Graff

information

Player: Walrus

Character Full Name: Graff Seekspell

Character In-Game Name: Graff

Nickname(s): None

Association(s): Loose ties with the Kirin Tor

Race: Gnome

Class: Warlock

Age: 47

Sex: Male

Hair: Graff's natural hair color is a soft green reminiscent of mint ice cream.

Eyes: Brown.

Weight: 32 lbs

Height: 2'9

Appearance

Graff dresses in the traditional garb of arcane scholars, long flowing robes, wide brimmed hats and enfolding cloaks that trail behind him as he walks.

Personality

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Despite his chosen path along the darker side of Magic, Graff genuinely believes he can improve the world through his study of Demonology. He posses a moral compass, if not slightly skewed, and does what he believes to be right and just.

Beneath this genuine desire to do good, though, lies the heart of his corruption, a lust for power. To Graff, strength is the most accurate measure of importance. As a physically weak gnome of no political ties, the Arcane was the one logical area in which he could possibly assert himself. The opportunity which fel-magic presented was irresistible.

Pushed by his father, and the memory of his mother, to excel, Graff became very conscious of himself and very vulnerable to insults against him. In order to prove such insults incorrect and prove himself an individual of strength, he tackles difficult problems with a relentless determination to succeed. By all means an insecure creature Graff tends to critically analyze others and pick out what he deems as their short comings in an effort to forget about his own.

History

Day 1

The cold in this place is numbing to the mind and body. I am scarcely able to gather my thoughts into a coherent structure of sentences as I do now. The wind outside my tent howls like a great ethereal wolf and steals away what warmth might gather within it's thin flaps. Thus robbing me of any comfort this shelter may have afforded. My brain screams for relief from this torture. Never in Dalaran was I subjected to such a relentless blizzard. The altitude here atop Khaz Modan has crippled me. I find myself tired and woozy upon even the slightest physical exertion. Nose bleeds plague me hourly and the pure white hankerchief I had purchased before this trek is now a bright scarlet shade. I can not but help but feel pity for my guide, a stout dwarven fellow from Loch Modan, for I am undoubtedly a great burden upon him. He earns the gold I am paying without question.

He snores besides me now in his sleeping bag, and though I am thankful for his help, I can not refrain from entertaining the thought of smothering him with my pillow. Perhaps, were it not for his cacophony, I would be able to ignore the discomforts of this hostile environment and slip into blissful slumber. For now I vow to write until sleep takes hold of me. I look forward towards tomorrow for, should the weather allow it, then I shall began what I came here to do.

The Ice Trolls here practice a primitive and dark form of the arcane. Based on superstition their magic is crude and undeveloped. Yet, for all they lack in scientific thinking, they have a knack for potent spells of shadow and ice. At least according to the accounts of travelers unlucky enough to encounter their mystics, yet blessed enough to survive. In order to complete my thesis upon primitive magicks I intend to study these brutes from a distance. My guide ensures me of my safety during this expedition but even had he not I still would have been called out this way. It is daring which sets apart the bright from the brilliant and I intend to be the greater of those two.

Sleep, I feel, is finally calling to me. Tomorrow we rise early and make for Anvilmar.

-Graff Seekspell

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Day 2:

I awoke to silence in the early morning. The storm had broken whilst I slept. The sky appeared, and still appears, relatively cloudless. I am told, however, that such can change in an instant at this height. I felt sick when I awoke and wretched terribly after I stumbled out of the tent. My guide was already outside and eager to assist me. He said it was good that we were headed to Coldridge Valley as it is most likely altitude sickness which is ravaging me.

The hike today was easy enough, mostly down hill as we made our way towards the valley. A fairly heart pounding run through the tunnel of Coldridge Pass was made more interesting and nerve racking at two sightings of trogg raiders. My guide, though, managed to lead us around them through rough patches of boulders without arousing their alarm. We came into Anvilmar a few hours before the sun disappeared behind the tall peaks which now surround us.

I must say I do feel slightly better here at a little lower an altitude. Now and again my guide calls me a greenhorn. "Never have I seen a gnome of such weak constitutions" He claims with a wink and a chuckle. Perhaps he means well but I can only help but to despise such comments. My attempts to explain my birth place in Dalaran seem to bounce right off of him. Here atop the highest mountain in Azeroth I am out of my element. Books and classrooms characterized my youth, not backwoods and boulders.

