Kyladriss of the Ebon Blade (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
zombiewolf) wrote2011-10-06 07:17 pm
zombiewolf) wrote2011-10-06 07:17 pm
Application, Talent Tree & Spellbook
The abilities which have been removed from Kyladriss's spellbook are Raise Dead, Army of the Read and Raise Ally.
Personality
Kyladriss is a woman torn between two natures. As a human, she was a simple girl with simple needs, of a fairly bland personality and unremarkable looks. The worgen curse transformed her into a savage, giving her a cruel and violent streak a mile wide. When the compulsion of the Scourge to take life and spill blood was added, she became an uncontrollable monster. While her human mind has been returned to her, she still suffers from the Scourge compulsion. Therefore Kyladriss is a woman constantly on a hair-trigger. She has only recently begun to control her nature after twenty years of savagery and bloodletting. While in the Scourge army, she was so feared that she was never approached. Now she has the awkward and frequently angering task of re-integrating into a society that fears and reviles both the worgen and death knight parts of her. She is constantly frustrated with herself and everyone else around her, has no friends, and doesn't really know how to make them.
The things she did while under Arthas's control plague her nightmares, but while awake Kyladriss denies all personal responsibility. How could she be in control of her actions, with both the worgen curse and the whispers of the Lich King driving her blade? She meets accusations of atrocities with scorn and refuses to apologize for any supposed misdeeds. Although she has regained her human mind, Kyladriss still takes vicious delight in battle and slaughter because it relieves the tension of her death knight nature. While she does desire to become a part of civilized Azerothian society, at every turn she is confronted with evidence that she and others like her have no place in Azeroth off the battlefield. She projects her anger at her circumstances at everyone around her and makes little effort to control her words or actions when she sees disgust directed at her. She has several times been accused of going too far in the war effort - particularly against the Horde - and always justifies herself by pointing out that they are at war and Horde are the enemy. Kyladriss has no causes of her own, but when she chooses to fight on a particular side she will view the other as the enemy, always. She is so full of anger and vicious intent that it is very easy to get her to hate an enemy.
Kyladriss is not loyal, she is not easy to deal with, and she is not friendly. Her only saving grace and the only reason she is kept around as useful is that when she is pointed in a direction and let loose, she is able to destroy most of what is in her path. As with all Azerothian adventurers, one of her is often worth five to ten normal soldiers. Her first concern is herself and her own survival. However, she is intelligent enough to know that there are some times when allying yourself with others is both prudent and necessary. She can and will ingratiate herself with those in power, and is not reckless enough to break laws that would have her imprisoned or executed.
She has a strong dislike for small, tight places, and can be sent into a bloodthirsty rage if kept in one too long. Despite her human mind, her mannerisms and habits are primarily wolflike. She is a hunter and a warrior and is interested in little else. She does have professions, but only to get by, and would not consider them a part of her personality. Even though inscription and herbalism do provide an almost meditative calm, they remind her of when she was fully human and thus remind her she can never be so again. She's a vicious, furry ball of rage, teeth and undead magic, and inspires as much fear in her allies as she does her enemies.
History (plus some worgen lore)
The Worgen race was originally a sect of Azerothian druids, the Druids of the Scythe, who took on the aspect of the wolf ancient, Goldrinn. Unfortunately Goldrinn's power proved too dangerous for them to control, and the druids lost themselves in their shapeshifted form, becoming savage and violent. The other night elf druids imprisoned their brethren in the Emerald Dream, where they formed a pack-based patriarchal society.
Centuries later, the Kirin Tor archmage Arugal summoned the worgen back to Azeroth to aid in the fight against the Scourge. Unfortunately the savage worgen could not be controlled, and began menacing the region around Dalaran (then-located in Hillsbrad Foothills). Arugal was exiled, and angrily took over a nearby keep which he ruled with his pack of summoned worgen. Sylvanas and her Forsaken rangers discovered the existence of the archmage and, with the help of several adventurers, launched an attack. They discovered that among other atrocities, Arugal was experimenting on the keep's human staff - among them Kyladriss, a young housemaid - and had turned a number of them into worgen-creatures who only shifted under the light of the moon.
