Bainan Stormbeard

"When I retired from soldiering for good, I was given a choice between working and starving. After a while I gave up. I had learned that, if I became an author, I could do both."

- Introduction to Greater than the Sum of Our Parts, 30 L.C.

Bainan Gareth Ranford Stormbeard (Born 5 July, -52 L.C.) is a Dwarf capitalist, liberal intellectual, and former Paladin of the Silver Hand. He is one of the Ironforge's most prolific pamphleteers in favor of further economic and political integration with members of the Alliance. He also argues passionately for economically liberal reforms and policies friendly to the development of industrial capitalism. His most original contributions are to finance theory, ideas which he is dying to put into practice. He has a reputation as an avid gambler.

Though Bainan was born a member of the insular Stormpike Clan, he left his home early in life to join the rootless class of internationalists capable of living and working anywhere in the Eastern Kingdoms. As a restless young globe-trotter, idealist, and naive, he answered the call of the Stormwind Army at the start of the First War. This impulsive decision would lead to a military career spanning twenty-five years (4 L.C. to 29 L.C.). Bainan partook in all three major wars of the Eastern Kingdoms in the employ of a succession of different armies, and in a succession of higher posts.