Kraoth

Information

Player: Ukarai

Character Full Name: Formerly Aethad Dresby, he now goes by Kraoth.

Character In-Game Name: Kraoth

Nickname(s): Cutthroat, Vagaband, Monster Under Your Bed

Association(s): Forsaken

Race: Forsaken

Class: Rogue

Skills and Abilities: He's a killer pickpocket. Emphasis on killer.

Age: 29

Sex: Male

Hair: Black, long, and unkempt.

Eyes: Glowing yellow

Weight: 130 lbs

Height: 5'10

Appearance

Kraoth has a skeletal appearance, bones poking out of his shoulders, arms, and legs. His decayed flesh is stained in dried blood, most of it belonging to other people, and his bony fingers have been sharpened into claws. His eyes glow in the darkness.

Personality

Once a charismatic thief, he's all but lost his carefree outlook on life. Since his awakening as a walking corpse, his humor went from elaborate and thought provoking to bleak sarcasm. He's hard to read and lies often, sometimes for no particular reason. His conscience (however waning) stops him from carrying out most of his plans to kill anything that breathes. Most of them.

Alignment:Chaotic Neutral

History

-I-

Aethad was born in a small farmhouse north of Lordaeron, where he was raised as a farmhand by his mother, his father having left shortly after he was born. He dreamt of living in the city and escaping from the mundane life of tending pigs and milking cows, and was always getting himself into trouble. When he was ten, he stole his first pouch of coins. His target was a fat old man who often visited their farm to barter with his mother. It was exciting. It was also the most money he's seen in his life, being two silver coins. For a ten year old boy, this was a gold mine.

The second thing he stole was a homeless man's walking stick. He wasn't very proud of that one, but it was well crafted, and he couldn't help himself. He managed to hide it away in his room, but in time, he found it harder to hide his secret. His dresser was full of odds and ends he had stolen from visitors, peddlers, and guardsman.

He was fifteen when his mother found out of his thefts. She scolded him and threatened to chop him up for pig food if he wouldn't behave, but he didn't care. He was waiting for this moment. Having stolen a total of twenty silver in the past couple years, he was ready to leave the home. He ran off into the night, taking to the streets of Lordaeron. He never saw his mother again.

In his time growing up on the streets, Aethad had gotten into many fights. His first kill was a street rat a year older than him. He tried to steal Aethad's stash of coins, the stash holding a years worth of earnings on top of the twenty silver he brought into Lordaeron. Aethad tackled the kid and beat him 'til his knuckles were bloody. He didn't feel sorry. He knew he should have, he knew he should have felt something, but he didn't. He needed that money to survive. The lowlife left him alone after he killed the thief.

The years started to blend together, every day holding the same events. He would pick pockets from dawn to midday, daydream 'til dusk, and sleep on the rooftops at night. This was all to change, however, for the day after his nineteenth birthday brought something new. Something he had only read about in stories. He fell in love with the daughter of an Innkeeper, an old, haggard man that wasn't very fond of Aethad. In his words, "Aethad is the scum of the world, the bottom feeder, never lifting a hand to help another. I forbid you to see him!" But she did, and they treasured each other. He promised her they would grow old together, that they'd leave the city and settle down far from the judgmental eyes of her father... But that time never came.

It was the day after his twentieth birthday. They carved their initials into the trunk of a tree, shared a loaf of bread Aethad had picked up from a traveling baker, and quietly watched people go about their daily lives. How could he have known the grain was infected? They fell ill. She was the first to die, but he followed shortly after.

-II-

He remembers the shrieks. He remembers the smell of burning flesh, and he remembers the countless lives he had ravaged under the Scourge's control... But above all, the freshest, most intense memory is that of his freedom. He stared down at the exposed bones of his arms and the sharpened claws of his hands. His decayed flesh was covered in dried blood, most of it belonging to other people, and his eyes were glowing a dim yellow in the darkness of the crypt. He emerged to learn that his mind was once again his own and set off towards the ruins of Lordaeron. He sprinted, but wasn't fatigued. He tripped, yet felt no pain. He was trapped in a body he didn't recognize, and the city he had once lived in was now a sanctuary for the Forsaken.

The Inn he had frequented had been burned down. He knelt in the pile of ash and searched around, pulling out a scorched journal belonging to his past lover. Aethad leafed through the pages, reliving the memories of their short lives together. He recalled a story his mother often told him. The story was, of course, fictitious, but he couldn't get it off his mind. His mom would go on and on about the Kraoth, a heartless monster that lurks in the dark, unseen by mortal eyes. He took the name and got rid of his old one, leaving 'Aethad Dresby' to die with his humanity. He grabbed the journal and headed off into Tirisfal Glades with a shovel and a dagger.

He came across the tree he and his loved one ate the plagued bread under, the one marked with their initials. It looked old and decrepit, not like it used to. This was where he would let go of the past. He dug a hole at the base of the tree and knelt beside it, carving his heart out with the dagger. He gently placed the journal at the bottom and rested his lifeless heart on top, burying the two objects. He was no longer Aethad Dresby. He now calls himself Kraoth the Heartless, the monster of the story told to him long ago. For him to move on, he had to forget about his past life... and embrace a newfound darkness.