Arugal was defeated, but the keep was too overrun to be retaken by any but the worgen pack that now ruled it. Kyladriss and her packmates were some of these worgen, who lived in the renamed Shadowfang Keep for several years. Kyladriss, as a female, would never have any position of power in the pack and therefore served as a hunter and border guard of the territory. Worgen society functioned like a large wolf pack, and disagreements were solved through violence. Worgen were a cannabalistic society, practicing ritual devouring of the dead because they believed their flesh would add strength to the living members of the pack.
Kyladriss's patrols took her to the edge of Forsaken territory quite frequently, and it was on one of these occasions that she was caught in the middle of a Scourge assault on a Forsaken camp and slain.
Worgen were something the Scourge had not previously seen. The corpses of Kyladriss and the other members of her patrol were taken to Acherus in the Eastern Plaguelands, where Arthas himself was leading an assault on the Scarlet Crusade. There, using the power of undead beings known as the Val'kyr, Kyladriss was raised from the dead as a powerful member of the Scourge known as a Death Knight, one of Arthas's foremost soldiers on the front of the Scourge.
For Kyladriss, dying was the best thing that ever happened to her. She went from a lowly member of the Shadowfang pack to one of the most respected soldiers in the Scourge army. She commanded units of Death Knights and led the frontal assault on the Scarlet Crusade, which the Scourge rolled over like it was nothing. She was promoted rapidly through the Scourge ranks, and for the first time in her life and undeath, Kyladriss had success.
Unfortunately undeath was not all it was cracked up to be. The voice of Arthas whispered in Kyladriss's mind day and night, and she was consumed by a thirst for taking life. The slaughter of the Scarlet front appeased some of those appetites, but her bestial worgen instincts combined with Scourge of undeath to create a truly terrifying creature. None could approach her with anything less than the utmost respect or they would risk being torn to pieces. By the end of the assault on the Scarlet Crusade, Kyladriss was as alone as she was powerful.
Arthas's next move was to march on the Argent Dawn. Unfortunately for him, the powerful paladin Tirion Fordring was able to repel the attack. Arthas underestimated the power of holy ground and was forced to make a sudden retreat after his foremost death knight Thassarin defected on the battlefield, taking most of the other death knights with him. Despite the fact that she had no interest in leaving the Scourge, her commander's sudden retreat left Kyladriss in an uncomfortable position. She was personally responsible for the vicious slaughter of the Scarlet Crusade and many knights of the Argent Dawn. She had to be restrained in heavy chains by the most powerful members of the Argent Dawn and Ebon Blade. Many wanted simply to kill her, but Thassarin rightly pointed out that she would be a powerful asset to the war. And so she was left in the dungeons of Acheron until she was deemed useful.
Kyladriss never saw the Northrend battlefields where Arthas was eventually defeated and dethroned as the Lich King. She spent the war against the Scourge in a dungeon, only removed infrequently in order to drive Scourge forces back from Acheron. Then, on the eve of Azeroth's great Cataclysm, the Alliance made a terrifying and extraordinary discovery. The people of Gilneas, a nation walled off from the rest of Azeroth, had been cursed by the spreading plague of the worgen. The creatures had been steadily taking over more territory since their claim of Shadowfang Keep, and they now set their sights on Gilneas. Those of its people bitten or mauled in the attack by the worgen were transformed into worgen themselves. Beset on two fronts, Gilneas's king reached out desperately to the Alliance. The night elves of Darnassus answered his call. Remembering their ancient responsibility to and for the worgen, the Darnassian druids devised a way to return a transformed worgen to its human consciousness. The Gilnean people, though changed, would remain intact.
For Kyladriss, it was a chance to start again. With nothing to occupy their forces following the defeat of Arthas, Thassarin and his death knights retreated to their fortress of Acheron. Kyladriss was discovered in the dungeons, and Thassarin sent for a druid who could administer the cure. After twenty years of living as little more than a vicious beast, Kyladriss regained what little humanity was left to her - her mind.
It was like waking from a long nightmare to find that most of the nightmare was real. Kyladriss was still a worgen and still a death knight, a reviled creature in both respects. While she could now pass in human guise as long as she controlled her temper, in combat she would always revert to her worgen form. She would not taste food or drink as she had when she was alive, and she would always be plagued by the thirst for murder that came with undead knighthood.
