First Try at a Character Bio: "Tricky" Vercian Shadowgore

[TrickieTK]

Name: “Tricky” Vercian Shadowgore

Race: Orc

Gender: Male

Age: 48

Character Class: Death Knight

Allignment: Chaotic Neutral although currently active member of the Horde

Appearance: A stocky, seasoned Orc, Tricky is most recognizable by his missing right eye which he covers with a patch. His worn reanimated flesh is still tight to his muscles but is discolored from its original green, pale, in sharp contrast to his dry, blood-saturated beard and crest of hair which has stained the color of rust . He wears full plate and wields an sinister two handed mace that is so battle-worn it's hard to believe it is still sharp but you can catch a glint of carefully sharpened and masterfully crafted spikes that line the head of this brutal weapon.



Bio: In His Own Words

In my youth, I was... always fighting...

Elder Shaman Ner'zhul, had always taken quick notice of those who could commune with the elements... I was not one of them.

Jealous of the other young-lings of the clan I lashed out. Despite my training, regardless of my sparring partners, I would never accept defeat. Never yielding, or allowing others to yield, often injuring my brothers before the elders could remove me from the brawl. I knew that they could feel the elements inside them... all I had was rage and will...

I was not the biggest or the strongest, but I had the will, the will to do what the other boys would not. The will to sacrifice myself to win, to go father than they would to leave bloodied, but victorious.

When I was 11 I was fighting with my older brother, Drakk'ro, which was a rarity as he was often meditating and learning about the elements. My father and the elders looked on as we exchanged blows with blunt training clubs. I was the aggressor, but often reckless, and soon my bat was far from the arena and Drakk landed a clean stroke to my ribs, I fell as the air rushed from my lungs like fire, but I immediately began to rise back to charge my brother. He tried again to take out my legs but I was too quick and tackled him as we rolled out the dirt arena and down a small hill towards the huts and living area of our village. A small crowed formed, and despite our departure, the elders allowed us to continue. After a brief exchange of fists and elbows on the ground we came to our feet, I rushed at my brother again and in his rage he quickly rose the very rocks beneath his feet out around him and I charged chest first into the jagged barrier. I was rocked (quite literally) onto my back, immortalized and furious I lay there in agonizing pain. The crowed gasped and then cheered for my brother as he reset the earth beneath him. He proudly walked up and kneeled over me... unaware that the stun of the blow had worn off, his arm was resting on his knee, and with every ounce of energy I had left I pulled on his arm with my left and hand and raised my right fist up into his side. The feeling of those 3 ribs cracking against my fist, is one I will never forget. Drakk'ro crumpled to the ground gasping for air as I slowly rose up. I looked down at him and spat, where were his precious elements now... “where was the air when he needed it most,” I thought...

“YOU TRICKY BASATRD!” I heard as both my father and several of the other elders came rushing to me, some reached for my brother to aide him, but as I clawed and gnashed my teeth as the three old Orcs subdued me all I could think of was what would come... I would take my punishment, I would be reprimanded before the clan, but I had won...

Scars are what I have to remember my upbringing, my back is a mural of reminders that I had refused to accept defeat... but the name stuck as well. I was called Tricky as often as I was called Vercian, sometimes more.

As I grew more, the Clan soon learned that my skills as a brawler and warrior were only surpassed by my tactical understanding of Shadowmoon Valley. Even Elder Shaman Ner'zhul could not deny that my raiders and I were the most successful in our skirmishes with the beasts and raging elementals in the Valley. I began to lead small outfits of other youths into the wilds to test our skills in turn combat to the death... often times, bloodied and broken, I was the only one to return.

When I was 19, things changed very quickly, Ner'zhul rallied the Shadowmoon clan against the Dreanei and in these first battles, these first skirmishes with I felt rage and strength flow through my truncheon breaking my enemies. My brother and the young Gul'dan, and his close followers began to orchestrate my raids, and I led my Orcs, obediently rode in, slaughtering every Dreanei we found... often my raiders would not even dismount, cleaving Dreanei in half from their Worgs, but I would always dismount, and when the dust settled, covered in blood and breathing heavily; I would rally my troops and return home victorious. Soon though, I realized that the Shadowmoons, the Gorefiends and the Shadowrends... were becoming more than a clan, and Ner'zhul was quickly realizing his connection to the elements was waning.

Gul'dan's betrayal of Ner'zhul and the twisting of my Brother would forever change my life, though at the time I never knew the treachery of demons, or the poison of Mannoroth's blood. Riding under Blackhand's Horde in the First War leading a raider outpost. I was proud, and vicious and... efficient...

I returned to Shadowmoon Valley at the request of my brother, and lead my raiders to the assault and capture of the Temple of Karabor. After the battle, I followed Gorefiend out into the courtyard to march the prisoners north to hellfire – I witnessed the insatiable lust for power in Gorefiend as he slaughtered them... it was then that I knew that Gul'dan and his Demon masters had crossed a very dangerous thresh hold. We returned to the temple to await the instructions of Gul'dan... instructions that never arrived.

I awoke the next morning to the sounds of battle, and without thinking donned my armor and took my war-mace out of the temple. Doomhammer and his Orcs had ambushed us at dawn, out numbered and ill-prepared we were over run and in the courtyard we had slaughtered the prisoners in, so too would we become the victims. My self, my brother and some of the remaining Shadowgores and Gorefiends were the only ones in any condition to fight. Slowly Doomhammer's horde closed in around us, the cultist's magic was devastating but there were too many.... and we were over run. I was rushing back and forth between Doomhammer's elite guard, breaking these would-be-warriors in half until as if in slow motion one of the captains closed in on me. I moved to meet him but two of the grunts had moved in on me and taken my legs out from behind. The captain rode by on his worg and slashed at my face. Blood erupted from my skull as my vision blurred the whole right side of my face felt as though it were on fire. I roared with rage only to be met by more grunts with axes I flung my Truncheon wildly killing two but exhausted and bleeding my world went dark...

