Rotgath

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Information

Name: Rotgath Rotgrip

Character In-Game Name: Rotgath

Nicknames: None

Associations: None

Race: Dwarf

Class: Apprentice Necromancer (Warrior Class. Few or none of Rotgath's few magical abilities are reflected by any class-bound abilities, so I'd need to use Emotes and Tokens in any case. For that reason, I'd like to stick with Warrior merely because they can use most of the Gear that's around, allowing for a whole lot of nifty disguises to use for general subterfugin'.)

Age: 210

Sex: Male

Hair: Black. Both the beard and hair has been trimmed and arranged in elaborate and elegant styles, and while the beard has ended up looking rather good, the hair has obviously been done by a hair-dresser with alot of eagerness and no skill whatsoever.

Eyes: Blue

Weight: 140lbs

Height: 4'00"

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Appearance

Rotgath usually goes for dark colours (brown, purple, black,) partially for the warmth and partially for the supposed style it carries, although true to the Rotgrip Tradition, he's gone great lenghts to carry Mail Armor in a way fit for a nobleman. After centuries in the shadowy old halls of the Rotgrip Clan, he's a bit uncomfortable around sharp light, and tends to wear a wide-brimmed hat or a cowl when he has to go outdoors at Daytime. Even though his clothes obviously fit, there's something about the way he wears them that suggests that they could have fitted even better, or that he's not entirely comfortable with them.

Personality

Rotgath has, trough his longtime isolation from society, developed a quite skewed and unreal view of himself. He feels that trough him, the graces and traits of his ancestors live, and they are all positive - Determination, intelligence and willpower, they are all his by birthright. He even attributes some sort of distinguished, pale elegance to the dwarf in the mirror, failing to realize that it's more a matter of too much time in the shadows than an exquisite skin-tone. As if to make the story sound likely to himself, he's made up some minor character-flaws that he's come to believe in and, as time passed, practice devotedly. He's a real tightwad on some things, and claims this to be a flaw in his noble and generous personality, although he fails to connect this to the fact that he's willing to spend lavishly on himself, should he ever have alot of money at hand. Rotgath is a dwarf with rather poor self-control, although this is somehow coupled with a will of iron, that admittedly willingly lets any magical influence trough in the belief that it'll strenghten his arcane mastery further. While this is true, he fails to realize that magic has the tendency to demand something in return, and that he keeps begging it to take more than he's promised.

Rotgath is a very materialistic type, as even though he grew up with little gold at hand, it's always been imprinted in his mind that he comes from a Clan that rightfully belongs amongst the upper crust of Ironforge Society. This reflects in the way he wields Magic - Rotgaths powers are in a large degree channeled trough various magical items, that he has an uncanny ability to seek out. A ring here, a grimoire there - They are not necessary, but somewhere deep in Rotgath's uncouncious mind, there still lurks a suspicion that he's not all what he's blown himself up to be, and that without some help from the outside, he'll end up as the failure Morrig ended up as.

History

Rotgath was born into the small, but incredibly posh Rotgrip-Clan. Five-Hundred years ago, the original Rotgrips amassed a vast fortune trough transporting wares between Ironforge and the recently opened dwarven mines in the Redridge Mountains. This wealth continued to grow up to the War of the Three Hammers, thanks to the current Thane choosing the right side at an early stage, and thus cashing in on the good relations with the Bronzebeard Clan.

The Decline of the Rotgrip Clan came when Rothgath's father, Gravor, came to be the head of the Clan shortly after the Third War. Gravor was a largely uncharismatic figure, and rather lazy - With him, the Rotgrip Clan lost all political influence in Ironforge in just a few short decades. The Rotgrip Clan never lost it's estates, although the lavish lifestyle Gravor and his wife lead quickly resulted in a Clan whose only assets were large, dusty halls, the Clan Crypt, the old family heirlooms and a library that nobody had visited since the Civil War.

