Domasi

Information

Player: Sol

Character Name: Domasi Spearhorn

Character In-Game Name: Domasi

Nicknames: His name regularly gets shortened to just 'Dom'. By a shaman of the Warsongs, he was gifted the honorific title Whitewolf.

Associations: Thunder Bluff, the Horde, the spirits

Race: Tauren

Class: Spirit Champion

Age: 28

Sex: Male

Hair: A pelt of stark white with a beard and braided mane of muddy brown.

Eyes: Sky blue

Weight: 553lbs.

Height: 8'3”

Appearance

A tall, proud specimen of taurenkind, broadly shouldered and thick with muscle, Domasi seems incredibly conscious of his size in relation to others and handles himself very lightly and gently, often appearing awkward and out of place wherever he goes. His white fur is daubed with war paint in stark tribal patterns.

He wears very little that aren't lightweight leathers and pelts. In particular, he's prone to wearing a cloak and mantle of fur and hide that appears to originate from an enormous tawny wolf, with a mask fashioned out of its face to boot. The colours of Thunder Bluff are fastened proudly over his chest.

Personality

Peaceful, taciturn but warm of heart, Domasi firmly believes that the world is a single spiritual whole, and has therefore declared himself a protector of everything in it. The differentiating factor here, however, is that only a select group of these spirits can speak to him with any coherency: his ancestors. This has lent to Domasi a particularly cautious and conservative mindset when dealing with matters outside of his own tribe, and being a wandering warrior, this is most of the time. He is inquisitive but wary of other peoples and tends to disregard their ways entirely if they deviate too strongly from what he considers the norm, staunch in his belief that the tauren, of all the races of Azeroth, are the most keenly attuned to the natural world. He does not give the impression of being, on his own, particularly bright - most profound things he says sound like pre-packaged quotes - and nor does he have any particular way with words, coming across as blunt and stubborn in debates rather than eloquent and persuasive.

In combat or in times of desperation, ghostly echoes of personalities that are not his own will often slip into his behaviour as he instinctively relies further and further on the counsel of his ancestors. This means his behaviour can be erratic at best - depending on which spirits he's calling upon, such situations can turn him into a howling berserker or an apathetic husk. The counsel of the spirits permeates his actions even when he is idle - indeed, their insistent nagging is what prevents him from being idle for long. He is at once a champion of their honour and a slave to their whims, constantly wracked with the conundrums and riddles of trying to determine meaning in their words and wills. But an overriding facet of his personality, no matter what his situation, is his urge to do good. Even begrudgingly he will aid those he dislikes in his efforts to 'do the right thing', and it takes a lot of misdeeds for Domasi to judge you as unworthy of his help, as beyond redemption. In matters of factional politics, however, he has no illusions about war, and fights firmly on the side of the Horde where necessary.

History

The Spearhorns were a small tribe who roamed the Barrens, sticking close to their allies the Ragetotems for protection, but with a strong tradition of raising their children to become Braves to fight against the marauding centaur. Domasi Spearhorn was to become one such Brave, but his birth was marked by a forboding omen. Spearhorns were usually born with tawny fur that darkened as they progressed through to adulthood and eventually began to whiten with old age, but Domasi was born – in some freakish fluke of genetics, perhaps owing to tribal inbreeding - with a pelt of snow. In most tribes this would be exulted as the mark of a shaman or spirit walker's destiny, but so consumed were the Spearhorns by their generational war for survival against the centaur, so desperate was their daily struggle to survive, that they disregarded this distinctive mark and raised him amongst the rest of the calves. They could ill afford to specially treat or ostracise a given child when the survival of all their children was at stake.

As such, he was trained from childhood with the specialised pole weapon that was unique to his tribe – topped with three blades rather than one, one meant for piercing and two curved for chopping, with a weighted head studded with iron spikes that allowed it to double as a bludgeoning weapon. This strange hybrid of spear, poleaxe, quarterstaff and long mace was a microcosm of the Spearhorn's mentality – it was basic, simply constructed, yet ruthlessly practical and bluntly lethal. Spending his days sparring and practising, he spent his nights in restless half-slumber - plagued with haunting dreams of a world not unlike the one he spent his waking hours in, but shrouded in grey and inhabited only by dead tauren. For years, these dreams would at once horrify compel him, and although he would resolve to rise early and rest late to escape them, he spent many hours dwelling on them. He dared not speak of them to anyone, fearing their implications and what they would bode for his future.

