Laedre

From CotH-Wiki
Jump to navigationJump to search

Information

Player: Etmosril

Character Full Name: Laedre Onyxeye

Character In-Game Name: Laedre

Nickname(s): None.

Association(s): Silvermoon, and rarely even then.

Race: Blood Elf

Class: Necromancer

Skills and Abilities: All abilities of your standard Necromancer. Physically speaking, she's weaker than the average Blood Elven spellcaster.

Age: 152

Sex: Female

Hair: Dark red, a few inches long except for the bangs in front.

Eyes: Fel green, and very long-lashed.

Weight: 128 lbs.

Height: 5'8.

Appearance

Laedre prefers unassuming natural colors like blues, browns, and greens. She dresses casually unless there's business to attend to - in which case, her clothes become more lavish and strongly-colored.

Other: Her staff is very plain, and appears to be carved of perfectly clear crystal. Supposedly a family heirloom.

Her natural hair color is deep blue, but it bleached to silver with fel use. She has since dyed it red.

Her presence is accompanied by an earthy smell, as if she's just returned from gardening. More talented noses might notice the scent of rot.

Personality

Alignment: Neutral to Evil, but always Chaotic.

Amiable and easygoing. She adapts well to most surroundings, finding entertainment where few would think possible - and making her own when necessary. Even her enemies are treated kindly as long as they meet in neutral circumstances. She holds no grudges against people trying to kill her, and finds it singularly entertaining to warp the lines between friend and enemy.

She lacks the rarefied tastes of many of her colleagues in evil, finding happiness in any pursuit she puts her mind and hands to (although her special favorite remains music, particularly that of the harp). Her manners are excellent - on occasion -, but they're of the sort which span social class and can't be traced back to any real origin.

Her good nature tends to disguise how ruthless she is. Her happiness and that of the people she cares for (which in turn, benefits her) are what matters. She is indifferent about the Scourge and Burning Legion; finding the former to be nothing more than an excellent source of amusement.

Presently, her favorite modus operandi is to kill Scourge and 'rehabilitate' the corpses to follow her command, which is to kill yet more Scourge. Since the Siege, she's acquired a hefty amount of money killing the remaining Undead in Quel'thalas through those means. She has also dabbled in making constructs capable of killing, preparing, and transporting bodies for the next 'batch' of minions, but she's quite justifiably timid about making too many.

In her spare time, she operates a small philanthropic foundation in Silvermoon. Supposedly founded for elves to send money and goods to any of their deceased relatives in Undercity, the proceeds are merely pocketed. In a similar vein, she also contracts her better specimens of undeath (who pass as Forsaken) off as bodyguards. She tends to keep one or two of those bodyguards close when traveling.

She's largely indifferent to the matters of races. She no longer consorts with humans, has never encountered Kaldorei, Tauren, and Orcs, ignores Gnomes and Dwarves, and thinks Draenei would be fun to 'play' with. Of all races, the only one which really garners her interest is Forsaken. For obvious reasons.

History

Laedre was born in Silvermoon to the Onyxeyes; a family with a proud tradition of raising spellcasters. She was an only child, and never lacked anything except discipline. Her 'official' studies revolved around Arcane and its usage, but her firsthand experience showed her something much worse - the addiction and corruption to which all her family and mentors succumbed sooner or later. When she traveled to Dalaran, such restraint became even more important.

It was by chance that she - a sheltered adolescent who knew little other than magic - went afoul of a small group of alchemists working illegally in the underbelly of Dalaran, and reported them to the officials. The details have been forgotten with time, but Laedre maintains she ended up learning more about the situation, and feeling sorry for them. Either way, it was her first introduction to criminal life, and led to many more such encounters in the future.

She was conscripted into the Second War along with many other capable Dalaranian mages. Her part didn't last long. She returned to Dalaran mostly untouched after the humans had reclaimed their lands; ending with Stormwind and the Dark Portal, which she had no interest in crossing. Soon after that, she returned to her native home of Quel'thalas to work as a mage.

Something must have changed in her absence. The Quel'dorei had begun to seem slow and objectionable in so many ways; complacent with their overuse of magic, resistant to every form of change, impossibly vain, and - most unforgivable of all - content with all of it. She chose then to teach magic rather than practice it, in the hope that she could limit her own Arcane use and change the newest generation of spellcasters for the better.

In time, whispers and rumors of a new school of magic reached her from her old associates. Necromancy. She was repulsed at first, but the more she heard, the more she pondered the idea. It didn't have to be at odds with other schools of magic, or even with the basic interest of the Quel'dorei. As long as it was applied carefully and conscientiously by sane individuals, and required proper study beforehand... In those hands, it could become an accepted practice which harmed none, and used less energy than Arcane alone.

Not surprisingly, she didn't have the connections, and never once entered Scholomance or the School of Necromancy. Laedre contented herself with secondhand teachings from a former mage she'd known in Dalaran. She lived in Andorhal, never seeing the true teachers of Necromancy for what they were, and thereby never realizing what a dark path she was going down. It didn't last either. The mage who served as her teacher warned her away from Andorhal before it was consumed by the Plague of Undeath.

A much-shaken elf returned to Quel'thalas shortly before the Siege of Silvermoon. She survived it, but her faith in necromancy and necromancers was so unmoored that she abandoned it entirely. What sort of world was it where people slaughtered others for no reason? And what sorts of people were willing to blacken the name of an entire school of magic merely by association?

And then she learned to drain fel. Her morals corroded from the steady cycle of fel and Arcane deprivation. It was never enough to turn her completely (she'd learned the dangers of Arcane early on), but the gradual corruption opened up one possibility after another. The first thing she did after the Sunwell was restored was travel to the Plaguelands with another Necromancer, and finish her 'studies'.

But by then, all intent to use it for the greater good was gone.