Ulwey

Information

Player: Sol

Character Name: Ul'wey

Character In-Game Name: Ulwey

Nicknames: Ul

Associations: Himself. The Steamwheedle Cartel, unwillingly.

Race: Troll

Class: Hunter

Skills and Abilities: Very few. Apart from a working knowledge of fletching, bowmaking and how to handle animals, he doesn't have many.

Age: Twenty-three

Sex: Male

Hair: Dark blue, shaven-headed

Eyes: Yellow

Weight: About a hundred and thirty pounds. Utterly emaciated.

Height: Pushing seven feet.

Appearance

Usual Garments/Armour: A pair of shredded trousers several sizes too small for him fall limply around his knees, and rusted iron manacles jingle at the ends of his limbs like bracelets and anklets.

Other: Besides the letters branded on either shoulder, the deep, leathery clefts torn into his back from repetitive flogging and the birthmark to the right of his tailbone, there's not much distinctive about this troll.

Personality

The politest way to describe Ul'wey would be 'subdued'. He seems passive in everything he does – rarely smiles, rarely moves, rarely speaks with any sort of tone in his voice unless he's specifically instructed to do so. A perhaps more impolite turn of phrase for the troll's disposition would be 'an empty husk'. He is blunt and laconic in everything he says, but nonetheless unfailingly deferent and polite to those who hold authority over him. Only among fellow slaves does he open up, and even then, he does so sparingly.

Most of the time, he seems to have been stripped of all wills except the will to keep on living. The only breaks in his bored and apathetic demeanour are the occasional demonstrations of a sardonic sense of humour, and the even rarer bouts of psychotic anger and fury that occasionally grip him when he's particularly frustrated. Both of these things would suggest that he's not nearly as subdued as people think, and nor is he an empty husk – not completely. Internally, Ul'wey helps his days go by by fantasising about the horrible vengeances he might one day inflict on his Cartel masters, and keeps playing the diligent worker in the hopes that he may yet be able to enact them.

. . . Of course, Ul'wey's recently escaped slavery and already we're starting to see changes in his demeanour. He remains generally subservient to others and wary of strangers, but is far more open about his opinions and beliefs. He is quicker to crack a joke nowadays and much quicker to rise into a rage, especially when confronted with Cartel representatives or slavers. He also demonstrates incredible piety and superstition relating to troll religion that seems unprecedented in him.

History

Born to in a small village to a small tribe in Stranglethorn Vale, Ul'wey was raised as all troll boys are raised – to hunt, to fight and to protect the tribe. In his childhood, he distinguished himself by being an arrogant bastard with barely enough fighting prowess to back his self-obsession up. Overbearing and obnoxious in his sense of superiority to his fellows, you might say he got just what was coming to him in his early teens when he tried to single-handedly chase off a band of Colonel Kurzen's men who were unwittingly encroaching on his tribe's historic territory. Unfortunately, his botched attempt at fighting them informed them of a troll settlement in the area, leading to the whole tribe being cast in manacles. The general sentiment among Ul'wey's friends and family was 'good going, jackass.' They haven't really been on speaking terms since.

Kurzen's men forced Ul'wey and the other boys of his tribe into a gladiatorial tournament of their own making. The tournament was brought to an end when their officers got involved, but this wasn't before Ul'wey had been forced to beat no less than three of his former friends to death with a rock. The survivors of the tournament, as well as the rest of the tribe, were escorted to a nearby Venture Company base of operations and sold off at a discount. After all, the Venture Company needed labourers, and the soldiers needed money for booze and whores the next time they passed through Booty Bay.

Ul'wey's mid-teens were marked by a steady progression from one mine to another. From gold to silver, coal to iron, mithril to crystals and stones of all kinds, he spent several years of his life diligently stripping Stranglethorn of its famed mineral wealth, one swing of a pick at a time. Once, at sixteen, Ul'wey took part in a botched uprising. I say 'botched' not because it was unsuccessful – it was, and he fled out into the jungle – but because soon after he fled, he was captured by another group of slavers, this one working for the Steamwheedle Cartel. He was carted off in chains to Booty Bay, where he's remained since.

He's bounced from one owner to another in his time there – first working for a fletcher, then for a bowyer, then for a veterinarian and so forth. More recently, after disappointing one master in particular, he was sold back onto the Cartel's trafficking circuit and is currently expecting to be herded onto a boat, from which to be taken to some far-off land and sold to some far-off master.