Lethral

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Information

Player: JVNemesis

Character Full Name: Leth'ral Shadowheart

Character In-Game Name: Leth'ral

Nickname(s): None

Association(s): None

Race: Night Elf

Class: Demon Hunter

Age: 11,230 years

Sex: Male

Hair: Dark blue

Eyes: None

Weight: 300 lbs.

Height: 7' 1”

Appearance

Leth'ral wears leggings and a waist cloak akin to the lower half of a long coat, inscribed with various runes and designs. His upper torso is generally bare, barring a weapon harness, gloves, and wrist wrappings. He is more likely to wear simple foot wraps than actual boots.

Other: Leth'ral's torso is a mass of scars beneath his hunter tattoos. There are tattoos on his face as well; lines that run from the inner corners of his eyes down his cheeks. His empty eye sockets will glow with faint pinpricks of red light when he channels demonic energy. His fingers have also elongated slightly, seeming a bit stretched, and his nails are clawed. There are several faint lines extending out from his lips, just a few centimeters in length.

Personality

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Leth'ral is ancient beyond the reckoning of the mortal races. He perceives the world differently than they do, not only because of his age, but because of his long solitude. He is still acclimating to this new world, and he does not like it. Demons and warlocks lurk around every corner, and most are content to stand idly by as their world is subverted. Leth'ral refuses to watch without action.

He is ruthless when it comes to warlocks, demons, and fel-worshipers, striking out against them whenever the opportunity presents itself. Leth'ral has a bad habit of seeing conspiracies where there are none, and guilt when there is only innocence. It is a trait that has been exacerbated by the thoughts of the demon within him. The 'seeing things that are not there' phenomenon is not limited only to such insubstantial things as motives, however; his spectral sight also plays tricks on him at times.

Leth'ral switches topics very quickly, his mind snapping between thought processes so fast it sometimes appears to others that he has just launched on a random tangent (though this is sometimes true). He can turn on a dime, particularly when the subjects of demons or fel are brought up.

Leth'ral takes his profession very seriously, and has no patience for those that don't reciprocate his feelings, whether about their job or his. Discipline and honing skills are very important to him.

Though Leth'ral preaches the evils of demons and fel to no end, he has begun to call upon his own demon's power more and more frequently, sometimes unconsciously. The hypocrisy is completely lost on him, as it is when he broods about corrupted hunters and traitors to their causes.


History

Leth'ral's first steps along the path of the hunter began during the War of the Ancients. He participated in the battle against the highborne and their demonic allies, fighting ferociously to defend his beloved homeland. In the course of the war, however, Leth'ral lost nearly everyone he cared for in the fighting and resulting backlash from the Well's destruction, with the exceptions of one of his sons and his mate. When it became clear that all was not calm again after the war's conclusion, with the creation of the second Well and the satyr's appearance, Leth'ral sought out one of the first to follow in Illidan's footsteps, a man he had met during the war named Athis.

Athis had become reviled by the greater part of the night elf community for his trafficking with the power of demons, but none could deny his effectiveness in hunting down and slaying them. Leth'ral tracked him down, his desire to see the Legion eradicated, to see no more harm come to his land, made him ignore both his better judgment and the pleading of his mate and remaining child. Leth'ral prostrated himself before the elder hunter, and Athis, wishing to pass on his teachings and having no disciples as yet, accepted him as a pupil.

The initial training was beyond anything Leth'ral had expected. Though he had grown into a skilled fighter during the war, he was unprepared for Athis's utter mercilessness. The hunter pushed Leth'ral to and beyond his limits each and every day with the intensity of the physical training, and twice Athis nearly dismissed his student. Gradually, however, Leth'ral's body adjusted to the punishing regime, and Athis, satisfied, continued the training.

The next step was to bind a demon and create the tattoos that would fuel the hunter's more esoteric powers, a process Athis bid his student to complete alone. Athis allowed him to leave, warning him to avoid the more powerful demons that still roamed the land in the wake of the Legion's defeat. Leth'ral vowed to do so, but fate, or some more sinister entity, seemed out to make a liar of him. In his travel across the war-torn forest, the first demon Leth'ral encountered was a huge, hulking thing, with great bat wings, long, clawed fingers, and eyes that gleamed with a cold, malign intellect. Leth'ral, at that time, could not have known that this creature had been watching him (and the other hunters) for a long time now, could not have known that it was there in his path intentionally. He could not have known that the path of madness and hate he would soon be embarking upon was all by the nathrezim's design.

