Player Name: kate
Are you 16 or older: yup
Contact: oeste 
Current Characters: Alice Quinn
Tag: Vorrick Longshadow

IN CHARACTER
Name: Vorrick Longshadow; He would've told everyone upon arrival that he was "Cannae Spearfall" for network purposes.
Canon: World of Warcraft (OC)
Canon Point: Just after Arthas' death in Wrath of the Lich King.
Age: ~130s. Elves have long lifespans and fandom can never agree on how they actually age. He's an adult, and has been considered one for several decades, but he's relatively young for his species.

History:

Here's a long article about his species' history, if that's your thing.

The only son of wealthy apothecaries with blood ties to traders throughout the northern human kingdoms.

After he demonstrated an early magical sensitivity, Vorrick's parents pushed him hard to begin studying to become a mage, banking their family's future on the idea that he'd one day enter the Magistry (a body of mages helping to govern their kingdom). However, a series of tutors deemed his skills insufficient to further development.

Sent to live with his extended family for a few years in response to this perceived failure, Vorrick took to the rejection by acting out and engaging in increasingly reckless behaviour. Though academically talented, he lacked the discipline to make anything of it, and consistently did his best to fall in with the wrong crowd. His youth was tumultuous, and he barely stayed out of legal trouble on several occasions.

When the Second War came, Vorrick was old enough to serve as a scout. The combat that he saw convinced him to get his act together in its aftermath. Things went well for a while, and he reconciled with his family and began preparing to take over their business.

THEN UNDEAD HAPPENED. When the Scourge invaded, the elven population was devastated. Everyone lost someone; Vorrick lost everyone. He survived only by swimming out to sea, and watched the city burn from a distance. It was more than a day before he dared to try and make it back to shore, and by that time, his family had already perished.

Reconnecting with a friend who had also chanced to survive, the two made their way to a refugee camp. She fell seriously ill from magical withdrawal, and with healing resources strained to their limit, Vorrick became increasingly desperate to see her recover. One night, in a fit of rage and helplessness, he attacked a man outside their tent who'd been frequently harassing them at night. The ensuing scuffle resulted in his death.

Terrified of retribution from the slowly-recovering, patchwork Thalassian legal system, Vorrick sought help from a distant connection he'd made during the Second War. As a result, he was recruited into the Sunfury forces preparing to establish a new state in the world of Draenor. Initially relieved, Vorrick bought into the idea of Draenor as a "promised land" for the elves, and justified leaving his friend with the idea that he'd be working for the greater good.

Things went south when he was posted to a mana forge in Netherstorm, unknowingly under the management of a demon. They went south...ier... as the troops were increasingly kept drugged to ensure their loyalty, and as it became more apparent that the leadership didn't have their homeland's best interests at heart.

In the final days of mana forge Ara, Vorrick made contact with a Lord Daetharis Spearfall, a member of the Magistry sent to infiltrate the Sunfury. Desperate for a way out, Vorrick agreed to work with Spearfall to help clear paths into the forge for the Scryer and Aldor forces looking to retake it.

Brought back to Quel'thalas with the rest of the surviving Sunfury, Vorrick spent time under the supervision and magical "reeducation" of Magistry officials, a brainwashing process meant to emphasize his loyalty to the state. Most of his fellows were integrated into the Farstriders, a military group defending Quel'thalas' borders, but Daetharis held up his end of the deal, and pulled strings to have Vorrick released into his family's service.

For the past several years Vorrick's been working for him personally, as a spy within the Spearfall family's messy internal politics, and as a hand in shady dealings outside of it. The job grants him a greater degree of freedom than he'd otherwise experience, and he's been using that opportunity to backslide hard into old, bad habits.

Since leaving Netherstorm's constant high-level suffusion of magical energy, Vorrick's also been increasingly heavily dependent on mana obtained from fel crystals and other unsavoury sources. Though functional at his job, Vorrick's an addict, and it's increasingly altering his behaviour and inhibiting his personal life.

