Arcus

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Information

Player: Seraphim

Character Full Name: Arcus Suncaller

Character In-Game Name: Arcus

Nickname(s): None

Association(s): Dalaran, Silvermoon, Knights of the Ebon Blade

Race: Blood Elf

Class: Death Knight (Formerly Hunter)

Skills and Abilities: Arcus is highly skilled with a two-handed sword, having trained for nearly the entirety of his life with them. He also spent quite a bit of time utilizing bows, but has since given up the use of ranged weapons. Though Arcus no longer needs to eat, he considers himself a master craftsman of sandwiches.

Age: 123

Sex: Male

Hair: Blue (Formerly blonde)

Eyes: Glowing a frigid blue color.

Weight: 179 lbs.

Height: 6'4"

Appearance

Arcus typically wears a suit of plate armor in shades of steely blue and gold. His long cloak is purple and gold, hinting at his continued allegiance to his place of birth. These are certainly unusual colors for a Blood Elf and even stranger choices for a Death Knight, yet Arcus consistently dons this armor. Sometimes he will wear a hood to attempt to hide his undead nature from others.

Other: Arcus looks more alive than most Death Knights. His skin retains its tone from before his death, though it is cold to the touch, and his hair has turned to a shock of frosty azure. The most obvious reminder of Arcus' unlife is the runeblade he must carry wherever he goes. Its purple blade pulses with the same cold, unfeeling light that emanates from his eyes.

Personality

Alignment: Neutral Good

Arcus is bubbly, excitable, and unintentionally irreverent, but his sense of humor is always well-meaning. He is generally upbeat and quick to laugh (whether or not something was meant to be funny). Additionally, he seems to be possessed of a considerable hero complex, as he will always go out of his way to help a lost cause or protect those he deems to be innocent. Arcus is also obsessed with sandwiches, so much so that his secondary mission in life appears to be creating the perfect culinary treat. It is difficult to tell whether this obsession is in earnest or if it simply exists as part of the persona he now embodies.

Sometimes Arcus' jovial facade will falter and he will become quiet and introverted. This happens exclusively when the weight of the crimes he committed under the influence of the Lich King grows completely unbearable. When this occurs, Arcus tends to keep to himself in solitary reflection until he can put the depression behind him.

History

The Suncaller family had been established in Dalaran for several generations before the birth of Arcus and his fraternal twin sister, Arcadia. Alirial Suncaller was a comfortably wealthy mage, while his wife Selira was a priestess of the Light. Their children grew up happy, healthy, and rambunctious during the time of relative peace before the Second War. In fact, Arcus and Arcadia were tremendous friends growing up despite the divergent paths they would take upon adulthood.

Whereas Arcadia followed in her father's footsteps and began to study the arcane, Arcus had always idolized the knights and soldiers that would occasionally pass through Dalaran. In fact, he had already perfected the art of crafting large swords out of sticks by that point. While his parents would not support the idea of him becoming a grunt in the army of some human kingdom, they were willing to send him to Silvermoon in order to receive training as a ranger. He happily agreed; to Arcus, it didn't matter where he trained to use a sword so long as he could someday become the kind of hero he had read about in books.

Arcus made a serviceable ranger and would eventually become a member of the original Farstriders, defending the elven homeland from troll incursions and other threats. When the Second War came, he was dispatched with a small group of rangers to Hillsbrad. He saw action there, attacking the forces of the Old Horde with his full vigor. He was fortunate enough to avoid death at the hands of an orcish Death Knight, but only because of the intervention of a human paladin. The two became fast friends over the course of the campaign, and both managed to survive long enough to see the Horde forces pushed back out of Lordaeron. As part of the victory celebration, Arcus made it a point to return to Dalaran and visit his family, who gave him a hero's welcome. There was some temptation to remain in Dalaran after the war, but Arcus' sense of duty prevailed in the end. He would return to Silvermoon once more and continue his work as a defender of the city.

All was well in the capital city of the elves and in Arcus' life until the coming of the third war. He would be one of the many rangers defeated by Arthas' army of undead, surviving only because his unconscious form was hurled into a sinkhole and covered by a fallen tree. He would walk away from the battlefield alone, forced to defend himself in the wilds of Quel'Thalas until a strange emptiness would drive him back to the North. There he would find the ruins of Silvermoon and the remains of the Sunwell. He wanted desperately to return to Dalaran and ensure the safety of his family, but he soon lacked the strength to do so. It was not until the followers of Kael'Thas arrived that he would regain the drive that had been lost to him. Unfortunately, they also came bearing the news of Dalaran's destruction.

So Arcus dedicated himself entirely to the rebuilding and protecting of Silvermoon. He would join the remade Farstriders, help to train new recruits, and do battle along the Dead Scar. Unfortunately, that was where Arcus' good luck ran out. During that fateful excursion, he traveled too far South along the bloody soil and found undead that neither he nor his fellow rangers could handle. The party he had brought was massacred at the doors of Deatholme. Arcus himself was cut from shoulder to waist by an abomination's hook. He could only hope that he would find his family waiting for him in the realm of the Light.

Sadly, it was not to be. When Arcus regained consciousness, he stood in the halls of Acherus, his body reformed as a frigid shell for his tortured mind. The will of the Lich King drove him to murder, to torture, and above all else, to despise the living. All of his training and experience became a set of tools for the slaughter of the innocent. He stood poised to attack Light's Hope Chapel and witnessed the defeat of the Lich King. The freezing grasp upon his mind finally relented, leaving Arcus to reflect on his actions, no matter how involuntary.

At first, he was inconsolable. Arcus could barely move; he did not speak if he could help it. Days went by when Arcus did naught but sit silent and still within the confines of his undead shell. He refused to forgive himself for the crimes he had committed, and more than once he teetered dangerously close to becoming an empty machine bent on revenge against the Lich King. After all, that was what the Knights of the Ebon Blade were. It was not until he heard a fellow Death Knight refer to a floating Dalaran in passing that he snapped out of his torpor. He resolved to see this new Dalaran with his own eyes and learn the fate of his beloved family.

Upon reaching the magocratic city, Arcus was immediately inundated with vivid childhood memories. He quietly asked around Dalaran for any sign of the Suncaller family, and to his amazement, he found that his mother and father were not only alive, but they still resided in Dalaran. Arcus and his parents met for the last time at one of the more private parks in the city. Their reaction to their son's new condition was one of diluted heartbreak, though they did their best to at least be outwardly supportive. When Arcus asked his father for advice, the older mage's response was simple. "No amount of suffering will ever yield happiness." Arcus would take those words to heart.

Before departing the city, Arcus also discovered that his sister had left Dalaran to join the ranks of the Sin'Dorei. Apparently, the treatment of her people by the humans of Lordaeron had incensed her even mores than it had Arcus. He returned to Silvermoon to find her gorging herself on arcane energies, unable to find the delicate balance required to live as a Blood Elf. Were it not for Arcus' intervention, Arcadia would have likely become one of the wretched. While she was at first terrified of her brother's new form, she would eventually come to recognize him as the same noble elf he always had been.

In a strange parallel, it would be Arcadia who would encourage Arcus to live as he once had: As a paragon of justice rather than an instrument of suffering. Thus would Arcus create a rather exaggerated version of his old personality, using laughter to drown out the echoes of those suffering victims which would always remain fresh in the back of his mind.