Leth'ral launched himself against the dreadlord without hesitation. The demon, armed with a pair of glaives that Leth'ral assumed (incorrectly) had come from a fallen demon hunter, held against his attack easily, retreating as it did and luring the neophyte hunter deeper into the befouled forest. Leth'ral followed the nathrezim's path, attacking without relent even as he realized vaguely that he was no longer on familiar terrain. He didn't realize how minor the wounds he had suffered were, compared to what the creature was capable of. Leth'ral made the mistake of overestimating his own abilities while underestimating his opponent, and it was the final nail in his coffin.

The fledgling hunter burst into a clearing, hot on the demon's heels, and drew up sharply at what he saw. The demon held his son up by the hair across the clearing from him, waiting for him to emerge. Once it made sure they had seen each other, as Leth'ral froze in horror and his son began to scream out to his father, the nathrezim eviscerated him. As it flicked his son's head over to roll against his feet, Leth'ral howled in fury and threw himself at the demon, restarting their combat. The demon seemed to wither under the renewed onslaught, more and more of Leth'ral's attacks making it past the dreadlord's guard, until he finally ran it through with a vicious thrust.

Leth'ral fell to his knees beside the crippled demon, fury and sorrow clouding his better judgment, the caution he should have heeded as he wove the enchantments that would bind the demon to him. In his rage-shrouded haze he didn't spot the discrepancy in the demon's aura, didn't notice the wickedly clever spell the dreadlord had woven in the moments before its fall.

The dreadlord's magic had partitioned its power, locking away a portion of its strength in such a way that it would deny it to Leth'ral upon the demon's binding, leaving him in command of a smaller pool of power than fitted such a mighty demon. This sabotaged the hunter to-be in two ways: not only was his effective power diminished, but it also left a fair portion of the dreadlord's power out of Leth'ral's control. The demon was not nearly so constrained as it should have been, though Leth'ral was unaware of this fatal flaw in his binding. The nathrezim, Vai'tan, played his part well, staying docile and silent as Leth'ral slowly recovered from the binding trauma. His intricate tattoos burned darkly as the hunter writhed in the grip of the fel sickness.

When Leth'ral eventually recovered from his fel-addled haze, he retrieved the fallen demon's glaives in honor of his victory and made his way back to his master. The glaives, however, had not belonged to a fallen hunter; they had come from the Legion's forges, created at the dreadlord's behest. They would trickle any fel energy the blades absorbed back into the wielder, in the tiniest increments so as to evade detection. Leth'ral would never understand that his assumption about the glaives being owned by a fallen demon hunter would eventually be proven true.

Athis was intensely suspicious of Leth'ral's victory over the dreadlord, but, while he watched his pupil closely, began training him in the use of the glaives he had acquired. For Leth'ral, it was like the initial physical training all over again; he was beaten consistently and mercilessly until he finally began to gain ground against his mentor, and all the while Vai'tan lay silent as Leth'ral grew stronger. Athis continued the punishing training until Leth'ral could fight him to a standstill, forbidden as the apprentice was to call upon his demon's power until he had mastered the glaives. It was then time for the next step.

Athis presented his apprentice with a special knife, the same one he himself had used to cut out his own eyes years before. After ensuring Leth'ral knew what had to be done, he retreated. In this critical moment, something urged Leth'ral to hesitate, to consider what he was about to do and the finality of such an act. Leth'ral wavered, then fled the clearing, a specific destination in mind.

Athis watched his apprentice go.

The target Leth'ral had in mind was his former mate, the one who had begged him not to go down this path. The apprentice hunter sought her out, begging her to listen what he had to say, but she turned him away. She named him Shadowheart, and broke anything that was, had been, or ever would be between them, and left. It was then, in his torrent of emotions, that Vai'tan's power surged along the ceremonial dagger that Leth'ral still held, and he completed the required ritual with a scream of agony and despair, gouging out his eyes in a maddened frenzy.

When he awoke, seeing the world cast in shadowy darkness, Leth'ral knew he was close to the end of his training. It was then that the dreadlord's insidious whispers began. The demon's voice appeared as nothing more than Leth'ral's own darker side, the devil on his shoulder, coaxing and tempting him down the darker path. Leth'ral was convinced it was now time to begin channeling the bound demon's power, something his master had forbidden him from doing as yet, though Leth'ral had no idea why. Why would his master forbid such a thing, Leth'ral reasoned? Perhaps he was afraid, fearful of the power Leth'ral could wield, and the apprentice resolved to prove his master wrong, that he could control the power. Thus did he begin drawing on Vai'tan's power, and had the demon a physical form any longer, it would have smiled.