Gravor only had one son, and he named him Rotgath, supposedly the name of the Clans Founder. He gave Rothgath an upbringing suited for a nobleman, although as he grew, the young lad turned out to be no more charismatic than his father. When Gravor died away as a widowman, while Rothgath was only thirty years old, the last member of the Rotgrip clan became increasingly isolated from society, spending his days in the empty Clan-Hall, feeding his obsession for the Clan's age of glory and his excellent ancestors (an obsession he picked up out of sheer boredom one of the winters in his 16th Decade). He slowly grew to believe that he really had all the traits that made the Rotgrip Clan great all those centuries ago - Intelligence, Determination and Pride in themselves. Never communicating with anybody but the dwarf that delivered the sparse food he could afford on the remainder of the Clan Fortune, there was nobody there to prove him wrong.

It was while studying the old Annals of the Clan that Rotgath discovered Morrig Rotgrip. He was now 190 years old, and still as keenly devoted to the studies of his Clan's Great Past, and yet, this name was all new to him. As it turned out, Morrig had been erased from the Clan Annals sometime just after the Civil War. This spurred Rotgath to go trough all the Clan Stories again, and while doing so, a picture of Morrig started to take form. The old Rotgrips had carefully removed most clues as to the existence of Morrig, although some tidbits remained - Sometimes trough a heirloom he had posessed that they simply could not melt down, sometimes trough some dusty tome that nobody had taken notice of before Rothgath had gone trough the library with rather more care and determination than his ancestors.

As it would turn out, Morrig was a Sorcerer. Not only was he a Sorcerer though, he was also the result of a marriage between a one of the more insignificant Rotgrips and a daughter of a Dark Iron Clan, a couple of hundred years before the Civil War. Although Magic was an incredibly rare trait in a true Ironforge Dwarf, a streak of magical affinity was brought in trough the far more open Dark Iron Maiden, and the result of the engagement was Morrig - A Sorcerer of Some Skill, that was eventually condemned by the clan after the Civil War, presumably due to his connection with the enemy.

Fascinated with such an unusual character, Rotgath ventured out of Ironforge for the first time in decades to search for clues as to where Morrig went after being thrown out. Years of searching would eventually lead him to an abandoned cottage, hidden away in the mountain-range south of Loch Modan. Obviously, nobody had ever taken up residence there after Morrig passed away - The place was a mess. Quickly packing up the old Sorcerer's books and equipment, Rothgath hurried home to his sanctuary in Ironforge to study it more closely.

Old Morrig had started out as a plain Sorcerer, as it were, under the tutelage of the Dark Irons that at early in his life resided in the lower levels of Ironforge Peak. As he read on trough his late relative's journals, the story rapidly took a grimmer turn after the Civil War - Rothgath read on, with a sort of horrid fascination usual for those that are peeking into a world closed off to honest citizens. Morrig had, in a desperate bid for more time to carry on with his studies, become a Necromancer.

While Morrig's modest skills never carried him all the way to Lichhood, he had compiled quite a cache of basic necromantic knowledge, and as Rothgath read trough his grimoires, the magic that resided inside frantically tugged the levers of his mind, slowly changing his intentions from historical curiosity to professional interest. He would bring back the Thanes of Old! He would learn from their stories, bring the clan back to a position of wealth and respect, and take his rightful place amongst the great leaders of the clan Rotgrip after his death! It was all only for the historical interest, he assured himself - Nobody would ever know, surely, and he had the determination and willpower that had made Rotgrip Great in the past! There was no doubt in his mind that he could put it down once his task was complete.

A few months later, these intentions was as good as forgotten, and he also made his mind up about something entirely else - He'd never meet his ancestors in the Afterlife. He intended to steer the Rotgrip Clan forever. Slowly slipping into a mental state where he'd fail to recognize the insanity of his project, the fact that there was currently no clan to steer and the ridiculously low changes of success and survival, Rotgath headed out in the world to delve deeper into his newfound posession, Magic pulling and tugging at his mind and intentions at every turn.