Marwaz

Information

Player: c0rzilla

Character: Mar'waz'fon

Character In-Game Name: Marwaz

Character Nickname(s): Ol' Marwaz, Witch, Zufli

Association(s): Follower of Mueh'zala

Race: Troll

Class: Priest

Skills and Abilities:

• She is a shadow priestess, specializing in its power over death. Not so much about the control and manipulation of the mind, except perhaps to induce vivid nightmares and illusions. These are not very powerful, and are usually aided by a hallucinogenic tipped blow dart.

• She has some alchemical skill, required for voodoo rituals, though she is no Witch Doctor.

• She makes her living as a fortune teller, tossing etched rocks. She is skilled in reading these, but who can say if they're true?

• Whenever things concerning death cross her path, be it graveyards, Forsaken, Death Knights, or bad omens she will hear the chirping of crickets. Whether this is Mueh'zala's voice or her own auditory hallucinations is anyone's guess. But, it's kept her on her toes so far.

• With Mueh'zala as the Loa of Night, she has worked to map the night skies diligently.

• Her Shadowform reflects her devotion. A starry void seems to slowly spin in the darkness, as if her translucent form contained the passing night sky. A soft auditory effect of crickets can be heard as well.

Age: 25

Alignment: Neutral

Sex: Female

Hair: Orange, shot through with blood red.

Eyes: Topaz

Weight: 230

Height: 7'

Appearance

Usual Garments/Armor: Elegant but tattered red dress, traded to her for her services years ago. Dress has been altered to a degree with a number of added pockets. She possess no armor. A weapon might be a feathered staff, or dagger, or a blow dart tube. A trollish ceremonial mask is stashed away amongst her possessions as well.

Other: Usually seen with long wooden cigarette holder. Dotted tattoos line under her eyes and along her cheekbones.

Personality

A fitting analogy would be a coiled serpent in the shade. Usually quite casual and languid. Watchful. Thinks she's hot stuff, confident in her looks. However, does get giddy about things she can smoke. Walks tall and proud with a saunter. Can be a flirt, especially if she wants something. Enjoys disturbing the typically "handsome" men with her advances, though she is never serious. Quite good at identifying other people's feelings from her years of reading, but has trouble identifying and dealing with her own emotions.

Not overly trusting of males due to the general lack of gender equality in troll society. Her business is open to most races, but she is hesitant about reading fortunes for other trolls due to the historical admonition of female users of voodoo. If, by chance, a man were to garner any legitimate attraction from her, she would fiercely fight to fend him off.

Due to her brush with Mueh'zala, she is very sensitive and superstitious about anything to do with death. She also has something of a suppressed phobia of crickets.

History

Mar'waz lived eight years of her life in a small settlement of the vicious Bloodscalp tribe in Northwest Stranglethorn. It was a traditional tribe, still holding onto the old savage ways. One unbreakable aspect of this being the restriction of females in society. The settlement was led by an elder male Witch Doctor, surrounded by his multiple wives. During her short childhood there, Mar'waz would assist her mother in various domestic tasks while admiring the adult male hunters and shamans, wondering who she would be wed off to one day. Unfortunately this would be a difficult task, her mother admonished her, due to all of little Marwaz's questions about voodoo. A practice strictly forbidden to women.

One night, the Witch Doctor finishes a ritual for a festival honoring the Loa Mueh'zala, the Loa of Death, Father of Sleep, Son of Time, and the Night's Friend. Being very secure in his position, and being distracted by a couple of new females he was thinking of claiming as his own he left an important gris-gris unwatched in his hut. This hut was forbidden to females outside of the Witch Doctor's harem and other lower tribe members. Precocious Mar'waz was able to sneak into the hut, curious about the gris-gris' power. She touched it, felt it, ignoring the strange chittering cricket-like sound growing in the back of her mind. Eventually her hands couldn't be moved, seemingly bound to the item. Marwaz sttruggled and screamed, trying to free herself. The scream awoke something in the gris-gris, pushing Marwaz back, and releasing its grip on her. She hit the ground, falling unconscious for about a day from the impact and the power she disturbed. After the twenty-four hours passed, she awoke to an extremely displeased Witch Doctor and group of tribal elders. Befitting her position, her punishment consisted of a severe beating from the elders, and a brief starving from her parents. Everything seemed normal for a couple days, as she went about her menial duties after the punishment subsided.

That is, until she started talking about the constant chittery noise.

The other tribe members brushed it off as childish play, and a desire for attention. As the noise went on, Mar'waz began to develop an outright fear of crickets. A very unfortunate condition in the middle of a jungle. One peaceful, cricket-filled night, after a couple weeks have passed, the sound drove her into a rage. After this episode Mar'waz was banished, accused of being possessed and bringing Mueh'zala's wrath on the tribe. Lost now, she wandered Stranglethorn for the next six years, hunting small animals, using the few skills she learned in her eight years. Not having much left she decides to seriously consider voodoo.

At fourteen years of age she encountered an adult troll named Gamba. He had been camping out in the jungle for a number of days. Every so often a small voodoo artifact pf his would go missing, or maybe a piece of food. Eventually he set up a makeshift trap to catch the thief.

What was caught? A guilty Mar'waz.

Gambwe, after an inquisition into who she was and what she wanted offered to teach her the ways of voodoo and fortune telling.

On one dark condition.

Until Mar'waz's first born entered the world her spirit belonged to him. Being a rash fourteen year old, she accepted. Together, they made their way to a small cave in Stonetalon near Malaka'jin, one of Gambwe's many "homes" throughout the world. Here, she spent the next five years under Gambwe's odd tutelage. Suffering tricks like being told to watch a cooking pot while she was outside as Gambwe leaves a broom at the entrance to the cave before he leaves, so she can't enter. Her hair and small amounts of her blood being used for his own rituals. Being sent to find seemingly impossible items. After five years had passed Gambwe leaves, passing the cave onto her for the time being. For the next six years until the present day, Marwaz tells fortunes, trades small wares she gains, and makes sure the wards she has set up around the cave are still working to keep Gambwe out.