Just over a week had passed since Leth'ral had gained his spectral sight, and he had yet to see his master again. He grew more and more tense and resentful as time wore on; Athis had abandoned him? Why? How had he disappointed? Were the hunter's standards so high?

As his thoughts grew more hateful, it was then that Athis appeared, glaives drawn. Without a shred of emotion or sympathy, the hunter informed Leth'ral that he had failed his trial, then attacked. Startled, confused, hurt, Leth'ral fought back, barely managing to fend his former teacher off. As Athis began to draw on the demonic power within him, Leth'ral's strength began to flag. It was then that the coaxing, tempting thoughts came to him again: he needed to draw on the might of his own demon, the power he had bound to him. His teacher would never be expecting it. All he had to do was tap deeper into the well of power than he had thus far, and he would be able to take his master by surprise and finish this duel.

Leth'ral called on Vai'tan's power, and fel flames exploded along his weapons, a shroud of shadowy fire surrounding him. Athis was, for the briefest moment, shocked, and Leth'ral, with a demonically-fueled burst of speed, separated his teacher's hands from his arms with a flash of felsteel an instant before gutting him. Athis sagged against his former pupil, the flames from Leth'ral's glaives searing his insides. Grabbing the dying hunter by the shoulders, Leth'ral demanded to know why, why Athis had turned against him, how he had failed. Athis, with his last breath, whispered that Leth'ral had been lost the moment he failed to conquer the demon within him, that he was nothing more than its toy now.

Vai'tan realized his plans were in jeopardy then as Leth'ral withdrew his weapons from his master's corpse, stunned. The dreadlord began to improvise, its malevolent mind racing as Leth'ral swore the blood oath, drinking the blood of his slain master and collecting the fallen elf's glaives. As Leth'ral began to scour his mind for the demon his master was sure was there, Vai'tan attacked with a tendril of thought, hissing insinuations and commands into the hunter's head. Leth'ral fought back, resisting the mental assault easily enough (for the dreadlord held no real power over him, bound as it was by the enchantments; its strength was in manipulation and misdirection).

Leth'ral decided to lock himself away from the world, engaging in a mental battle for control with the demon until he had conquered it, no matter how long it would take. He retreated to a forgotten corner of the barrow deeps, and there he remained for a very long time.

Vai'tan was patient and cunning; it could not overcome Leth'ral while it remained bound by the hunter's enchantment, but neither could Leth'ral dominate him while the dreadlord's spell remained in place. For nearly nine thousand years the nathrezim played the long game, leading the hunter on as he chased it through his mind, honing his mental strength as well as his glaivework. It was a duel, mental and physical, against a ghost. He left the deeps only the bare minimum amount of times to keep himself alive, mostly scavenging in the cave network itself. The dreadlord knew the Legion would return, and awaited only a signal to move to the next stage of his plan.

The turning point came when Vai'tan felt the ripple of Archimonde's entry into Azeroth, and knew that his time had come. He yielded the mental struggle to Leth'ral, feigning defeat, and the night elf rejoiced. So relieved was he to have the struggle finally over that he didn't question the sudden victory and, with his (apparent) mastery over his inner demon, Leth'ral ventured out from the barrow deeps once again.

Much had changed since he had last seen the world, and the most jarring change was the orc raiding party that came crashing through the brush towards him. Startled by the appearance of these strange creatures, Leth'ral nonetheless could sense the fel in the red-skinned humanoids and set upon them, utilizing his newly mastered powers to the fullest. He dispatched the small group quickly enough and retreated deeper into the forest, back towards where he expected there to still be night elf dwellings. He lurked around the edges of the encampments once he located them, gliding silently around in a cloak of demonic shadows as he listened and learned.

When the night elves eventually fell back to Hyjal itself, Leth'ral followed, still reluctant to reveal himself to his kin just yet. He would still help as best he could, but Vai'tan's innocuous whispers steered his blades against the wrong target. Still remembering his fight with the fel-empowered orcs, Leth'ral reasoned that they could only be allies of the Legion, whatever he had overheard from the other kaldorei. He ghosted around the conflicts scattered across the battlefield, picking off orcs wherever he could. His mind dismissed the sight of them working alongside the elves and humans as mere tricks, falsehoods to hide their loyalty; he saw through their charade.