I awoke... covered in blood. Bodies all over me, I had been thrown in a pile of my raiders I tried crawled up towards the mid-afternoon sun, but nothing responded, I strained to remove the bodies of my comrades but nothing. I lunged out from beneath them, straining every inch away from the pile. After what seems like hours of strain, I had freed most of my body from the corpse heep... every breath burned, my legs were broken and useless, arms and head bleeding right eye gone or useless I rolled my legs free of the dead and rolled into a shallow grave and then... nothing.

And then, the tearing, ripping of my soul... six years had passed and Gul'dan had returned. And in this hour of rending my soul from my body, agony I'd never felt so pure, so piercing, as I felt as though every bone in my body if I had one was slowly boiling. Hours passed and slowly the boiling slowed, as though being filled with tar and fused together into a core...

A rushing feeling, down my fingertips, I closed them shut and familiar leathery grip of my war-mace greeted me. This rush ran up my arm... I opened my eye and felt invigorated, looking down at me was a ghastly human man... who looked so familiar but still, I raised my arm to strike and he quickly stopped me.

“Vercian,” he said “easy there...” his voice was hallow, an echo of its former self but I recognized it as one of Gul'dan's warlocks who used to pass down raid orders to me and my riders. I was in disbelief.

“Gorefiend found your body in a hole full of oil or something, apparently when they burned the corpses yours must have fallen off and been covered in the tar, you're the only Orc who gets to return to an Orc.” He said with a bit of envy in his voice as he looked over his human arms and hands. I looked over his shoulder and saw the once proud Gorefiend sitting on an undead horse, human, but you could see his malice and his hatred through his guise.

This, is something I guess I can be thankful for. For many of these returned souls were frail in their new bodies, and though their wisdom and tactics ran through their minds, their bodies could not carry out their wills. I was the only one fit to enter melee combat myself, with these new found powers to aide me.

Gul'dan had sacrificed all of his acolytes to raise us, these chosen Orcs and infused our souls into these bodies, I had kept mine, and while Gorefiend and the others were in human bodies, we all rode to war for Doomhammer, the War Chief who had slaughtered us.

Rebirth had its advantages, with my old body now dead, but my soul infused with the sacrificed necromancers of Gul'dan I was able to taste some of the power I had envied for so long. For the entirety of the Second War even after Gul'dan's second betrayal to the Horde, I was an agent of death, an even more deadly incarnation of my former self, raging on the battle field now aided by these dark magics, raising the dead to do my command and using the disease to weaken and my truncheon to finish my enemies. I followed Gorefiend back to our home, to Shadowmoon Valley and there I awaited the next set of orders, the next battle, the next War.

Ner'zhul ordered Gorefiend to return to gather artifacts to reconstruct the dark portal. However, I stayed behind and for years now I have wandered Shadowmoon Valley. Without word from Doomhammer, or Ner'zhul or Gorefiend I lived off the land as I had before the blood lust, before the Wars.

Then the portal reopened, and for a short time, demons and elves and other devious forces moved in and out of the portal. First it was the demons, slaughtering the Dreanai as I had once, and then The Betrayer and his minions sprawled all over my beloved valley. The new Horde under Thrall and the Alliance whom I had fought for so many years came into Hellfire Peninsula. They chased The Betrayer and sought to unmake him and his growing kingdom in the now broken world.

I heard rumors of Gorefiend, but until I heard his cry across the valley would I have ever believed them, and in my lust for battle and glory I went to him, but before I entered the Black Temple, I waited, I waited for that call, the rush for honor and pride, to defend my Clan and make the Horde proud. Only emptiness resonated in my soul and my call was unanswered. I watched Gorefiend pledge his allegiance to The Betrayer. Never again would I follow him into battle. I returned to the wilds of Shadowmoon for another it wasn't long until the cries from on top of the temple echoed through the valley. Heroes ventured from the temple with Illidan's head, and I returned to the mouth of Shadowmoon to find a Horde settlement. I approached finding that some had taken up the Shadowmoon Clan and were again reaching the elements and training their youth to fight, and the arts of war. I settled in this small village for some time, training the youth, making sure to keep my identity and my past a secret. I continued to go by Tricky, for fear that someone with the years to them might recognize for a Shadowgore.

Then whispers, fear, spread through this small Horde camp, of a Death Knight, like myself, so powerful he was breaking free from his prison to wage war on Horde and Alliance alike. Rumors of Ner'zhul, of demons and armies of undead ran through the camp. I decided that I had to leave this small camp and see for myself, see if there were others like me, see if I could again answer a rallying call into battle. I went through the portal and traveled to the harsh North.

But again, I found nothing. Standing before its gates, in the mountains and cliffs surrounding this citadel. I heard no call, no cry for war, just grinding of bones and fel fires that never went out. Huge skeletal smiths and patchwerk abominations patrolled the area. Around the outskirts both Alliance and Horde were doing the same, forging weapons, preparing to lay siege to this fortress of damnation. The war machine was turning, living, but I heard nothing for me.

I have seen other death knights enter Orgrimmar, and heard the drums of war and horns blowing. Outside those gates, I have felt the rush of battle, the warmth of pride in my cold body. I will have to find a way in this new Horde. I will have see Thrall.

It has been a long time since I have heard a master's call... or called any Orc “Warchief.”

[spyker]

Quite the pleasent reading, i would buy that m8 =) cheers for you.

[Lithic]

Very nicely done and your first time too! I have to commend you on the choice of style used to tell the story. Bravo.