She left Acheron and traveled to Stormwind without purpose. The cataclysm ravaging Azeroth gave her something to do, and with nowhere else to go, she threw herself into the war effort. Being a soldier was all she was good for now - civilian life did not agree with her, neither was it healthy for anyone near her. And so, until she was snatched by Stacy in the midst of Azeroth's destruction, Kyladriss fought on the front lines against the Horde, the Twilight's Hammer, and Deathwing's elemental minions.
Talents
Kyladriss's talent tree can be viewed here on Battle.net. She has a standard Blood tank spec, except that instead of taking Crimson Scourge I reserved those points for Lichborne and Endless Winter (moar interrupts).
Spellbook
Death Strike: A melee attack which absorbs the opponent's life energy to heal the death knight.
Blood Shield: Built up by Death Strike, a magical shield that utilizes the enemy's life force to absorb damage.
Bone Shield: A shield of magical bones with four charges, which will neutralize four blows and reduces damage while active.
Frost Fever/Blood Plague: Applied with Outbreak, these plagues of undeath cause damage over time to the enemy
Death and Decay: An area-of-effect attack which desecrates the ground around the death knight with unholy energy, damaging targets standing inside it.
Blood Boil: A ranged, area-of-effect attack which damages multiple targets
Death Grip: The death knight grips the strings which bind her target to life and pulls the target into melee range.
Mind Freeze/Strangulate: These abilities interrupt spellcasting and prevent the target from casting any more spells for a few seconds.
Anti-Magic Shield: For a short period of time, deflects all damaging magic
Dancing Rune Weapon: Summons a magical copy of the death knight's weapon, which deals the same attacks and increases the chance for the death knight to parry attacks.
Dark Simulacrum: Steals and copies any magical attack, giving the DK the ability to use that attack within a short window of time. The original attack is still cast.
Chains of Ice: Slows the target, also applies Frost Fever
Icebound Fortitude: The death knight freezes her blood, reducing damage taken for a short period of time.
Vampiric Blood/Rune Tap: Increases the death knight's maximum stamina and heals them for a small amount.
Acherus Deathcharger: Summons an undead warhorse.
Darkflight: A worgen racial ability. Allows the worgen to sprint very quickly for a short period of time.
Running Wild: A worgen racial ability. Allows the worgen to run as fast as a horse on all fours.
Personality
Kyladriss is a woman torn between two natures. As a human, she was a simple girl with simple needs, of a fairly bland personality and unremarkable looks. The worgen curse transformed her into a savage, giving her a cruel and violent streak a mile wide. When the compulsion of the Scourge to take life and spill blood was added, she became an uncontrollable monster. While her human mind has been returned to her, she still suffers from the Scourge compulsion. Therefore Kyladriss is a woman constantly on a hair-trigger. She has only recently begun to control her nature after twenty years of savagery and bloodletting. While in the Scourge army, she was so feared that she was never approached. Now she has the awkward and frequently angering task of re-integrating into a society that fears and reviles both the worgen and death knight parts of her. She is constantly frustrated with herself and everyone else around her, has no friends, and doesn't really know how to make them.
The things she did while under Arthas's control plague her nightmares, but while awake Kyladriss denies all personal responsibility. How could she be in control of her actions, with both the worgen curse and the whispers of the Lich King driving her blade? She meets accusations of atrocities with scorn and refuses to apologize for any supposed misdeeds. Although she has regained her human mind, Kyladriss still takes vicious delight in battle and slaughter because it relieves the tension of her death knight nature. While she does desire to become a part of civilized Azerothian society, at every turn she is confronted with evidence that she and others like her have no place in Azeroth off the battlefield. She projects her anger at her circumstances at everyone around her and makes little effort to control her words or actions when she sees disgust directed at her. She has several times been accused of going too far in the war effort - particularly against the Horde - and always justifies herself by pointing out that they are at war and Horde are the enemy. Kyladriss has no causes of her own, but when she chooses to fight on a particular side she will view the other as the enemy, always. She is so full of anger and vicious intent that it is very easy to get her to hate an enemy.
