training at the Alonsus Chapel and doing minor duties for the Knights of the Silver Hand, slowly working his way up the ranks. It seemed to be what he was going to become all his life. Both aspects to becoming a paladin just flowed easily from him, serving the Light and fighting to protect those who can't themselves.

However on his Thirty-seventh summer, one he will never forget, he was working far away at Andorha, cleansing the town when news reached the Knights of a possible next location of this plague of undeath. Stratholm, They left Andorha behind and urgently raced to Stratholm at the orders of Prince Arthas. He feared for the worst and unfortunately that is what he found, the rumors of the plague of undeath being spread in the city were confirmed. He witnessed Uther's banishment and the Knights but choose to stay behind. Not for the mad reasoning of the Prince but to get in and save his family from both the plague and the Prince. He arrived too late.

He rode with great speed to his home and burst in to find his mother kneeling over his daughter and wife desperately summoning holy light from herself into them trying to cleanse them of this evil plague, but they were both already gone and turning. He was forced to carry his aging mother from their home and gave her his horse and sent her out of the city, to this day though he doesn't know if she made it. He knew of the demon that was in this city and that the Prince was chasing it. Filled with fury and rage at the creature that killed his only daughter and he beloved wife, he joined the chase and ended up in the battle with scores of undead as the demon fled the city. He left with the rest of the army under the Prince's command but couldn't bring himself to move far from the city. Within days though the plague and scourge spread to the lands and he was forced to leave before falling to it like his family. He arrived at Lordaeron and placed two small headstones in one of the cemeteries for his wife and child. There were no bodies but he felt they deserved to have a resting place like anyone else.

He was broken and left wondering why this would happen to him. No doubt that he was no different from any other person but still he had always been a faithful servant of the Light and the Church. He had always worked to help those who needed it, always a good person and yet his family was taken away from him on the whim of a single demon. He laid in an Inn for several days while his minor flesh wounds, and more importantly, his wounded heart mended. While he laid there he decided what he would do, could do, what he had to do. He emptied all of his gold stores and anything left of value he had and bought brilliant armor and supplies and set forth on the only path that made sense. Tracking and killing demons, scourge, the undead and any other foul creature that lived in the dark. He knew he had to save others from what had happened to him. It consumed him completely.

He eventually found himself at the Argent Tournament in the frozen reaches of Icecrown. Although not apart of the army or the crusade he worked with them. He fought on the front-lines, not caring for his own safety but saving countless others in while they slowly but surely broke down the defense of the scourge. Even after the death of the Lich King he didn't celebrate like the others, just left looking for the next evil to purge from the lands. Nothing else matters much these days to him. Just killing the next evil thing. Even come the Shattering he was too busy tracking and exorcising a demon in Darkshire to notice it.

The Corrupted Blade:

During his travels he fought countless demons and the scourge, mostly working with nobody but the Light at his side. He worked for whatever people could or would pay, sometimes going without. Late in one year, after a visit to the Stormwind Cathedral, he arrived at the town of South Shore by boat. The town had been experiencing some unusual actively of the demonic sort. He found this demon quickly and easily after searching the town for a day and found it's lair in a small basement in one of the larger shops. This had been one of the easier demons he found and exorcised, it gave him almost no fight. He thought nothing of it as he was already sheathing his blade to move on from this town. It had been too long since he visited the graves of his wife and daughter and he was intent on seeing them before the year's end.

He barely avoided the first strike of a large winged demon. It was trap set for him. Apparently this demon had grown tired of Aland killing those that worked under him and intended to end him in this town. He fought with all his might as the demon started to overpower him. He knew that he might not be able survive against a demon this powerful all alone. But as the demon started to taunt him Aland found a simple weakness that made him laugh aloud, it was pride. He deflected to blows then left himself open to a third. The blade ripped into his skin a small jagged part of the edge caught in a back rib. He grabbed the demon's arm and pulled it close to himself and summoned what energy he had left and called for assistance from the light. He blade glowed a blazing white and he plunged it into the demon's heart as it desperately tried to escape. He believed he was going to die and damn it was even worth it to kill a powerful evil thing such as this. He had been ready for a long time, death no longer scared him. He released the demon as it stumbled backwards and slammed against the wall writhing in pain, Aland's blade still shining bright from both sides of the demon. His sword shattered with the demon and they both vanished a wave of holy light that knocked Aland unconscious.

Surprise and sarrow overwhelmed him as he awoke in a clean bed with his wounds bandaged, for the first time in a long time, Aland cried. After a few hours an elderly priest walked into the room carrying his armor cleaned of his and demon's blood that covered it. He had been asleep for several days and it turned out that the final blow it was alerted the shopkeeper that anything was even going on in his basement. The priest had been summoned to save Aland and they say it was only luck that the Light was able to save the paladin. Aland didn't know what to make of it. Luck? Wasn't it time for him to finally be able to join his wife and daughter again? It seemed as though the Light had other plans for him.

After a few days he went back to the basement, while all around town he was treated as a hero for saving them from that powerful demon. They never knew it was only there because of him. He found his blade handle, with a small portion of the blade still on it, lying in the wreckage and nothing else of the blade. He saw the demon's blade and armor blasted against the wall. The elderly priest was going to destroy them within the day, but it was Aland's job not his. He pulled out his libram and selected a seal. He ripped it out the page and slammed it into the armor focusing his holy light to surround the armor and protect others from ever being hurt by it again. It resisted and pulsed but eventually fizzled and cooled into ordinary steel and fell to dust. The page was nothing, just something else he wanted gone from this book. He let it fall to the floor and it landed in a small pool of the demon's blood and burst into flames.

He turned to the sword something about it just spoke to him. He could feel the power coming off it and he needed a new blade. For a moment he though about take it as it was and using it as the demon did but then his head filled with the ringing of his fathers and mothers words and images of there deeds and warm air embraced him almost as if his family were right there with him. He knew that wasn't him, he was a protector, a healer. He couldn't be anything else. His libram still laid open and behind the page he tore out with another blessing, for cleansing. The page gave him an idea. He decided he would fix this blade and use it against it's intended purpose. He carved new runes into the demon's blade. It resisted all the while but Aland's focus was unwavering. He finished by wrapping the blade in cloth torn from his shirt to complete the seal he places around the blade so the rune could not so easily be taken off. It wasn't a purified blade in his mind but a corrupted one. It was made to serve evil and was made from evil. In the Light it wasn't as powerful as it was with the demon because Aland turned and corrupted it from it's true self. This corrupted blade would serve him well and slay many more demons to come.

[The Madgod]

I'm disappointed, fic. Nothing in there about Drakely!