My (old) favorite character

Long before I discovered World of Warcraft, or any other MMO for that matter, is was a big fan of Role-Playing Games.  Big surprise, right?

While Dungeon's & Dragons was never really my thing, I played a lot of other RPGs: superhero RPGs, pretty much anything from Palladium Books, Vampire, Werewolf, and who knows what else.  

Now I have never been much of a role-player in Warcraft.  There just never seemed to be much point to.  That said, I do end up developing backstories for my favorite characters, fleshing out in my mind who and what they are.

Today, I'm going to talk a bit about my old favorite character: my Death Knight Thanatus (who will probably end up with a forced name-change when I put him through a server transfer).

Prior to becoming a Death Knight in the service of the Lich King and taking a new name, the man that would become Thanatus was a soldier in the armies of Lordaeron.  Early in his life he aspired to become a Paladin and join the Knights of the Silver Hand, but was denied the necessary instructions in order to become a Paladin.

Unknown to him, one of the Paladins that examined him for worthiness experienced a Light-given vision of the future.  Many details were foggy, but one thing was especially clear: Thanatus would twice betray his king.  The Paladin wrestled with what he should do with this knowledge, as the young man had not yet done anything wrong.  Ultimately, the Paladin denied Thanatus' petition to join the Knights.

Instead, Thanatus continued to train as a Warrior.  When Prince Arthas went north to confront Mal'Ganis, Thanatus went with him, and followed his orders to the letter.  He was a loyal and devoted soldier to his Prince.  As such he was one of the first to die and be raised as a Death Knight by the Lich King, the first betrayal of his rightful king, the king of Lordaeron.

The second betrayal was portrayed in-game during the Death Knight starting area, with the break from the Lich King.  

Prior to the expedition to Northrend, Thanatus married a young woman and was happy at the prospect of starting a family with her.  As preparations were being made to go to Northrend, Thanatus called upon the very same Paladin that had denied his entry into the Silver Hand, and asked the Paladin to take his wife to Stormwind.  Given the appearance of the Scourge in Lordaeron, Thanatus wanted his wife to be safe. 

Upon Thanatus' return to Stormwind as a Death Knight, walking through the streets one day, he encountered the Paladin and his wife.   They did not recognize him, but he recognized them.  It appeared that after his 'death', the Paladin and Thanatus' wife had grown close and married.  They had a young son that, to Thanatus' eye, looked nothing like the Paladin.  

Thanatus then devoted himself to protecting Stormwind and the Alliance from whatever enemies would harm it.  He cannot be a proper husband and father, but he can see to it that his child and the woman he loved have little to fear in living out their lives.

But the constant weight of death, in fact the need to inflict pain and death as a Death Knight, weighs on him.  He hopes one day that he will be able to lay aside that burden and live a more simple life.  The fact that he has obtained the legendary weapon Shadowmourne, which adds to the burden as it hungers for the souls of the living, complicates this even further.

So, that's a rough outline of who my Death Knight is.  Tomorrow, I'll describe what I've come up with for my new favorite character.

What about you?  Do any of you create backstories for your characters?

Returning to Azeroth, but making a change

From what I can remember I've been playing World of Warcraft, off and on, since about 6 months after the game originally launched.  I had just gotten a new job, and discovered that several of my co-workers were in a guild together.  Having what I assumed would be an easy admittance to a raiding guild made idea of trying out a new MMO really appealing.  So I gave it a try.

I started on Doomhammer, in order to join the guild that my co-workers were in.  Eventually that guild disbanded when the guild leader and founder decided it was time for him to take a break from the game.  So I and a few others formed a new guild, including many of the people we'd already been playing with, and continued forward.

Eventually, Blizzard offered free character/guild transfers to a newer, low population server, since Doomhammer was one of the older servers and fairly highly populated (read: laggy).  We all took the transfer from Doomhammer to Dawnbringer.

In the time since then, that second guild disbanded and a third was formed...which has also subsequently disbanded.  Every time I would re-subscribe and log into the game I would find few, if any, familiar faces.  And given Dawnbringer's lower population, and therefore lower number of truly successful raiding guilds, that left me with little to do that I enjoyed in the game.

There are times that I enjoy other aspects of the game, or at least give them an honest try.  I've even tried PvP occasionally.  (I hate it, and am horrible at it, in case you're wondering.)  But my favorite activity by far is raiding, so recently my only real option has been running LFR.

But LFR can only get you so far, is constantly riddled with problems, and you can't get any of the cool stuff from LFR.  Like the heirloom weapons from Garrosh, or the achievement earned mount from clearing Siege of Orgrimmar on at least normal.  And I would really like to get those.

So, here I am, back in the game again, but I'm not staying on Dawnbringer.  I've created a brand new warlock on Stormrage, and I'm going to try and get into a guild that's at least clearing Siege on normal.

Wish me luck!