Bhaal

Information

Player: Kull

Character Full Name: Bhaal Shadowstrike

Character In-Game Name: Bhaal

Association: Shattered Hand Clan (past), New Horde (past)

Race: Orc

Class: Rogue

Age: 27

Sex: Male

Hair: Black

Eyes: Light gray

Weight: 300 pounds. Muscular.

Height: 6”3

Appearence

Garments/Armor: A black and dark grey set of leather armor. In most case, his head bears vision-enhancing goggles. At others, normally during stealth missions, he uses a black hood to cover his identity.

Other: His left hand has been mutilated according to the practices of the clan.

He is a ravenous eater, and can’t have enough of salty and spicy foods, no matter how overwhelming to the senses. Vegetables do not appease him. Raw meat is the way to his heart.

His favorite tobacco is grown near Stormwind by Alliance farmers. This is what he always smokes after a mission.

Personality

Alignment: Chaotic Evil

I reject the notion that Chaotic Evil characters should be psychotic and run around killing everyone they meet, and hating everyone they meet. This person would be impossible to role-play long-term, therefore making this notion of chaotic evil alignment impossible. What this alignment does is provide broad contours for behavior. Interpretive differences within these constraints is the thrust of the matter.

In the case of Bhaal this generally means he does not respect rule of law, nor hold governments to be natural, or order to be supreme. He rejects evil and good as forces in the world, and tends to only see how he is affected. On top of that, he lacks empathy for others in most cases, thereby making him fail to see the importance of forgiveness, mercy and love for himself and others.

Summed up in a single term, Bhaal is self-serving. This selfish nature attributes itself to a history of isolation. He is in the habit of being alone.

No matter where he goes, Bhaal sees opportunity. The other important part of his personality, Bhaal is ambitious. And greedy. Gold drives him to do more than friendship or romance, not that he has either.

While a decisive person, Bhaal is overly rash and tends to find himself engaging in unnecessary conflict. This is one of his primary faults, beyond his lack of loyalty to any cause, faction or person at all.

Quite crude in general, his habits of eating, drinking, speaking, yelling and acts of violence are lacking in the subtlety of his stealth.

He holds nothing sacred, yet fears powers greater than him. Nonetheless, he finds himself curious about the Blood Fury which seems to consume him from time to time. Indeed, he looks to discover the origins of the fel magic responsible for the desertion of his father. Bhaal does not reject the remnant gift of fel magic, but utilizes it with fervor. In his mind, it is one of the few blessings he has.

He secretly desires a home, somewhere he can feel safe and secure. This has never been Orgrimmar, despite the momentary but dangerous sanctuary of the Shattered Hand Clan. They took him in and taught him the skills he uses now. He views them with respect.

Bhaal hates the greatest and most honored among the Horde. Nothing but bile and vitriol fills him when he considers how revered they are. He feels no loyalty to Thrall or the other clans. He tends to dislike others by principle and may interpret behavior as aggressive when it is not. In general, his view of life is one of war, with him against the world.

This rogue rejects the mysticism of his people and all assumptions of nobility. Any person who holds to a higher moral purpose he views with disgust. The shamans of the Horde had always looked down on him, and never offered him a chance to prove himself, at least in his eyes. For this, he hates them. Moreover, those who likened themselves to good had almost never likened him to it as well, but more often posited Bhaal, even as a youth with good intention, as without honor and undeserving of acceptance.

As a result of his experience in internment camps, he hates humans. However, this hatred has dimmed over the years since the fading memories of pain and healing power of time. It still affects relations with that particular race. Other races, however, he holds no strife with of any special kind beyond common beliefs, such as Blood Elves being prissy, for example.

He will not attempt to romance a woman of any stature in any society, believing himself an outsider and simply unable.

Those who are weak he despises even more. Since birth he had to fight for what was his, and despite this being the nature of orcish existence besides, at least his fellows had their families and clans. He only had the Shattered Hand, who were despised by the rest of society nonetheless. It could be said that he fights an internal war, to eliminate all weakness within himself. It is this which may cause him to despise the weakness in others.

Bhaal relishes nothing more than salty and spicy food, strong drink, his favorite tobacco, the clink of coin, and perhaps most importantly, the light as it leaves the eyes of his victims.

History

From his birth to age four Bhaal lived in the war camps with the Shattered Hand. His mother and father: Korkas Nightstrike and Ulgha Gutripper, both formidable assassins, raised him there, despite absences for missions and battles. During these periods he was taken care of by matured Orcish females.