My guide has informed me now that there is a small camp of dwarven agents reporting to the senate out closer by the known troll establishments. He claims it to be but a short jog through the pines but I have refrained from going. Though I expected to begin research today I am too tired and worn. I have decided that tomorrow will be the day of discovery. Tonight I rest in Anvilmar and it's stony halls.

-Graff Seekspell

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Day 6:

I have neglected my journal now for a few days but for great and good reason. These past days have been filled with such revelation and development that I can barely find time in it all to write my mind. Three days ago we began observing the trolls and I perceived that, like many wizards and magi of our modern civilization, the primitive ice trolls also use clutches to channel their magic. Of course this was no surprise and though they made no use of wands or circles/pentagrams of higher intricacy they did make use of certain trinkets crafted from the environment around them. A clutch, of which I took notable interest in is one which I observed put to use in a barbaric ceremony I do not have the stomach to relive in written explanation, was a feather charm. The object was crafted from the black plumage of some raven and the dark wood of an unknown tree but, the most exciting part, was the magic which it channeled for it was nothing alike the advanced arcane of the academy or the basic ice spells I had expected to encounter here.

Noting my interest in that particular item my Guide shocked and saddened me with something I had never expected. Not a few weeks ago, he claimed, had he bagged a few of those trinkets for another researcher back in Anvilmar for a petty price. Humbly he offered to fetch me my own sample for a bit extra on my bill but I denied him and asked if he would not instead take me to meet this fellow scholar in the morning. I was made glum by the prospect that I may have come too late and been beaten in the study of these savages by another but I busied myself for the rest of the day and night observing their village, keeping a close eye on the tent of their mystic.

By noon the next day we had arrived back in Anvilmar and by three o'clock I had met the other researcher. He was a fellow gnome and appeared intelligent, if not a little sickly. For some time we exchanged words over a warm drink and to my amazement he had not yet published any of his research done whilst there in Anvilmar. He said it was not the kind of thing ordinary magi would appreciate. I of course begged to differ and told him of my own studies. He invited me to read some of his own notes on the feather charms I had taken interest in and even went so far as to show me the ones my guide had procured for him not so long ago. He claimed that these charms channeled a magic much stronger then contemporary arcane but I hardly believed him.

Though a bit odd the gnome was friendly enough and he even appeared to take a shine to me. He gave me one of the charms and implored me to study it for myself.

Since then I've done more research and I've gathered much more then I thought I would in this amount of time. Tomorrow I return to Ironforge where I will begin an in depth study of the charm my friend gave to me.

-Graff Seekspell

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Day 8:

I feel as if I am rediscovering the Arcane for the first time. Never before have I achieved such a rush from one of my spells. Though I can not rightfully call it mine. This charm, which was so poor at channeling elemental and basic arcane energies, pulls some force from the nether the likes of which I have never sensed before.

I am glad for this leap in the progress of my studies and yet my mind can not but beg my hand to take up the clutch once again and pull its natural energies out of it; I desire nothing but to experience that rush. I find it hard to concentrate upon much else and long for nothing more then to follow this peculiar lead. As a scholar I must not. My purpose is to examine the clutch and find its function and origin among the primitive magicks of the ice trolls. Yet perhaps if I reason with myself.

Perhaps I should follow this trail. My curiosity bends me towards this mysterious energy like the winds of a storm bend a tree towards the earth. Yet I fear what I will discover. In the halls of my academy never was I subjected to such a force. I worry that it could be forbidden. The nature of these trolls is shadowy and perhaps it is the lure of fel I taste.

Blast it all! For now I put these thoughts aside. I follow the trail set before my feet and I plunge into the unknown. It is the brave who are brilliant and the cautious which fall into the shadows of history.

-Graff Seekspell

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Day 9:

Tonight I stay in a small brewery a days travel from both Ironforge and Anvilmar. The owners of the establishment were happy to take me in for a few coins to pay for my dinner and breakfast tomorrow morning. They are kind folk and the quaint rustic setting of this place calms me. I must not think of my recent past for when I remember my mind races with questions that I must have answered.

