Geral

Information

Player: Zhaei

Character Full Name: Geral

Character In-Game Name: Geral

Associations: What's left of the Fanged Mountain Clan, The Horde

Race: Orc

Class: Warrior

Age: 19

Sex: Female

Hair: A head of unruly black hair.

Eyes: Green

Weight: 340 lbs

Height: 5'11"

Appearance

What youthful features Geral might have had are since overshadowed by the years of wear dirtying her skin. Be it scar or dirt, Geral often looks like she just emerged from the brush, and it's not unlikely that she did. She has a lean figure with toned muscles from years of living in the wilds, and an unruly head of hair stained black. The skin on her knuckles and bottoms of her feet has been worn and hardened, the nerves almost completely deadened.

Geral used to stick to handmade garments of skins and leathers, but has moved to something more protective since she rejoined the Horde. Clothes of wool and linen make harnesses for sections of metal and hardened hide, while cured leather boots and bracers protect her feet and wrists.

Personality

Geral is a mixing pot of her mother's influences, her own experiences, and a long life of solitary wandering. She is a social being, but has far more experience with silence that conversation; if she is is new to someone, she has trouble conversing anything more than small talk with them – she hasn't been close to someone in years, and it shows. She is, however, well aware of this social crutch and is slowly overcoming it. As fierce as any orc when she has to be, Geral loses any trepidation when the rush of battle flows through her. This ties in closely with her shortcomings; she knows she is nothing compared to many of her peers with a blade, and is desperate to improve. Similarly, she feels a certain inadequacy compared to many of her people more experienced in battle. This has spurred a dedication in her.

Geral has an innate respect for her elders, orcish or otherwise. She enjoys the company of those wiser than her and will not think twice about changing herself to fit their recommendations. Those who command the elements also enthrall her: a deep admiration for shamans was given to her by her mother, and the years spent alone with the spirits did much to help it. Her fascination with the natural world is also prevalent – she sees patterns in nature's ways and feels its influence in her actions each day.

An almost childlike adoration with heroism and bravery is a prevalent feature of Geral's personality. Though she keeps it somewhat hushed for fear of ridicule, she idolises many of the figures of old and tries to model herself by them. Indeed, her dream is to be one of these heroes herself, someday, to fight in those legendary battles and have songs sung about her. Although quite an unrealistic dream, it serves to give her hope through hard times.

History

Blessed in the stale water of her mother's daily ration, Geral's birth was an omen of good fortune in a time of dismay. Igrim was alone. She knew not the father of her child; her clan was broken and scattered; the infamous lethargy had begun to grip her. Still, her newborn gave her hope – something to focus her efforts on, something that had a future. When the naming day came about, she even received blessings from other orcs. Was hope not lost?

Any orc in the camps faces a difficult childhood, and Geral was no different. The humans were not kind to her; she was not allocated rations until she was years old, and they had little sympathy for her passing illnesses. Indeed, it was a miracle she survived. Igrim cared for her as best she could, and there were few others that could match her skill in survival and healing. Still, the grim confinement of the internment camps were unlike the plains of Blade's Edge, and she struggled.

Stoneheart was her name. One of the nomads of the Fanged Mountain Clan, she had spent her years travelling across the plains and scaling the peaks of Blade's Edge. She was an honourable, dutiful orc who despised the humans for not giving her clan a chance to die a true death, a death in battle. Most of all, she was a loving mother. Geral was her chance at leaving the mark she wanted to leave on the world, her chance at making a difference.

Growing up, Igrim would spend the long hours entertaining her child with tales and songs of old: Lok'vadnods regaling great heroes of the Fanged Mountain, Lok'tras depicting legendary battles between clans, and, most of all, Lok'amons telling the tales of family spirit and the bonds of blood.

How Igrim longed to teach her daughter to hunt and fight. Yet it was not possible – even giving the child a simple stick she knew would result only in lashings and beatings. And so Stoneheart taught her child what she knew best: how to live, to survive. She told her of what to look for in plantlife, of how to find food in lifeless plains, of how to battle the heat and the cold... and her daughter drank it all up. Igrim knew she was idolised, and she felt proud – it was a brief pleasure in a world of pain and discomfort. Her heart soared when she thought of bringing her daughter back to her homeland, living in freedom with her last remaining loved one.

Igrim died of fever when Geral was six.

Left alone in an unfriendly world, Geral survived on the scraps and dregs of others. She faced disdain from the humans and apathy from the orcs. She belonged to neither group, to no-one. What was she but a nuisance, an extra mouth to feed? She had heard tales of great battles and heroes, but the orcs were nothing now, a broken race of aliens not wanted on this unfamiliar world. Even so young, she had resigned herself to death in binds.

Yet, hope remained. A small coal still smouldered within her, yearning to share in the glory and honour of the great heroes of years passed, and she knew it smouldered within the rest of her kind too. She held onto this in times of strife, singing the old songs of her mother under her breath.

As she grew, the camps began to change. Gone was the rigid, ruthless system; in its place were lethargic orcs who did not want to be free, to live. Nothing would rouse them, she thought, and she was no different. She began to resent not only this lethargy, but herself: she was weak for succumbing to it. She had never known anything else, and now it had begun to set in for her. She could never emulate the heroes of old, never join legendary battles between clans, never create bonds of spirit and blood.

Perhaps Geral's longing was noticed. Perhaps the orcs had served their sentence. Perhaps the ancestors had not abandoned them after all. Years of oppression and tyranny finally began to culminate in a yearning for freedom, a desire for vengeance. The Shaman Thrall burst through the camp with a fire thought lost in the hearts of greenskins, spurring hope and vengeance within his brothers and sisters. It wasn't long before all of the camps had risen up. The orcs walked free once again.

Geral was overjoyed to see her people as her mother had portrayed them. No longer were they a people in chains with no wish to break them; no longer were they a shadow of their past greatness. She watched with wonder as in but weeks slaves became free people, sailing great ships across the great sea. She knew there would be songs sung of Thrall, soon. Yet, it was not their liberation that was a testament to orcish might, rather what they did when they reached their new land. Not only did they save the Darkspear trolls from the brink of destruction, but the Bloodhoof tauren from a similar fate. Geral knew then that the spirits had rejoined them: what else could see the fates of these three races entwined so quickly?

Geral was under no-one's protection on this new land – no family to watch her, no clan to protect her, the young orc set out alone. She knew how to survive in the harsh barrens; were these like the plains of Blade's Edge? She did not know, but they felt like home. Living was not easy, but it came naturally to her. She knew what to look for in the plantlife, how to find food in lifeless plains, how to battle the heat and the cold.

Many years she spent in the badlands, hunting for food and sleeping under the stars. She learned how the land worked; when the heat would come, when the winds would blow, when the beasts would hunt, all of these things engrained themselves in her mind. Indeed, she lost herself in the wilds – once every moon cycle she would trade skins and meats for twine, wood, and linen, but that was the extent of her contact with her people.

It was not until the Cataclysm came that Geral changed her ways. The world split apart around her, land rupturing as trees grew, mountains splitting as waters flowed. All she knew was broken, and a threat that even she could not ignore loomed on the horizon. The spirits cried out in a call to arms, a call to duty; it was finally time to act. And so she will.