His employers have largely tolerated this, feeling that it focuses Vorrick and gives them a greater deal of leverage over him. However, as a blood elf, Vorrick's addiction to magic has begun to alter his physiology. He's way into denial, but he's showing the earliest signs of one day becoming a wretched. If things continue along their current path, his body and mind will begin to deteriorate accordingly.



Personality:

Vorrick is a bundle of uncomfortable contradictions, largely defined by the way that others perceive him. Though he bucks the notion that he’s anything other than an independent spirit, he craves both approval, and the freedom to reject it.

Throughout his life, Vorrick has felt a sense of bitterness that he deserved better than he’s gotten; from himself and from the people around him. The result is a sarcastic little shit who doesn’t always know when to stop running his mouth. He’s clever, but enjoys playing the fool around people in positions of power, or that he otherwise dislikes, enjoying the attention and the sense of having tricked them into underestimating him. To a degree, Vorrick is attracted to power, and wants to be around it. He doesn't like having the sense that he's important so much as that he’s independent enough to disagree with important people.

It’s all pretty monumentally stupid.

Vorrick considers himself a coward, feeling like he’s consistently betrayed the people and organizations in his life in order to save his own skin. He acts too bravely to try and make up for it, plunging into reckless actions, and refusing to learn from his many mistakes. A low opinion of himself feeds most of his self-destructive behaviour, believing that it’s not as though anyone will be worse off without him.

Despite the cynicism he wears on his sleeve, Vorrick keeps a quiet soft spot of moral nobility. At his heart, he believes in looking out for the little guy, and in taking the time and effort to do the right thing. He’s intense with his loyalties — whether to country, cause, or individuals — and hides it because he sees it as a point of weakness. Vorrick feels strongly that the times that he’s tried to do right are the opportunities that have been most often used against him. Nevertheless, he can be quite self-sacrificing if he cares for someone; primarily out of the feeling that they deserve it for putting up with him.

Vorrick is hard to keep down, and tenacious to a fault in whatever he considers a conflict. In a fight, he’ll keep getting up until he physically can’t stand; in a disagreement, he’ll keep picking at old scabs for as long as a relationship allows. It's the flip side to his loyalty, or maybe just another face of it: He just can't let shit go.

Vorrick can be aggressive, particularly when cornered. His first instinct is always to fight, and he often lashes out when he feels threatened. He enjoys the sense of freedom that he gains from destruction, of himself and of the world around him. He likes a good fight, and he doesn’t always care if he wins. It’s part of why he’s content to ignore his worsening symptoms: For all that Vorrick feels trapped by his body’s addiction, he almost hopes that it gets worse. Death would mean that he could stop having to feel things. 

Vorrick's time in Outland and subsequent reeducation left his head a mess, and he tends to panic if someone suggests messing around in it further. Psychiatrists and counsellors are his anathema, for all that he could probably use their help. Vorrick’s highly superstitious, and it’s difficult sometimes to draw the line between harmless belief and some genuinely crossed wires. He uses a system of internal, arbitrary symbols to relate to people and to consider his life — for example, magic as a concept is attached strongly to the image of a serpent. His thought processes are often abstract, and absurdism subsequently appeals to him, whether in humour or art. 

...And Vorrick does like to think of himself as an artist. He enjoys thinking of himself as an outsider, and the arts fit neatly into that flawed narrative. It’s a neglected hobby, but what he lacks in execution, he at least makes up for in enthusiasm.

The result of a nationalist upbringing, brainwashing, and several species-based wars is a wary racism against most non-blood elves. Vorrick's fought against trolls and orcs before, and despite their current alliance, he'll always treat them with a degree of suspicion. Similarly, it's impossible for him to separate the draenei from his experiences in Outland; he's not going to cozy up to them any time soon.

