Sarah

Information

Player: flammos200

Character Full Name: Lady Inquisitor Sarah Crom

Character In-Game Name: Sarah

Nickname(s): Blackbird, M’lady.

Association(s): The Church of the Holy Light, The Kingdom of Stormwind, The Argent Crusade. The Knights of the Silver Hand(Ex), Valiance Expedition(Ex).

Race: Human

Class: Paladin

Age: 28

Sex: Female

Hair: Blonde, long and straight.

Eyes: Blue.

Weight: 70 kg, most of which is muscle and bone.

Height/Scale: 1.79 m/1.08 scale

Appearance

Usual Garments/Armor: Anything she has to. If it’s infiltrating some group, she’ll be wearing neutral armor or try to blend in. She’s most often seen in platemail though, giving off the appearance of a mercenary.

Other: She tends to favor a rather heavy battlefield sword.

Personality

Sarah is a Paladin first and a soldier second, combining a strong drive to vanquish evil and a pragmatic, militaristic and results-oriented approach. Kindness and compassion are virtues she strives to embody as often as possible, recognizing the need to counterbalance her less knightly aspects, particularly when she’s trying to blend in with the people she aims to destroy.

When not acting covertly, her overt demeanor is friendly, curious and valiant, trying to be an ideal Knight in action and word. Sure, it doesn’t work out half the time as she’s a flawed individual, with a military and infiltration background, which isn’t exactly conducive to the ever-heroic Paladin-types, but she tries her damnedest regardless and ends up with a relative balance between the two.

Species-wise, she has a relatively strong dislike of Orcs and Trolls, but if forced to work with them she will put up with it. Tauren, she doesn’t know a lot about, nor has she formed an opinion as regards the Elven races. She’s a huge admirer of the Draenei however, and feels a strong sense of kinship with the Dwarves – and friendliness towards Gnomes as well! The Worgen are a mixed bag, but she mostly sees them as human still. Undead in general put her on edge, whether they’re Death Knights or Forsaken and she is equally cautious around Goblins, but for financial reasons.

History

Born shortly after the First War, in a ravaged Kingdom of Azeroth – which later rechristened itself as Stormwind, Sarah Crom was the product of a loving but very poor couple. Her father struggled to rebuild his curio shop, and her mother worked the land as a farmer, courtesy of her unusual endurance and strength, helped from time to time by Sarah’s older brother, Julius. Sarah still remembers the day her brother went to fight in the Second War – her father was strongly against it, wanting the boy to inherit his business, but Julius’ mother gave him leave. Sarah herself remembers the last hug they shared before Julius left, and the scent of her brother’s hair.

The war came to a close and Julius returned, albeit a changed man. Sarah awaited with open arms and though her brother forswore warfare altogether, his stories enthralled the girl. Julius spoke of heroes – former clerics of Northshire Abbey turned knights in shining armor, wielding the Holy Light on the battlefield. As Julius settled in and took over his father’s business, Sarah’s imagination ran wild and she begged and pleaded and worked, doing anything in her power to try convincing her parents to write a letter to the Knights of the Silver Hand and ask for a squirehood: Sarah wanted to be a hero.

It took a few months but eventually, a man appeared on the Croms’ doorstep and he was the very vision of the knight Sarah aspired to be. He also brought candy, apparently obtained from a friend of his from far-off Quel’thalas. The occasion wasn’t all happy however, for in allowing their daughter into the service of the Church of the Holy Light and the Knights of the Silver Hand, Sarah's parents had to understand the danger they placed her in. It took a fair deal of discussion before the details were ironed out but before long, Sarah went through her squirehood.

The years passed, and Sarah grew into a fine, if fiery young woman. The image of the ardent defender of the faith clashed a bit with the pragmatic upbringing that poverty afforded her. Nevertheless, Sarah ended up as capable a Paladin as the rest of them, and she was in Lordaeron around the time the plagued grain crisis hit. While her divine powers shielded her from the plague itself, much in the way all other Knights of the Silver Hand were spared, she saw people dying around her – people she was supposed to care for and defend – and could hardly do a thing to stop it.

When she was asked to murder innocents at the gates of Stratholme however, she was shocked. She could not understand – could not believe that such an order could ever be given by another Paladin. As the Knights of the Silver Hand were disbanded for refusing to partake in the Culling, Sarah cleaved a path southward for herself, coming to realize that this up-front way of fighting the enemy was plainly not enough. If such foes could cripple the righteous from within, they could be fought with the same methods.

Perhaps it was cowardice that drove her back into the arms of the Church of the Holy Light in Stormwind or perhaps it was pragmatism but once there she quickly enrolled in the study of the inquisitorial arts, undergoing courses in diplomacy, infiltration and deception, as well as the extraction of malign information from captives. To add to this she had basic tutoring in engineering and mechanics on her own coin, later on expanding on the information during her travels mostly due to a need to adapt to changing conditions.

At first, such an underhanded way of vanquishing evil felt slightly wrong to the Paladin, but meditation on the Three Virtues and the philosophy of the Holy Light strengthened her resolve, turning her into a righteous weapon of divine retribution. Her first assignments were simple: Infiltrating and destroying the cells of a demonic cult, lasting all throughout the latter half of the Third War.

As the Alliance of today was formed, Sarah started to travel more, pursuing her duties across the face of Azeroth. When the Dark Portal was reopened she acted primarily on behalf of Honor Hold and any of its allies, ending up even infiltrating the Wyrmcult for a time. Later on, when the first Icebreakers were headed to Northrend, she found herself a part of the Valiance Expedition and fought throughout the entirety of the War against the Lich King on behalf of the Kingdom of Stormwind and the Argent Crusade, being knighted shortly after the end of the conflict for valor on the battlefield. Not long afterwards, Sarah self-styled herself a Lady Inquisitor much to the amusement of her peers.

Sarah was at home when the Cataclysm hit and though her family’s house and lands weren’t particularly damaged by it, the destruction done to her beloved kingdom was evident and aggravating. Something had to be done and Sarah started wondering if she couldn’t pass as a Twilight’s Hammer cultist. Nowadays, the Knight can be seen traveling across the worlds, a background piece in a good number of locales and just as many groups.

Skills and Abilities

Sarah differs only slightly, on matters of practicality, from usual Paladins:

The Sacred Tools: Sarah is skilled with weapons, and practices constantly to keep her coordination, speed and strength up to par. While she lacks single-minded devotion and focus for any one weapon, her dilettantism allows her to adapt to what she has on-hand.

Will it blend?: Sarah is good at dissimulation, diplomacy and infiltration. She tends to cripple malign groups from within just as often as she engages in conventional combat.

McGuyver: Sarah is skilled in engineering, crafting rudimentary door breaching explosives, mechanical skeleton keys and other technological items.