Each morn, he woke to the howl of a wolf that wasn't there.

As he grew older, developing his skills in arms and hunting, the dreams worsened, becoming more vivid and diversifying in content. He would see brutal, bloody battle against the centaur. He would witness mass migrations, settling, all tribes kneeling before one chieftain. His dreams acquired colour, texture and shape, and he would see hairless green tauren without tails, hooves or horns from across the sea fighting alongside their people against the centaur. He briefly confided in one of his closest friends, Tawoda, about that particular dream. His friend thought him to be utterly mad and finally conveyed him to the tribal shaman, a decrepit, ancient bull who spoke in a poor combination of cryptic riddles and demented tangents. Under the shaman's care, he imbibed a sapta that soothed his dreams for a time.

When his father died in battle when he was fourteen, the dreams would become more specific once again, more regular, and more troubling. He would see the old tauren's face in his sleep, smiling at him, saying things to him he could not hear, try as he might. Soon, the apparition of his father was joined by many other tauren, some male, some female, some older, some younger, but all of whom bore a striking resemblance to his father – to Domasi himself, he realised when contemplating this over his reflection in an oasis' pool. It got so bad that he would sometimes see them if he merely closed his eyes, and on lonely nights standing guard outside the camp, he'd experience the unshakeable, maddening sensation of being watched. He imagined, in sleep-deprived delirium, a pack of unseen wolves stalking him through the plains.

And then the whispers began. As he grew to reach adulthood and become a proud Spearhorn bull in his own right, he'd be receiving instructions in his sleep, ones he couldn't often make sense of, and neither could the tribal shaman. He'd occasionally hear them while awake, too, fighting for the tribe, and the results of heeding them – which he found himself impulsively compelled to do - would often be life-saving. He'd be warned of ambushes before they were sprung, mudslides and rockfalls before they fell, arrows before they were let fly. It was only then that he began to realise that he couldn't simply be mad. These voices, these visions, he realised, must have come from some place far beyond his own mind.

One night, Domasi set himself to sleep after an evening curiously free of whispers, and in his dreams he was faced not by his ancestors, but by hundreds of wolves. He had little time to mull it over the next morning, for he was rushed into his duties. Domasi and his fellow Braves walked right into an ambush that the voices remained silent Most of them, excluding Domasi and two others, but including his childhood friend Tawoda, were slain by the centaur without mercy. However, while the voices continued to offer him advice in combat, they adamantly instructed him not to turn and flee, despite his better instincts, even when the odds looked stacked far against them. Even when he was peppered with arrows by the fearsome horse-archers and lanced through with a hunting spear, the young brave fought desperately on. For his troubles, Domasi became one of the first tauren to meet an orc, for a band of Thrall's warriors set upon the centaur from their far flank and rescued the remaining tauren braves. Domasi, however, had been severely wounded, and drifted into unconsciousness shortly after, with a bright smile, he realised that he recognised these strange creatures from his dreams.

What would have been a coma for another tauren was a spiritual journey for Domasi. In his mind, he came to comprehend the nature of his gift, and in his soul he became closer to his ancestors; all the while, his body survived and recovered against all odds, as though sustained by some outside force which seeped vitality into him. It seemed that, despite the demands of his wounds, this young tauren was simply not ready to pass on to the other side – or perhaps the other side refused to take him. That was certainly what they told him, his ancestors – told him that there was some purpose left on the mortal world for him and that despite his pleas for release and escape from the pain of his injuries. Of course, that was what little he understood of what they said. Though his ancestors said much to him, and they spoke the same language, it was akin to a conversation held underwater, their words coming misshapen, blurry and indistinct. All the while, in his rare, pain-wracked moments of consciousness and lucidity while this went on, he found his bedside was waited upon by Tawoda, who would pat him fondly on the forehead and told him to grit his teeth and endure the agony. Tawoda himself seemed to be doing a good job of this - half his face had been split off by a tomahawk, after all. It was only when Domasi finally woke, and when he asked his friend's whereabouts, that the healers confirmed that his friend was dead.

