Bio - Vonduke Darkspire

[Tovarish24]

Name: Vonduke Darkspire
Age: 112
Race: Undead (Forsaken)
Gender: Male
Class: Warlock, specifically: Necromancer

Languages: Gutterspeak, Common, Low Common, and Orcish

Faction: Horde (Forsaken)

Personality: Vonduke Darkspire is a dark, old soul. He is kind with friends, and devastatingly ruthless against his foes. His power in Necromancy are abundant and pure. Having spent many years studying the Dark Arts, Vonduke has recently taken to social activity, mostly found in combat situations. He revels in war.

Likes/Dislikes: Vonduke likes to use his powers to control his enemies, and embraces the powers of Shadow in the fullest. He often enjoys long, intellectual conversations with his comrades of war. Vonduke hates those who use the powers of Holy Light. When healed by the light in combat, presumably by a priest or paladin, there is a searing burn in his heart.

Appearance: A long black robe wrapped somewhat loosely around his body, hangs in perfect length to hover a breath above the floor. It is encrusted with long red flowing lines that glow gently and extent vertically from his neck to the bottom of the robes. There are four of these lines, perpendicular to them. The robe has a hood attached to the back, and Vonduke wears it only while in combat. He says it helps him focus his dark powers if he makes the world around him shadowed. He carries a fabulous staff. Standing taller than the man who wields it, the metal staff was topped with an incredible diamond, purple in glow, and made from the finest stone. The staff weighs 100 tons to anyone who is not trained in the powers of shadow and death. A fellow forsaken Warlock would be able to wield it should he fall in combat, but no other would find the ability to do so. The entire staff glows with a light flame that is indigo in hue.

Strengths/Weaknesses: Vonduke is strong against those also trained in the arts of spellcasting. He has incredible control over the ability to hinder his enemies, so long as they use spells as their choice for conflict. He is weak against those who vie in melee combat. Nimble he is not, Vonduke finds himself surprised under the power of physical incumbency.

History: 50 years ago, Vonduke Sharilym, a human mage of Dalaran descent, lived as an enchanter in the great city of Dalaran. Studying the arcane, more intently the ability to control time, Vonduke also spent his time learning of the art of Enchanting, and used his skills to support his life. The Third War was beginning, but Vonduke was not yet concerned, as the Burning Legion was still only ramping up its forces. He continued his life, studying, and working. With war on the brink of the future, Vonduke began to prepare himself. He was ready, he was excited.

Some time passed, and the Lich King had suddenly become a threat. As part of the attacks in the Third War, after Kel'Thuzad had been summoned to Azeroth, the Lich King unleashed the power of the Scourge on the great city of Dalaran.

Vonduke sat quietly in his study. It was Sunday, and the old wizard had committed his day off from work to studying magics for the upcoming war. He looked out his window up at the sky. He could see the beautiful sparkling tips of a few towers of Dalaran, and passed them, light stars against the fading light in the sky. It was dusk, and nighttime was beginning to fall upon his vision.

A loud roar began to sound from all directions. Darkness suddenly set in much faster than it should have been. A rumble began to simmer throughout the ground. High pitched shrills and screeches were piercing the air around him. Vonduke stood up quickly. He knew what was happening. It was time. He turned quickly and grabbed his beloved staff. Channeling the powers of the Arcane, he imbued himself with the magic of his ancestors, in preparation for battle.

Swinging the door to his Enchantment shop open, Vonduke burst through the archway, and glanced quickly around him to investigate his surroundings. The visions were horrendous. He saw great demons and ghouls rising up out of the ground. Lightning was flashing all around, as wicked monsters flung what seemed now to be weak, puny humans at walls and buildings. Chaos was ensuing, and it was clear that the citizens of Dalaran were greatly outnumbered, and in peril.

Vonduke slammed his staff into the ground, summoning a shield powered by mana, around him. A viscous looking Geist whipped its neck around in excitement when it heard the caster's door swing open. It had chosen its target. The shadowy figure leaped at bounding speeds towards Vonduke, but the wizard was in no trouble. Uttering a few short archaic words, Vonduke rose his staff into the air and forced his free hand outward at the ghoul. The beast was frozen solid in mid air, and fell to the ground, and upon impact, shattered into a thousand tiny shards.

A giant demon creature, laden with visible muscle tissue and a foul stench, lurched forward from behind Vonduke. The old mage blinked out of the way of the initial blow from the giant, but the man was no longer safe.

Thousands of dark, evil spirits began to swirl around Vonduke, all cackling and screeching. He twirled around in fear, realizing that he was being vastly overwhelmed by dark forces, far stronger than any he had seen before. The evil souls began to drain the life force out of Vonduke and slowly brought him to the ground.

The man choked as he attempted to claim one last breath, and crumpled to the ground. Once the siege had come to a halt, scourge necromancers came to resurrect the dead to fight in service of the Lich King.

One of the necromancers walked slowly up to the corpse of Vonduke. Speaking in an ancient, evil tongue, the raiser of dead commenced a wicked spell of reincarnation.

Vonduke felt an incredible wave of pain rocket through his body as all sense of light was stripped from his new soul and and was risen from the ground, a shell of his former self.

"In service of the Lich King, I shall fight until unable!"