All last night I applied myself to the ice troll charm and I have come to the conclusion which I had at first feared. The initial pleasure in calling forth the fel energy from the clutch made me reluctant to admit the truth, for looking back I acknowledge the painful reality that from the moment I saw the device I suspected its dark nature.

That gnome in Anvilmar knew all along. He must have, for in reflection upon his demeanor I know without doubt that he must have been a Warlock. I go to him now for answers. The nature of this fel energy torments me. No algorithms I can devise, incantations I may utter, or symbols I have the skill to draw can conduct or contain the energy which this simple troll charm draws upon. I learned nothing of this in Dalaran and I am now overwhelmed by a need to master this new field.

Beneath it all I fear, for these are the forbidden arts, that which I was warned so sternly to avoid. What might my Professors think should they see me now, wandering in the snow in search of a tutor in the magicks of shadow. The power which coursed through me, the raw energy which for a moment I felt through the clutch, must have some greater application then evil. With such strength the undead would of never taken the north, the cursed forest trolls would be wiped from existence by the magi, and so much more may the righteous wizard have done to better this world.

And yet I still fear, for I suspect that I may be playing into this Warlock's hands and whatever evil designs he works towards. I will not let him manipulate me. I work only to improve the world.

I must rip myself away from these thoughts. My head spins and I become anxious. It was the advice of my mother never to worry over that which afflicts me, but to instead overcome it.

My mother, what a kind women. The memory of her advice brings me back to my youth in the city. She herself was raised on a farm but took the hand of my father, a mage, for his charm and intelligence. Her life post-marriage in the city with him was trying for her I know, for she never really let go of her rural roots. She would of liked this place I stay the night in.

When Dalaran was ravaged by demons and undead she was one of those who perished in the chaos. My father was wrecked, and in some way I think he became dependent upon me. My scholarly performance, which had been average before the ruin of our city, and my father's heart, became his prime focus in the aftermath. Times were hard, but as soon as the city was repopulated by the living I was sent to an academy in order to master the mystic arts.

Learning the arcane during the Second War was trying, and there was often pressure to pursue a career in military magic. My father never would have allowed it though. His guidance and private tutoring did much for me and I quickly advanced in the ranks of my fellow scholars. Academically I was one of the best.

How good my father was to me. His encouragement to pursue knowledge has made me who I am. My mother's love has made me, thankfully, who I am not. I am grateful for them both. The memory of one, and the companionship of the other, warm my heart. With these sweet thoughts I lay my head to rest. Let them never know of what I do tomorrow.

-Graff Seekspell

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Day 43:

It has been long since I saw this journal. It has been long since I've worn these robes. It has been long since I left for the cold, cold peaks of Khaz Modan. I return now to a world transformed in my absence. I see things now, not as I knew them, but as they are. The dark arts which I began learning a month ago are not so dark as I supposed, but on the contrary are enlightening.

At the beginning of it all my tutor, the gnome from Anvilmar, admitted to baiting me. He said he had seen a reminder of his own youth in me, and wished to usher me along the trail towards greatness. My mind was in great turmoil at first, overcoming the morals of a conservative magical society was no easy task, and to help in my trials I denied myself all possessions which linked me to Dalaran. Only now have I assumed them again, as I begin my journey home.

My teacher told me I have learned quickly. As I took my leave of his hospitality this morning he referred me to demonologists who would aid me in my pursuit of that fascinating field. None that he could point me towards lived in Dalaran, but a good coven existed in Stormwind, he claimed, as well as a group of Warlocks in Ratchet. I, however, have no particular interest to become entangled in the social channels of my new found trade. I expressed this to my tutor, though he insisted I commit his references to my memory besides.

I am empowered, but not for my own good. I have resolved to use this art to better the world. I wish nothing more then to make a difference. I am no longer amongst the masses of common magi, I am greater and grander then any of my conservative peers. All shall see the grandeur of my knowledge and know the foolishness of not studying this craft themselves. When my time comes, in the light of day I shall walk tall and the true power of magic will by evident to all those who might gaze upon me.

I look forward to keeping up this journal again. I must cease my writing now, for the Imp has finished cooking my meal and I am famished from the day's journey out of the valley.

-Graff Speekspell

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