And yet still Tawoda never left his side. When he finally rose, there was a battle still left to fight, and Domasi was ready for it as soon as he was on his own two hooves. He felt a newfound harmony with the spirits of his ancestors, visions of whom had tormented him so through his youth, and those visions he did have no longer disturbed him so deeply. He heard their whispers on the breeze, and he heeded their warnings in battle. He spoke to these new orcs of his ancestors and they spoke to him of theirs, and sure enough the snowy-furred brave stood defiant on the slopes of Mount Hyjal, witnessing the untold horrors that lay in the Legion and the Scourge's combined might. There, for the first time, Domasi was made acutely, profoundly aware of all that was wrong in the world.

Setting out into the planes alone, Domasi crested the Red Rock of Mulgore and remained there for five days and five nights, lapsing in and out of meditation and half-sleep as he tried to decipher certain truths from his ancestors. Slowly but surely, with a knife and a steady hand, he carved in Taur-ahe glyphics the name of every single Spearhorn before him upon the haft of his mighty spear, anointing it and himself with ritual oils and imbibing a sapta of his own brewing. It was here that he formally assumed the role of a Spirit Champion, and with it, he was celebrated by those who remained alive in his tribe and earned the respect of his people. For the first time, he felt like a grown man - and he only felt so much stood atop the shoulders of a thousand thousand tauren men and women who'd live before him. As he bedded down for rest after this ordeal, he saw a glimpse of Tawoda's maimed, dead face smiling at him, eyes welling with pride.

For years afterwards with the founding of Durotar, Domasi walked among these orcs, and the trolls, too, strange creatures that they were. When the Forsaken were accepted into the Horde, he was initially intrigued by them and sought their counsel as he did his ancestors' - but their afterlife was not like those of the spirits, and it had made them bitter and vengeful almost to a man. But sure enough, when the time came, he would fight for the Horde in Northrend, and there, in the snows when all seemed lost, ghostly hounds came to his aid and set upon the living dead. From that day forward, he took upon himself a secondary duty of laying disturbed spirits to rest wherever he might find them, with the wolves of his ancestors at his heels.

Now the young Spearhorn walks wherever the howl of the spectral wolf might take him, with a dead man for company and a lineage of braves as old as the tauren people themselves standing behind him, staunch, silent supporters against his many foes.

Skills and abilities

• Spiritual Defense: Domasi's connection to his ancestors' spirits has given him a few 'guardian angels'. Existing out of sync with mortal perceptions of time, they can whisper into his ear as he fights and advise him on how better to protect himself, giving him an ability to block, dodge, parry and otherwise evade that borders of the precognitive. Only light armour gives him the swiftness he needs to use this advice, however, and he needs to remain in the spirits' favour and meditate regularly for it to work.

• Meditative Strength: Enabled by his rigorous regime of meditation, Domasi's connection to the spirits allows their power to flow through him. When he meditates and touches the spirit realm, he brings some of the spirit realm back with him, harnessing the battle prowess of the many hundreds of Spearhorn Braves that came before him. This sharpens his reflexes, strengthens his body and bolsters his combat finesse. If he does not meditate regularly, his harmony with the spirits is broken, their strength seeps out of his body, and he loses this boon.

• Strong Mind: Grappling with malign spirits for control of his body have made him intensely resistant to Shadow-based psychic attack. It has also left him with an uncanny ability to regulate his own fear and rage, giving him incredible focus, calm and resolve. However, while he is resilient against external mental attack, he is far more vulnerable to the spirits of his ancestors, who seek access to his mind from within.

• Spirit-Favoured Weapon: Through a meditative process, Domasi may take time to turn his weapon into a conduit for the wills of given spirits. He can therefore bolster his strikes with the power of an element, the strength of a fallen warrior, the vengeful fury of the slain, and more, but he can only bless his weapon with the favour of one spirit at a time. When his weapon is so blessed, he can throw it like a javelin and it will return to his hand.

• Commune with Spirits: Domasi may, after at least fifteen minutes of uninterrupted meditation, commune with the ancestors and ask for their wisdom, advice or guidance. With focus, Domasi can make himself an anchor for a spiritual manifestation of one of his ancestors, allowing his companions to communicate with them, but he can only bring forth one at a time, and they are incorporeal and incapable of interacting with the world around them beyond speech.

• Hound Affinity: The Spearhorn totem animal has long been a wolf, reflecting their aloofness, martial prowess and communal mentality. Through meditative focus, Domasi can take the incorporeal form of a spectral wolf, and for brief periods can even summon forth manifestations of his ancestors' spirits in wolf form to fight alongside him.