When the World Tree was destroyed and Archimonde's death rippled through the world, Vai'tan was shocked, his plans thrown into disarray. With the defeat of the Legion for the second time, Vai'tan again retreated from Leth'ral's mind, falling back to plan yet again. Unknowingly free of the demon's whispers, Leth'ral began to explore this strange, changed world.

Eventually, he caught wind of the conflict in Outland, and descriptions of the Illidari's forces. Hoping to see a familiar face, to join with a fellow hunter again at last, Leth'ral made his way to the other world. He sent word of his arrival to the Illidari, hoping to be accepted into the fold, and his request was accepted. Two blood elven demon hunters, both apprentices, were sent to meet him in Shadowmoon.

As they approached, however, Leth'ral was immediately, irrationally, suspicious. Why would Illidan send blood elves instead of his own race? Why had he not allowed Leth'ral to come directly to the Temple? Why the delay?

Vai'tan's subversive thoughts had risen again, and Leth'ral was convinced these hunters had been sent to kill him. In that case, he would show the master of the Illidari that it would take more than two fledgling acolytes to take him down.

As one of the elves raises his hand in greeting, Leth'ral drew deeply upon Vai'tan's power once again and killed the acolyte with a single blow, felling the second apprentice before he had time to draw his glaives. Leth'ral collected the fallen weapons and fled back to Azeroth, retreating into Ashenvale to brood on the Illidari's (supposed) betrayal. He could not trust anyone, he reasoned, the insidious roots of Vai'tan's thoughts fastening their hold on his mind. There were fel-wielders and demon worshipers around every corner, in every gathering and every organization. This era was corrupt to the core.

When he caught wind of the Shattered Sun assault on Quel'danas, Leth'ral was immediately concerned. Undoubtedly there would be traitors in their ranks undermining the Sun's efforts, and the loyal fools would be too blind to see them. He would have to deal with them himself.

Leth'ral ventured to the isle, gliding around the edges of the skirmishes and watching. Unwilling to reveal the traitors to the rest of the Shattered Sun (there was no telling who was one of them), Leth'ral dealt with them himself, stalking and killing several of the traitorous members when they were alone. It amazed him how easily the demons had infiltrated the organization's ranks; they had even managed to hide themselves from his spectral sight, but they had not fooled him.

When the crisis was averted and Kil'jaeden vanquished (much to Vai'tan's disbelieving fury), Leth'ral again retreated to Ashenvale. This time, however, he was not left alone as his demon brooded. A young demon hunter, on the verge of completing his final trial, had set his sights on Leth'ral as he slaughtered the Shattered Sun agents. The hunter revealed himself, named the Leth'ral corrupt, and attacked.

Drawing on the dreadlord's might again, Leth'ral was able to eventually kill the apprentice hunter, ending his training with one swift strike of his glaive. As he sat and stared at the youngling's corpse, Leth'ral began to wonder: Was he the corrupted one, not them?

But, he couldn't be. He had mastered his demon, won the battle!

Hadn't he?

Doubts warred within him, with no easy victory on either side without Vai'tan's influence.

The hunter's master must have been corrupt. It was the only possible explanation for why the apprentice had believed Leth'ral to be tainted. He had been misled, lied to, become the very thing he had sworn to destroy.

As Leth'ral retrieved the apprentice's glaives, the irony of his thoughts was lost on him.

Skills/Abilities

Cursed Vision: Leth'ral sees through the dark magic of demons, and they are illuminated in his sight. Those who do not practice arcane magic blend more easily into the shadowy darkness of the rest of Leth'ral's world.

Immolation Aura: Channeling the power of the demon within, Leth'ral can shroud himself in a haze of dark felfire, inflicting damage to any who approach too closely. This effect can be channeled solely into his weapons as well.

Drain Demon Soul: Leth'ral can drain the essence of a demon, absorbing its taint and power into himself to fuel potent abilities.

Tainted Fireball: Leth'ral can focus his demon's energies into a bolt of felfire and hurl it at his enemies.

Shadowcloak: Leth'ral can call upon the power of the demon within, swathing himself in shadows. He can be invisible for short times, and move and fight with drastically increased speed.