Githnji

"They say he rips open the chest of his victims and extracts their heart, keeping it for some dark voodoo ritual."

"Aye, I heard the same. It be how he got the name 'The Butcher.' Fighting on the battlefield for the Horde, gutting out hearts. Taking scalps. Bloody mess."

"That so? I heard he is no ordinary troll. Folks say he worships some sorta death god!"

"Bah! I heard he's not even a living creature, but some kinda shadow beast spat out from the nether knows where in the form of troll flesh, and he floats across the land at night. Stepping from shadow to shadow to suck out the souls of wayward adventurers."

Appearance
His rangy limbs stand out in gnarled bunches of muscle, held together by sinewy features washed in the dusky blue hue of his weathered skin and short fur. Cavernous eyes watch from below his brow. A faint crimson reflectiveness is seen in them, like that of a jungle cat on a night's prowl. Fluid movement permeates his gait causing a saunter to appear both leisurely yet brisk. Reminiscent of a serpent pursuing prey.

Most his form is wrapped in taut black leather; accented with deep reds; fastened with numerous straps, belts, and small metallic studs as though it were all that held him together. Sheathed in a secure horizontal position at the small of his back rest a thirteen inch obsidian blade. As well, an occasional glimpse of a troll stylized ouroboros tattoo can be seen warped around the bottom of his neckline.

Early Life
Githjni, who's real name is Jwa'heb, was born in Stranglethorn in the time before the Darkspear were banished from the land, the son of a High Priest of the Loa Lukou, a powerful Loa of healing and respite. His mother died at his birth leaving his father the High Priest to raise him. He was brought up in Lukou's priesthood learning the ways of mending wounds by magical means and invoking blessings for tribal boons. During his time as an adept pupil of the priesthood Jwa'heb befriended and developed a love with a she-troll of a neighboring tribe named Shayla. Jwa'heb studied hard for many years to increase his capabilities as a priest of Lukou serving as a medicine man for the Darkspear for continued favor from his father.

Eventually, his love Shayla fell ill with a mysterious sickness which was slowly eating away at her constitution. Despite many with healing knowledge being called from around the vale in attempts to cure her none, not even the High Priest of Lukou, were able to remedy what befell Shayla. Jwa'heb grew more desperate with each failed attempt and often tried to cure his love on several occasions to the brink of exhausting himself to no avail.

One day as Jwa'heb was studying the tablets his father kept he found several clues eluding to some forbidden healing practices. Thinking this knowledge could be the key to curing his love Jwa'heb questioned the High Priest of Lukou about it. His father vehemently forbade young Jwa'heb from seeking out any such knowledge.

Despite his father's warning Jwa'heb began to subtly search for more clues in the tablets. This eventually lead him to leave his tribe, setting out on a journey to travel the lands of Azeroth. Where ever he went he visited various Loa shrines in his search for guidance. Most were either met with silence or no step closer to his goal. Eventually, Jwa'heb found his way to Zuldazar the capital of the Zandalar tribe, and at the time considered to be the center of troll society. During his time in Zuldazar he befriended some of the local priesthood and pored over the vast library of scrolls and tablets the Zandalar kept, researching the Loas of all the different tribes, and any means of curing his love.

Jwa'heb's research caught the attention of one priest in particular, knowing that the knowledge he sought was forbidden. This priest approached the young Githnij, questioned him of faith, the extend and means he was willing to take for his cause, and eventually told him of a secret order of trolls that could help him. Jumping at the opportunity Jwa'heb agreed to the terms of joining this order - the Deh'yo Tikal. An order of trolls, as old as the troll race itself, rooted deep within trollish culture and society. They exist, their members spanning across all the troll tribes of Azeroth, unbeknownst to the masses. Their masters are versed in the voodoo ways and Loa pantheons of all troll tribes, even practices and Loas forgotten or forbidden by the common troll people.

The master of his new order directed the young Jwa'heb to seek out the knowledge he sought in the deserts of Tanaris. Traveling to the scorched dunes the searching priest finally came upon a neglected and derelict shrine which the sands had nearly claimed. Not knowing to what Loa the shrine was dedicated he prayed for guidance in his quest to save his love, and he was answered by the whispers of Mueh'zala, the God of Death, Father of Sleep, Son of Time, the Night's Friend.

Mueh'zala, who is normally not a compassionate Loa, took delight in a couple aspects of Gith's coming to him. The Loa found joy that someone had visited his forgotten shrine, and that a troll other than the local sand trolls was praying to him. Most of all this death Loa was amused that a priest of Lukou had come to pray to him for guidance. So, Meuh'zala promised to impart with the knowledge Githnji sought should the troll complete a task for the Loa.

Jwa'heb in his long quest and grown weary and was eager to agree, not bothering to question what the Loa would have him do. Mueh'zala, in order to strike a blow at his enemy, the Loa Lukou, then commanded that the young priest slay Lukou's High Priest, Jwa'heb's own father. The troll's heart grew heavy and torn between the love for his father and his love for Shayla, but after much internal debate he solemnly agreed and returned home to fulfill his task, for the sake of his love.

Knowing that he would not be able to match his father's strength in the mystic arts despite his time studying in Zandalar, Jwa'heb resulted to subtlety and an ambush in the dark derived from his training given to him by the Deh'yo Tikal order he now belonged to. His father, the High Priest, slain, Lukou became furious with Jwa'heb and immediately stripped him of his priestly abilities and powers, never to again able to heal himself or others nor wield mystic power of the sort.