Kyladriss is not loyal, she is not easy to deal with, and she is not friendly. Her only saving grace and the only reason she is kept around as useful is that when she is pointed in a direction and let loose, she is able to destroy most of what is in her path. As with all Azerothian adventurers, one of her is often worth five to ten normal soldiers. Her first concern is herself and her own survival. However, she is intelligent enough to know that there are some times when allying yourself with others is both prudent and necessary. She can and will ingratiate herself with those in power, and is not reckless enough to break laws that would have her imprisoned or executed.
She has a strong dislike for small, tight places, and can be sent into a bloodthirsty rage if kept in one too long. Despite her human mind, her mannerisms and habits are primarily wolflike. She is a hunter and a warrior and is interested in little else. She does have professions, but only to get by, and would not consider them a part of her personality. Even though inscription and herbalism do provide an almost meditative calm, they remind her of when she was fully human and thus remind her she can never be so again. She's a vicious, furry ball of rage, teeth and undead magic, and inspires as much fear in her allies as she does her enemies.
History (plus some worgen lore)
The Worgen race was originally a sect of Azerothian druids, the Druids of the Scythe, who took on the aspect of the wolf ancient, Goldrinn. Unfortunately Goldrinn's power proved too dangerous for them to control, and the druids lost themselves in their shapeshifted form, becoming savage and violent. The other night elf druids imprisoned their brethren in the Emerald Dream, where they formed a pack-based patriarchal society.
Centuries later, the Kirin Tor archmage Arugal summoned the worgen back to Azeroth to aid in the fight against the Scourge. Unfortunately the savage worgen could not be controlled, and began menacing the region around Dalaran (then-located in Hillsbrad Foothills). Arugal was exiled, and angrily took over a nearby keep which he ruled with his pack of summoned worgen. Sylvanas and her Forsaken rangers discovered the existence of the archmage and, with the help of several adventurers, launched an attack. They discovered that among other atrocities, Arugal was experimenting on the keep's human staff - among them Kyladriss, a young housemaid - and had turned a number of them into worgen-creatures who only shifted under the light of the moon.
Arugal was defeated, but the keep was too overrun to be retaken by any but the worgen pack that now ruled it. Kyladriss and her packmates were some of these worgen, who lived in the renamed Shadowfang Keep for several years. Kyladriss, as a female, would never have any position of power in the pack and therefore served as a hunter and border guard of the territory. Worgen society functioned like a large wolf pack, and disagreements were solved through violence. Worgen were a cannabalistic society, practicing ritual devouring of the dead because they believed their flesh would add strength to the living members of the pack.
Kyladriss's patrols took her to the edge of Forsaken territory quite frequently, and it was on one of these occasions that she was caught in the middle of a Scourge assault on a Forsaken camp and slain.
Worgen were something the Scourge had not previously seen. The corpses of Kyladriss and the other members of her patrol were taken to Acherus in the Eastern Plaguelands, where Arthas himself was leading an assault on the Scarlet Crusade. There, using the power of undead beings known as the Val'kyr, Kyladriss was raised from the dead as a powerful member of the Scourge known as a Death Knight, one of Arthas's foremost soldiers on the front of the Scourge.
For Kyladriss, dying was the best thing that ever happened to her. She went from a lowly member of the Shadowfang pack to one of the most respected soldiers in the Scourge army. She commanded units of Death Knights and led the frontal assault on the Scarlet Crusade, which the Scourge rolled over like it was nothing. She was promoted rapidly through the Scourge ranks, and for the first time in her life and undeath, Kyladriss had success.
Unfortunately undeath was not all it was cracked up to be. The voice of Arthas whispered in Kyladriss's mind day and night, and she was consumed by a thirst for taking life. The slaughter of the Scarlet front appeased some of those appetites, but her bestial worgen instincts combined with Scourge of undeath to create a truly terrifying creature. None could approach her with anything less than the utmost respect or they would risk being torn to pieces. By the end of the assault on the Scarlet Crusade, Kyladriss was as alone as she was powerful.
Arthas's next move was to march on the Argent Dawn. Unfortunately for him, the powerful paladin Tirion Fordring was able to repel the attack. Arthas underestimated the power of holy ground and was forced to make a sudden retreat after his foremost death knight Thassarin defected on the battlefield, taking most of the other death knights with him. Despite the fact that she had no interest in leaving the Scourge, her commander's sudden retreat left Kyladriss in an uncomfortable position. She was personally responsible for the vicious slaughter of the Scarlet Crusade and many knights of the Argent Dawn. She had to be restrained in heavy chains by the most powerful members of the Argent Dawn and Ebon Blade. Many wanted simply to kill her, but Thassarin rightly pointed out that she would be a powerful asset to the war. And so she was left in the dungeons of Acheron until she was deemed useful.
