Softbolt

Information

Player: Altaine

Character Full Name: Silas Josef Softbolt

Character In-Game Name: Softbolt

Association(s): Tisfizzle Foundation, The Alliance

Race: Gnome

Class: Rogue

Skills and Abilities: He is a Gnome with a roguish personality. He's able to creep around and pickpocket with ease, but at heart he is an engineer.

Age: 100

Sex: Male

Hair: Black, but many hairs are graying.

Eyes: Green (When not covered by his goggles.)

Weight: 40lbs

Height: 3'0

Appearance

Usual Garments/Armor: He dons the armor that his father, Croffle Softbolt, wore whenever he was issued a mission when he needed to get his hands a little dirty or whenever he had to steal blueprints for another engineer.

Personality

Silas likes to think before he acts. While he is rather old he still has much to learn about his family and the Softbolt profession. He can be understanding, outgoing, and very friendly to all -- including other races outside of the Alliance. He doesn't like the notion of war, but he isn't a pacifist.

At times, Silas can be a little selfish but he'll always say: "Everyone needs to be a little selfish sometimes." He believes that above all else, one needs to worry about oneself.

History

Softbolt was born about 130 years after Gnomergan was built. His only siblings were his two brothers, Dan Softbolt and Tobias Softbolt. Croffle was his father and Trineilie was his mother. By day they were a simple gnomish family; a knack for science and technology, modest, friendly, inventions only to help others. But, by night, their father became a completely different Gnome.

Besides technology, the Softbolt family-line was good at one thing: thievery, fraud, and oddball jobs. Croffle was a man of doing what he felt was right in his heart. Gnomes were a very secretive and quiet race, and that is a trait that the Softbolts revere. Croffle would spend many of his nights away from his family doing what many in his bloodline have done: stealing from the rich, giving to the poor, helping other family lines in dire need, and occasionally he'd steal blueprints from the rival family: the Steelmane.

While the Softbolts were good in stealth and thievery, the Steelmanes were fighters. They liked to create huge bombs, or monstrous mechs that would do their bidding for them. Majority of their contraptions made them similar to Goblins in their own right. Out of their workshop they'd be formidable as well. They were huge, muscular gnomes. The patron of their family was Grunbow Steelmane, with his wife, Tabieeta Steelmane. He had four sons, Oni, Gloib, Truvs, and Yoi Steelmane. Grunbow was a 3'8 Gnome, and Tabieeta was 3'6. Their sons' height measured inbetween. If it came down to it, they'd rather fight than flight. They were gifted with knowledge but they'd prefer to use their weapons or fists.

The fued between the two families were similar to any other family rivalry: bloody, dangerous, and full of threats. Sure enough Croffle came back home one day with three blueprints but at the cost of losing two fingers and a black eye.

Trineilie gasped, rushing over to her husband as he sunk into a chair next to their living-room-table. "By Magni's beard, what in the blazes happened to you?!"

Croffle wiggled his only functioning fingers on his right hand. "Pretty bad fight. Grunbow's little whelps caught me in their workshop smuggling some blueprints. Thankfully, I got away before that brute himself came downstairs at me." he'd sigh and throw his head back. Silas was in the other room, leaning on the door as he listened to his parents talk.

"What will we do, Croffle? What if one of these days they come to take revenge? They certainly don't have a sense of honor. Did you hear what they did to Tobias?" she'd gasp and bury her head in Croffle's shoulder. "Oh.. Tobias can't even communicate or hear me anymore.." Silas knew what she was talking about. Days before this happened, Grunbow was on a drunken rage walking through Gnomergan. In his alcoholic rage he walked up to the Softbolt's patio and slashed Tobias' throat, and cut off his ears. He escaped before any authorities could track him down.. that or the authorities just didn't want to help a criminal family.

"We'll be fine, hon. Just go to bed, I'll join you soon." he grunted. As his wife left the room Croffle retrieved himself a glass of wine and sat down to read a blueprint for an extendable axe. Silas creeped out of the room and snuck up on his father, jumping up onto his lap.

"Boo!" Silas squealed, hoping to impress his father. "I betcha didn't notice me, dad!"

"I sure didn't, son." he'd laugh along with him and ruffle his hair with his bad-hand. He'd wince and retrieve his hand as he looked at his fingers. "Not anything too rough, now, alright?" Silas nodded and clambered up onto the table.

"What happened to you, dad?" he'd peer at his father, noticing his mangled hand.

"Oh, just the Steelmanes. Don't worry about it." He'd wait for a little bit in the silence, his facial expression didn't change to help reassure his son. "Hey, how about you help me with this blueprint, Silas?" he'd attempt to change the subject. Sure enough, the little gnome took the bait -- even if he knew that it just wasn't a 'harmless' run-in with the Steelmanes.

Hours past late into the night, and little Silas knew that this was only the beginning of this terrible feud.

Years later, at age thirty-two, tragedy struck within the Softbolt family. Croffle, Silas' beloved father, is murdered in his sleep. The Softbolt family had no idea how a Steelmane would stoop to sneaking in their house, but they still blamed it on that rivarlous and greedy Steelmane.

Skipping forward a couple of years and more heartbreak and deceit, their mother passed away and it left the trio of brothers without parents and they shoved out into the real world of Gnomes. Silas took up his father's old set of blades and armor and decided to keep up the Softbolt family line. He took his younger brother, Tobias, under his wing and he still cares for him today. Dan decided to take a more modest life of a hard-working-tinkerer for the High King of Ironforge.

During the Third War, Silas fled Gnomergan with Tobias to Ironforge, and lived there for a couple of a couple of years. They developed new friends and enemies, but even then it was still time to keep going forward and move on.

Today, Silas lives with his brother Tobias out in Dun Morogh in the Softbolt Manor. Recently, Silas joined up with the Tisfizzle Foundation so he can help the Alliance in a way that doesn't need blood to be shed.