The task done, Jwa'heb returned to Mueh'zala's shrine. The death Loa delighted in knowing his will had been carried out, and enlightened the troll with a means to sustain himself and his love, staving off death itself and reinvigorating the body with youth, by means of a dark voodoo ritual which required eating the souls of others.

Returning back to his tribe, they where grief stricken at the loss of their High Priest of Lukou not knowing who murdered them. Jwa'heb rushed to his love and in private told her everything he went through from his journey and research, joining the order, finding the shrine to Mueh'zala, killing his father, and the ritual to beat her sickness and keep her alive, and he did it all for her. But his love recoiled in horror; called him a monster, and kicked him out of her hut. She told him to never return.

Jwa'heb, having spent more than half his life in pursuit to find a way in helping his love, even killing his own father and being cast out of his priesthood, was now at a loss having been rejected by her. From there he lived his life as a loner on the outskrits of his tribe, but began to take part in the ritual Mueh'zala had tought him to prolong his own life, thus as well to pray to the death Loa. Every once and a while another troll would turn up missing, another victim of Jwa'heb's dark secret. He lived on and watch from a distance his tribe, and his love. He watched her slowly wither away from the illness that gripped her. When his love passed away, so the others would forget him, he changed his name to Githnji as a mock irony for what Shayla called him, a word in ancient Zandali he had come across during his research in Zuldazar; it's meaning roughly that of a monster from a nightmare, an evil spirit.

Years passed. Every now and again the secret order he belong to would call upon him to complete another task. He grew more and more proficient in his trainging of subtlety and trickery often used by the order. The dark ritual sustained him. His flesh began to grow brittle and weak inbetween rituals due to his unatural means of prolonging his life, only to return to a youthful vigor with the next claiming of a soul. Githnji still being a member of the Deh'yo Tikal was being called upon by them as one of their more talented agents to the point he obtained Masterhood within their ranks.

Forever living on the fringes of his tribe, even those who where young when he had returned had grown old and barely remembered him. Eventually the Darkspear where exiled from Stranglethorn and they left to sail the seas until they found the Broken Isles and settled there calling it Darkspear Isles. After some time Thrall came to their islands and helped his tribe to fight a powerful sea witch and her endless horde of murlocs. Githnji traveled with them afterward when Vol'jin, the new cheiftain of the tribe after the death of his father Sen'jin at the hands of the Sea Witch, agreed to go with Thrall to Kalimdor and start a new life.

Betrayal to the Deh'yo Tikal and Reforming the Order
(Coming soon)

Service to the Horde and The Shattered Hand
Githnji fought along side the new Horde in the Third War as a fresh recruit and helped to found Orgrimmar. He then disappered into the new mass of the Horde, joining it's military to have easy access to kills for his ritual. It was on the battlefield he earned the nickname "The Butcher," given to him by his fellow soldiers due to his extracting the hearts (to be used in his ritual) and scalps as trophies of his fallen opponents.

Githnji now being a Master of the Deh'yo Tikal and leader of his own sect was often involved in underhanded activities. His subtle actions and methods caught the attention of the Horde's own Shattered Hand order and an enigmatic figurehead among them known as The Farmer. The Farmer having sent his best spies to watch this troll they relaid intell reports, often explaining how the troll managed to slip away from their watch without their understanding of how he had done so. The Farmer dug deeper and discovered that not only was this troll a member of an ancient order of trolls, the Deh'yo Tikal, who worked in similar methods liken to that of the Shattered Hand, but he was also a Master of one of it's sects. An order of trolls so ancient, secretive and proficient in their crafts that not even he was previously aware of their existence. And so it was unto this that the fabled Farmer sought to recruit this troll who had drawn his intrigue into the Shattered Hand and have this troll build him a unit of the Hand's most elite, teaching others the minor-mysticism methods he utilized. Githnji agreed to the plan.

The Farmer tasked Githnji with infiltrating one of the Horde's most elite military branches, The Kor'kron Legion, under suspicions they were forming their own covert operations unit. Githnji's objective was to gain entry into The Kor'kron Legion's covert operatives in order to learn from them and eventual become their leader so that he can sway them into working for the Shattered Hand be it be direct or subtle methods. So, the Deh'yo Tikal with the help of a few strings pulled by the Shattered Hand had been enlisted by the Kor'kron Legion and indeed joined their covert-ops unit known as The Blackblades, a name Githnji found ironic for personal reasons and would later go on to use for his own order formed by the previous request of The Farmer. And indeed Githnji became the Kor'kron's Blackblade leader. When he did become The Kor'kron Blackblade leader Githnji began a new initiation ritual for the covert unit, kept hidden from the Generals and Warlords of the Legion. This ritual utilized a mystical obsidian blade, known as The Black Blade, which is infused with voodoo magics. When The Black Blade is used to cut someone it draws the blood into itself and with magical effects spiritually binds together all who's blood it has consumed, thus binding the Blackblade operatives together and to Githnji as their leader.

Rise to Military Power
Githnji was a soldier of the Kor'kron Legion, and leader of their covert operations unit - The Blackblades. He had seen the death of the Legion's leader Warlord Garkar Axebite at the hands of the Mountain Guard. He witnessed the passing of the Legion's next leader, who was mentor to the Legion's founder, the Warlord Ruvok Blackwolf of the Blackrock clan. Leadership of the Kor'kron Legion fell to various hands in temporary holds to stabilize the military branch until finally it came down to the Legion's most veteran and skilled soldiers and it was upon Githnji's own shoulders which the mantel fell. An unexpected turn of events for his and The Farmer's plans yet they played it to their advantage and Githnji became High Warlord to lead the Kor'kron Legion.

Late for his own Funeral
(coming soon)

The New Blackblades
(coming soon)