His mother died a year before Doomhammer and his ragged band were captured. Korkas Nightstrike and Bhaal himself were also taken. Thus, from age four to fourteen, this Orc lived in an interment camp on Azeroth. Life was certainly brutal, with little food and little pride. Surrounded by broken forms, of a once glorious people, according to the stories, Bhaal despaired. He found joy only in the extra bits of food he could find.

He managed to flee one lucky day and left the camp, leaving his father and his people behind. With him came four other Orcs, including women. By virtue of his belief in the stories of old, and his youthfulness, more-so the defiant nature of his personality, he was able to differentiate himself from the characteristic lethargy of his people in the camp. Only then could he summon the will and energy to run and survive.

They managed to make it up the continent, where they lived off the land for several months until they turned to banditry to provide for themselves. Here Bhaal began to learn the skills of combat and the thrill of battle and Blood Fury.

Near two years later, they were ambushed and the others were captured. Bhaal managed to hide under some bodies in another part of the skirmish. Unnoticed by the soldiers, he watched his four friends get executed. Ashamed that he hid as a coward would, Bhaal returned to the internment camp and snuck in. He found his father and his people once more, broken, unworthy of being called Orcs in the first place.

Then the day came when Thrall freed them. Pride would return for most at a much later date, but some like Bhaal were ready to heed the call. All the able moved to the stolen ships some months later and they sailed for the largely unknown land of Kalimdor. Bhaal came to enjoy the presence of Trolls among his people, taking personal friendships among their numbers. For approximately two years his people journeyed, battled and scouted their way across the oceans and islands and continents to find their home.

On their journey to find a home, Bhaal had a place, and despite being a rogue, was feared and respected. Prowess in battle and shows of fearlessness made him a name. For the cowardice he once showed, of which no other living being ever knew, Bhaal vowed to never be a coward again.

Korkas Nighstrike, his father, became a high-ranking assassin in the Shattered Hand, and despite his shadow being so great, at age eightteen Bhaal was ambitious and resented nothing. In fact, he thrilled in the new-found pride and drive of his people and family. They were close as a family and fought alongside each other more than a few times.

During this time Bhaal came to love another orc. Called Mahli, she was also an assassin within the ranks of the Shattered Hand. Together they came to enjoy one another's company and grow in their romance. They talked of children, and their partnership was strong.

Soon, however, the day came when the Legion attacked. The Third War began and Bhaal was deployed on various missions to assassinate leaders of various sects, clans and groups employed under the new threat. A year after the start of the war, however, he was shattered by the news of his father's desertion to the Legion, having stolen vital information and murdered an important member of the New Horde on his way out.

This was about the time that Orgrimmar was founded, a city built on the dreams of a New Horde. It was here that Bhaal felt the most pride in his people during their ongoing struggle in the aftermath of the Second War, and the horrors of the Third. Nonetheless, his desire to support, provide and be an honored member of his people were for naught.

After his father's disgrace, Bhaal was seen as the son of a traitor, an untrustworthy rogue, and therefore without honor. In a battle long blocked out in memory, when Bhaal and a team fought a sect of fel-bound Satyrs, he encountered his father. There, he slew Korkas Nightstrike and ended what remained of his family. So disfigured was Korkas that none but Bhaal knew it was him, and the disgraced son never spoke of it.

More damaging than anything at this time was the betrayal of Mahli, who distanced herself from him, as did many of his friends. It was here his isolation began. Without family, many friends and his love, he fell into a depression which would last for years to come.

Despite a plethora of hard-won achievements over the course of the war, having slain high numbers of Fel Orcs, he never came to honor. Spat on, despised and cursed, Bhaal was at the bottom rung of society.

When he was twenty two, the Forsaken formed the next part of the New Horde. He finds these beings to be strange but capable of proving themselves. He therefore treats them as potentially worthy of respect, depending on the individuals.

At age twenty four, when Blood Elves joined the New Horde, Bhaal took no conflict with the decision. He finds the race to be ambitious and powerful, despite general airs and tendency toward pretentiousness. During this same year, the Burning Crusade began, and Bhaal volunteered to join Nazgrel in Outland.

Mostly desperate to gain a place in Orcish society -- as always -- he also partly put himself in this dangerous conflict to discover the nature of fel magic. For three months he served here, performing scouting and assassination missions in a place where he was treated better than he had been in years, because, again, of his prowess and fearlessness in battle.