Months passed, and Vonduke half-lived as a servant of the evil King. His power over magic was converted to dark teachings. His control of time was used in learning the power of resurrection for himself. He would be remolded into a necromancer, one to bring others the fate his so undeservingly had obtained.

One fateful day, while on a private mission to scout the thoughts of nearby enemies of the scourge, Vonduke was confronted by servants of the Banshee Queen, Sylvanas Windrunner. Casting a spell, the harpy women were able to tap into the long forgotten conscience of the man that once inhabited the body of the lost soul in front of them. Through the long belief of free will over any other power, and the spell of the ladies, Vonduke was able to renounce his enslavement to the Lich King, and vowed to join the Forsaken, and the Horde, in the campaign to destroy the Lich King.

As a necromancer, and a powerful one at that, Vonduke was able to rise through the ranks of the Dark Ladie's ranks, and was soon resurrecting powerful fallen heros to join the ranks of the Banshee Queen.

Not able to remember his family name from before his undeath, Vonduke adopted the last name "Darkspire" from the name of the great spire in which he lived when not out fulfilling the will of Sylvanas.

To this day, Vonduke Darkspire spends his time investigating the dark magics, and perfecting his control over the shadows, all while waiting dormant for the next time his power is needed in battle.

[Diabloss]

Very nice, forgetting the last name is a nice touch. Good work!

[Vadoor]

Once again, a solid well written bio except for one little part. When Dalaran first fell to the Legion and Scourge, it was still in the ground and not floating. It wasn't until the Lich King expansion that Dalaran actually became a floating city. Also, Kel'Thuzad was already a full lich by the time Dalaran was attacked by the Scourge.

[Tovarish24]

These are things that are much easier to fix than with my druid's entire history being a sham! Lol! Thanks so much Vadoor!

[The Madgod]

Please note that if you're not sure about any lore for your characters / roleplays, you can ask Vadoor, myself, Nonfiction, or any of the usual gang (though we seem to be the only ones lurking at the mo'), or peruse the articles on wowpedia.org. It's got pretty much all the lore in game and I believe a good part of the book lore.

I'll edit this post with anything that may or may not come up after I take a gander at this guy. I have a couple things to do beforehand however.

[Tovarish24]

Thanks so much Madgod! From now on I'll be using those sources. I look forward to your input!

[The Madgod]

Right, well there's two things that kinda bug me... three technically, but one's rather silly.

Firstly.. "The staff weighs 100 tons to anyone who is not trained in the powers of shadow and death. A fellow forsaken Warlock would be able to wield it should he fall in combat, but no other would find the ability to do so."

I dunno, I kinda find that rather odd and nonsensical. But in terms of correctness, t's less of a "no." thing as much as an "ehh..." thing. I'd encourage you to get rid of that, but it isn't really all that necessary.

Secondly, "He has incredible control over the ability to control his enemies, so long as they use spells as their choice for conflict.". Note that while he can be a good countercaster doesn't mean that he's got control over his enemies, which would be godmoding and is against a roleplayer's code of conduct. Not sure if that's what you were going for, the wording seemed to suggest it, so I just wanted to let you know

Thirdly, his name is VERY similar to my Acnoctus Shadowspire. Not that big a deal, just thought it was funny :P

[Tovarish24]

Thanks for the input. I had the staff thing because I just thought it gave flavor to the item, and maybe to the character. I'll consider what I want to do with it. I didn't mean control like in terms of Godmoding, I mean it like "he's good at CC" but I didn't know how to phrase outside of game terminology. The idea that I'm trying to portray is that he's good at fear and deathcoil etc. Maybe there's a better way of phrasing it?

And ya, haha, I swear I wasn't copying your name :P I was reading the "how to name your characters" thread here on MMO, and Vonduke sounded like a really nice victorian name for such a dark character. Darkspire, well a happy coincidence there really :P

[The Madgod]

well crowd control is, for the most part, godmoding, as far as how it works in-game. Taking control of another person's character or forcing them to have no control whatsoever is rather OP when it comes to RP combat. Hindering or distracting would probably be the best way to put it.

[Tovarish24]

So, in combat I'm unable to do things like silence or fear? I guess that makes sense. I'll reword it. Can I attempt to fear? For example: I cast fear, I'm fighting a priest, they are warded and thus immune. Or it's a hunter, and he has the chance to line of sight it, and has the option in combat to choose to line of sight or accept the fear and essentially "fear himself" ?

[The Madgod]

You can attempt to do it, but it wouldn't work in the traditional sense anyway. It would be more of a hinderance. So if you attempt to hit the person with a Fear spell, they can go "Oh shit I'm filled with fear, I'm probably going to screw up, make a mistake", something like that. Not being able to do ANYTHING but cower is essentially a two hit K-O combo.

[Tovarish24]

Ok, that makes sense! Thanks so much Madgod! Glad to have people like you and Vadoor helping out us newcomers. I plan to be well read on the arts of RP combat and have this character a little more fine tuned before I send him into any RP's. I must say, my newfound friend and I are having a wonderful time in a new Private RP quest we started. Never would have imagined RP being this way! I've even featured the art in my Youtube show!

[The Madgod]

It's my pleasure. I'm glad you're having fun! That's what we're all about here; fun.

As for info on fighting, I actually wrote an article here that I think covers all the basics. http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...4#post11007864