Vaelrithrax

Overview

Her true name is Vaelrithrax, though she does not use it. To the world she moves through she is Thiryn Vael — a sell-sword with a particular appetite for uprisings and losing causes. A devote Follower of the Hollowfall Arathi's particular brand of the light. And, to those who have watched her turn a conflict around in the span of a single engagement, something harder to categorize. There are also those, men and women of the field of battle who have survived enough engagements to see her work, who call her Lady Vileshard. This name is spoken not in reverence, as the title would imply. It is rather spoken as if telling a ghost story around a campfire amongst children.

Born a Dracthyr of the Forbidden Reach, She Broke off from her kind early enough that natural integration never became something she experienced. Others awoken alongside her worked with the Horde or Alliance military forces, rubbing elbows with the elites and being treated as beings to be venerated, if perhaps skeptically. That was not the path she chose. She walked the battlefields of the lesser folks, finding herself deeply ingrained in almost every minor conflict that the higher powers could not be bothered with. What she has built since is a reputation in the kinds of conflict that reputable mercenaries decline — uprisings, resistance efforts, the messy turning points that history cleans up and names later — She has been a part of many of them, and few realize just to what extent.

Appearance

Visage Form

She holds a strong preference for her visage form, though she does not present it as concealment, at least not anymore. Her draconic nature bleeds through, the horns and the scale markings and the particular air of authority that does not read as human... Her presentation is not a Charade, but she couldn't have come up with a better one if she wanted to.

In visage she is fair-skinned, with golden hair worn down — choppy, shoulder-length, the ends bleeding into deep red, the kind of cut that looks deliberate without looking careful. Her horns are a pale crimson at the base, darkening to near-obsidian black at the tips. She is tall, with sharp-featured and a posture that reeks of someone who's spent a lifetime on the field of battle, but not as a soldier.

Her draconic scales show through as if seams of her visage — deep purple-black along her forearms and lower legs, like she is wearing herself underneath herself. Her eyes are a bright emerald orbs that scan the field of battle or a quiet tavern room with the same white-hot intensity.

Her clothing when around a city, or in her lodging, is simple silvermoon style comfort wear, though she finds herself leaning more and more into less formal attire whenever possible. When out in the wider world, she is heavily armored from head to toe, with a massive greatsword slung upon her back. An artifact on her hip is worn openly in either situation, a shard of dark emerald and black crystalline matter set in a harness at her side. It does not look like a weapon, nor does it look like it belongs to anything currently living. People who ask about it are told it is an heirloom, which is not a lie, exactly.

Her greatsword is another matter. While Thiryn is an accomplished swordsmith and has a habit of changing the blade she carries into battle on a whim, her current blade is ivory crystal beneath a sheath of amber fire. The crossguard bears sun-disc motifs in burnished gold - Arathi iconography, worn and devotional, the kind of craftsmanship that speaks to conviction. A golden ring anchors the pommel.

Dracthyr Form

Few have even seen this. Those who have rarely live to tell the tale. She does not linger in this form, her visage is who she is. Only in the heat of battle, or when she desperately needs to escape from a tight situation, will she break the visage and fight or flee as her "true" self.

Personality

What she presents to the world is Brash and ill-tempered when she's not talking business, but then generous in ways that catch people off-guard once talks of business begin. Killing is her business, and business is good. She is excellent company when she has decided to be, which is a different thing from being trustworthy, a distinction most arrive at too late, if at all.

She holds her own codes and keeps them, and extends no particular interest in anyone else's. She cares about putting food and drink in her belly. She cares about living to see another day on the field of battle. And she cares about gaining, and using, as much leverage as she can to make things turn out well for her, WITHOUT burning down bridges in the process. She is not one for short-term gains.

Recently, she has begun devoutly following the faith of the Arathi she met deep underground in Hallowfall. From the moment she saw the shining star of Beledar serving as the sun for the people living underground, she knew that the people devoted to it, people whom many would describe as fanatical, were people she wanted to emulate. She saw the strength of their conviction, the power of their zealotry... and how quickly people believed what they said when it was rooted in their faith. She carries that same conviction and zeal into every conflict she fights for now, and nobody ever doubts the word of one so grounded in their faith in the light.

This also gives the ideal obfuscation for her loyalties if and when she's asked. Is she loyal to the Horde? She is loyal to Beledar! Is she truly fighting for our side in this conflict? She fights for justice, and for the spread of her faith across the land. How did she show up at such an opportune moment in our small conflict? The Light of Beledar shined before her and guided her where she needed to be. For every question as to her motive or convenient appearance, she now had an answer that would be good enough for most.

Backstory

Neltharion made the Dracthyr as soldiers, something went wrong with the Forbidden Reach, and they slept for twenty thousand years. This is the version she tells when she tells it at all, delivered with the brevity of someone who has decided the story ends there.

When she woke she moved quickly. She surveyed what remained of the world Neltharion had moved through and declined the Dragonscale Expedition's project of reintegration — no patron, no plan, no one with a workable idea of what a Dracthyr soldier was meant to become in a world that had grown for so long without her. She would not present herself to anyone as a problem to be solved or a soldier to be pointed. She would become, through whatever means were available to her, someone the world would remember.

Relationships

None established.

Story Appearances

None yet.

Notes

Aliases: Thiryn Vael (public name) · Lady Vileshard (Battlefield Nickname) · Vaelrithrax (true name, rarely used)

Trades: She mines and she works metal. The mining is practical — she has an eye for what the earth is hiding and what it is worth, and she finds the work grounding in a way she would not admit to. The smithing is something she has chosen not to call a calling, but the precision she brings to it says otherwise: specifically blades, specifically greatswords, specifically the question of why a weapon holds or fails at the moment it is asked to matter. In the field she maintains her own weapons and, when paid, others'. Between contracts she makes money crafting and selling to whoever is buying. It has been noted, by those who pay attention to these things, that whoever is buying is not always on the same side of the next engagement.

Voice/tone: Confident, clear-cut, and measured. She know what she wants to say, and she says it with gusto.

Key quote: "Killing is my Business, lads. and Business... is good."