It's humans, though, where things get complicated. Despite his family's extensive human ties, he feels personally betrayed by humanity for their refusal to help Quel'thalas when the country was in need. On the Moira, he'll do his best to shove this down, as he recognizes that he’s completely surrounded. But it’ll colour his interactions, and he’ll be slower to trust humans as a result. If any non-elven folks from Azeroth show up, he's likely to be outright hostile.

Vorrick copes with the perceived loss of freedom by focusing on his job to an extreme, and by seeking anything that will put him out of his right mind for a while. It makes him a doggedly persistent employee, and tempers his otherwise erratic behaviour while on the job. Outside of it, however, it’s curtailed his personal life into a very small circle of similar thrill-seekers. He’s driven away his remaining friends for lack of room; it’s hard to keep up with your work life and your drug life when you have to do things like be there for other people. 

Having less of an obligation to work on the Moira will leave him a bit adrift, and subsequently more likely to interact with others. 

Abilities/Skills: 

Mana Dependency -

Like all blood elves, Vorrick is highly sensitive to and dependent upon magical energy. Though elves can learn to control this "hunger", his time in Netherstorm and genetic predisposition have both pushed him past the point where that's quite possible.

Vorrick needs to regularly drain magical energy. Feeding to surplus, or an irregularity in the energy used, may produce a physical and emotional "high". However, over time this will cause increasing damage to his body and mind, eventually causing increasingly erratic or violent behaviour, and physical deterioration. I'd rather that this not be healed by the Ingress.


Magical Resistance - Meanwhile, his regular exposure to magical energy means that he has a slight resistance to some types of spells. I'll put up a permissions post for this and for all subsequent abilities discussed here.

Mana Sense - Vorrick can sense some types of magical energy.

Mana Tap - Drains magical energy from a caster, object, or the surrounding environment. 

Mana Torrent - Releases stored magical energy in a rush, temporarily disrupting a spellcaster. 

Fisticuffs - Vorrick's a dirty fighter who's good with a knife, and with his fists. 

Standard Sneaky Rogue Stuff - He's good at moving quietly, hiding, and following people. Running and climbing and doing semi-parkour shit is also in his wheelhouse. He knows some basic ciphers and codes, and has good hand-eye coordination.

Plants & Potions - Vorrick is a trained alchemist with experience in cultivating rare herbs. Though he's disinclined to practice any kind of alchemy out of respect for his parents' death, he knows how to create basic restorative and ability-enhancing draughts, with a specialty to poisons. Just. Good luck ever actually getting him to make them.


Strengths/Weaknesses: 

STRENGTHS

• Quick n' sneaky
• Persistent, tenacious
• Occasionally clever
• Green thumb
• Heart of gold tinfoil
• Doubles as a portable nightlight

WEAKNESSES

• Reckless
• Cynical
• DTF (down to fight)
• Addictive personality
• Eventual increasing physical weakness and mental instability
• Terrible awful poetry

Items: 

• Clothes: Pants, a high-collared shirt, a long leather coat, boots.
• A bandana/Scarf Thing
• Two concealed knives.
• A small belt pouch.
• A series of scandalous love letters, written in a bad cipher, between a Lady Melody Firstfeather and "Lady Snugglebuns".
• A small fel crystal.

SAMPLES
Network Sample: 

[ It's a slow drawl, almost carefully so, like someone's trying very hard to make themselves clearly understood. ]

Not that I don’t appreciate free jewelry full of tiny talking voices,

[ He doesn't. ]

But I don't suppose that none of you know how to get this thing off?

I’ve tried prying it, and cutting it, and slamming it on the wall a few times, and even asking it real polite, but no dice. Melting it's off the table, I like my skin, but otherwise all suggestions are. [ A huff of breath. ] Seriously welcome.

For future reference, flowers are a great gift that don't so much say “I’m into the kinky abduction of strangers”.

Prose/Action Sample: TDM with Obi-Wan Kenobi.