Kyladriss never saw the Northrend battlefields where Arthas was eventually defeated and dethroned as the Lich King. She spent the war against the Scourge in a dungeon, only removed infrequently in order to drive Scourge forces back from Acheron. Then, on the eve of Azeroth's great Cataclysm, the Alliance made a terrifying and extraordinary discovery. The people of Gilneas, a nation walled off from the rest of Azeroth, had been cursed by the spreading plague of the worgen. The creatures had been steadily taking over more territory since their claim of Shadowfang Keep, and they now set their sights on Gilneas. Those of its people bitten or mauled in the attack by the worgen were transformed into worgen themselves. Beset on two fronts, Gilneas's king reached out desperately to the Alliance. The night elves of Darnassus answered his call. Remembering their ancient responsibility to and for the worgen, the Darnassian druids devised a way to return a transformed worgen to its human consciousness. The Gilnean people, though changed, would remain intact.
For Kyladriss, it was a chance to start again. With nothing to occupy their forces following the defeat of Arthas, Thassarin and his death knights retreated to their fortress of Acheron. Kyladriss was discovered in the dungeons, and Thassarin sent for a druid who could administer the cure. After twenty years of living as little more than a vicious beast, Kyladriss regained what little humanity was left to her - her mind.
It was like waking from a long nightmare to find that most of the nightmare was real. Kyladriss was still a worgen and still a death knight, a reviled creature in both respects. While she could now pass in human guise as long as she controlled her temper, in combat she would always revert to her worgen form. She would not taste food or drink as she had when she was alive, and she would always be plagued by the thirst for murder that came with undead knighthood.
She left Acheron and traveled to Stormwind without purpose. The cataclysm ravaging Azeroth gave her something to do, and with nowhere else to go, she threw herself into the war effort. Being a soldier was all she was good for now - civilian life did not agree with her, neither was it healthy for anyone near her. And so, until she was snatched by Stacy in the midst of Azeroth's destruction, Kyladriss fought on the front lines against the Horde, the Twilight's Hammer, and Deathwing's elemental minions.
Talents
Kyladriss's talent tree can be viewed here on Battle.net. She has a standard Blood tank spec, except that instead of taking Crimson Scourge I reserved those points for Lichborne and Endless Winter (moar interrupts).
Spellbook
Death Strike: A melee attack which absorbs the opponent's life energy to heal the death knight.
Blood Shield: Built up by Death Strike, a magical shield that utilizes the enemy's life force to absorb damage.
Bone Shield: A shield of magical bones with four charges, which will neutralize four blows and reduces damage while active.
Frost Fever/Blood Plague: Applied with Outbreak, these plagues of undeath cause damage over time to the enemy
Death and Decay: An area-of-effect attack which desecrates the ground around the death knight with unholy energy, damaging targets standing inside it.
Blood Boil: A ranged, area-of-effect attack which damages multiple targets
Death Grip: The death knight grips the strings which bind her target to life and pulls the target into melee range.
Mind Freeze/Strangulate: These abilities interrupt spellcasting and prevent the target from casting any more spells for a few seconds.
Anti-Magic Shield: For a short period of time, deflects all damaging magic
Dancing Rune Weapon: Summons a magical copy of the death knight's weapon, which deals the same attacks and increases the chance for the death knight to parry attacks.
Dark Simulacrum: Steals and copies any magical attack, giving the DK the ability to use that attack within a short window of time. The original attack is still cast.
Chains of Ice: Slows the target, also applies Frost Fever
Icebound Fortitude: The death knight freezes her blood, reducing damage taken for a short period of time.
Vampiric Blood/Rune Tap: Increases the death knight's maximum stamina and heals them for a small amount.
Acherus Deathcharger: Summons an undead warhorse.
Darkflight: A worgen racial ability. Allows the worgen to sprint very quickly for a short period of time.
Running Wild: A worgen racial ability. Allows the worgen to run as fast as a horse on all fours.