Nonetheless, he found himself alone after a successful effort in a Legion Shattered Hand camp with a foul well. He felt himself drawn to its contents, still in the throes of Blood Fury. Using discipline, he managed to avoid the temptation. Understanding the level of depravity he and his people had fought so hard to overcome, he knew the temptation was too great. He departed from the Outland honorably and returned to Orgrimmar.

On his return, a well-respected Orc warrior confronted Bhaal for his departure, which he called a desertion. Referencing the behavior of Korkas Nightstrike, the father of Bhaal, he tied the behavior of the two together, calling Bhaal a coward and a traitor. No matter his insistence with papers to prove his freedom to leave, they refused to see the act as anything but dishonorable. Without hesitation, Bhaal struck at the Orc and the two engaged in fierce combat beside the airships.

The people around the area formed a crowd, comprised of Outland veterans, those about to be shipped off, and families. They cheered for the warrior, whose name was Ghruz. Clearly losing the battle against an Orc standing five inches taller and a hundred fifty pounds heavier, Bhaal struck out with a poisoned dagger.

The blade dug deep into Ghruz's shoulder and the venom sank in, taking effect almost immediately. Honored as he was, Ghruz could not match the traitor's son in the field of combat. The Shattered Hand had trained him well. Partially paralyzed, he faltered beneath Bhaal's onslaught, energized by the Blood Fury.

He was hacked to pieces before the eyes of the people, and unfortunately, the family. When he was done, and the red had cleared from his vision, Bhaal saw their faces and knew he could never be accepted among Orc society. He was forced to face the truth. Leaving in silence to the mutters and cries, he had to watch his back from then on, and sleep with a dagger by his bedside...

Though none could say he was wrong to kill Ghruz, all mourned for the dead hero and spat on the name and form of Bhaal. He was beyond disgraced, a hated Orc. Several attacks were made on him by bands of Ghruz's friends and family.

Not having to spoken to Mahli in years since their seperation as partners, he met her on the streets of the great city by chance. She did not even acknowledge him, and amidst the hatred he felt, he only grew in vitriol, and his depression deepened. He certainly considered his life worthless.

After six years of this treatment, culminating with this incident and the aftermath, he officially departed from the Horde and the Clan at age 25.

Enraged at his inability to gain respect and honor among the Orcish peoples, he set out to find his own way in life. Perhaps also, the shame of having killed an honorable Orc such as Ghruz sent him down this path.

During the wars with the Lich King, Bhaal served a temporary job with the Kirin Tor as a bodyguard. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and the pay was excellent. Having fattened his pockets, Bhaal took a liking to the work, allowing him more freedom and wealth. More than anything, he was without the hatred of his people. It allowed him to ease his own hatred, of himself...

In some ways the process of leaving the Horde and becoming independent has been the beginning of a healing process for Bhaal, as he no longer lives within the prism of being shunned and, then, hated. In others, however, it is merely a way for him to block out memories and live a life of illusion, where he pretends the Horde and his people no longer mean anything to him.

Thereafter Bhaal became a mercenary. Having made a name for himself, he has found work on both continents in a variety of positions. While he lacks the size and height of the stronger Orcs, at 6"3 and 300 pounds, Bhaal compensates with a diverse skill-set. At his command he incorporates a variety of poisons: for the purposes of disruption of magic, paralysis and damage. Moreover, he utilizes sharpshooter rifles with scopes and high-powered goggles to take out targets from afar. His fist-claws are always at the ready, and a satchel of acid, powder and smoke bombs don't hurt either...

Combat is not all that Bhaal has learned, however, as he also acquired the skills of negotiation. Speaking five languages, some more fluently than others, he can communicate across faction and racial boundaries to achieve mission priorities. Perhaps more important than his ability to successfully exert violence, would be his ability to successfully exert the threat of violence....

A rogue of moderate skill with great potential, he excels in the fields of stealth, poison and bombs with anti-magic capabilities. He now works for the highest bidder as a mercenary with no faction loyalty.

Nonetheless, despite his power, this Orc is unpredictable, brash, solitary by nature and a drunk.

Skills and Abilities

Combat Skills:

1. Arsonist (bomb-maker, bomb-throwing)
2. Poison (poison-maker, application in the field)
3. Stealth (use of camouflage, shadows, terrain)
4. Sharpshooter (use of long-range guns)
5. Melee combat (fist weapons: claws)

Languages:

1. Orcish (fluent)
2. Zandali (fluent)
3. Taurehe (basic)
4. Gutterspeak (rudimentary knowledge)
5. Common (rudimentary knowledge)

Proficiencies

1. Engineering
2. First Aid