Ashmaw

Appearance:
Ashmaw is the archetypal Scourge deserter, clad in the starless blacks of the Ebon Blade. Stygian armor faintly scented of chemical and cold. Where on that plate hoarfrost does not roost, an idiopathic ichor coheres to the soot-dark metal; a thick, red vitriol. Beneath the shell of somber steel is a ponderous, once-Tauren thing -- revivified shu’halo flesh preserved by will and cold. What little pale pelt is spied beneath the profane hardware is a consummate white, leaving only the blue-grey patch of a weathered face and dessicated muzzle clearly defined.

What remains of the typical mesa nomad is hinted at in the rime-colored phosphor of uncomfortably luminous eyes; a glimpse beneath the frigidity of reanimation; a sunlit plain behind the frosty beryl. Therein is a mind as proud and tauren as the Earthmother’s most dedicated druid. A warmth not even Northrend could chill.

History:
Before he called himself Ashmaw, he was counted among the huntsmen of Bloodhoof Village. After a particularly successful hunt, he found himself fancied by a gifted tanner, one Aketa Sootmane. After not long at all, they bore one son to whom the world was promised.

Aketa was slain during an incursion of the Bael Modan dwarves into Camp Taurajo, and in his hunger for retribution so too the tauren that would be Ashmaw was slain. In his haste to be rid of dwarven kind, he was crippled by a cowardly blow. He withstood his suffering with rare dignity, until a hero the tauren will not name gave him his final mercy.

He woke from that penultimate slumber with eyes anew. For a while, he was as loyal a monster as they come, sowing the seeds of his master’s acrimonious plots with a frost-crusted blade. His crimes were numerous and foul, driven by the consumption of others’ joy and peace. For all his ferocity, the race of dwarves saw such tumult at the tauren’s hands that even before the Lich King’s yoke was thrown from his shoulders, his hate for them had long burned out.

In the wake of his freedom and adoption into the Horde, Ashmaw wandered a time, unable and unwilling to confront his misdeeds. Not until a fateful meeting in Lordaeron with the warlock Astoreth, did the death knight find a means to dedicate his slow redemption. He saw in her a willingness to sacrifice he has appropriated in full.

Personality:
Ashmaw is exceptionally approachable for a monster of plague and chill. While his demeanor is generously describable as cold, the ex-tauren is trying his damnest to embrace a warmth he remembers. Even if he cannot possibly experience that hale feeling in undeath.

His better, more humane traits are shallower now than before, and no longer his nature. It is nonetheless important to him to rekindle something of the being he was before demise. He may cultivate a monstrous appearance, but that has little to do with the shu'halo he wants to be, and more to do with the iconography of the Ebon Blade to whom his loyalties lie.

Relationships:
Astoreth Duskflame-Firewing. The death knight’s oldest and closest friend. It was in defending the young warlock from the predations of the Scarlet Crusade that he set himself on the path of the protector. In her he sees a determination to exist at any cost, and from that personal zealotry he takes a strength that would likely surprise the young woman. She has grown into a great power in her own right, and the tauren could not be more proud.

Zul'rohk. A compatriot of the campaigns waged in Northrend. Ashmaw sees the grizzled troll as a paragon of the Darkspear, and trusts few people to have his back as wholly as the skilled hunter. There are few of his own people that the death knight holds in as high regard as this stubborn, often belligerent troll.

Kuvasei Duskflame. The adopted daughter of the warlock Astoreth, and a person to whom the death knight once considered himself bound. Time and distance have separated the pair, but a some part of the death knight will always consider her one of the many he is dedicated to protecting.

Stavier and Liealia Luminiar. Two of the most stubborn, grumpy, conflicted, grouchy elves the death knight has ever met. In terms of raw attitude, the couple has enough to spare for several lifetimes. Nevertheless, they are good friends, and their collective spit and rumble makes Silvermoon City a much more lively place.

The Spectres of Mord’rethar - Raine, Korinthya, and Ezriah. Shadows of the past the tauren is not yet ready to confront. Though they once served under the same chill shackles, Ashmaw has trouble enduring the memories evoked by the presence of his former Scourge allies. To that end, he will avoid them until such a time when the scales of their shared crimes have shifted toward absolution. Mostly notably Raine, called Carragan Duskflame in life, the mostly-deceased brother to the warlock Ashmaw has sworn to protect.

Kelist. While the death knight has nothing but respect for whatever is calling itself Kelist these days, he almost preferred when the willowy undead was a vacant, incredibly efficient monster and not a crude, incredibly efficient rake content to hit on undead tauren.

Family
Ashmaw claims to have no living family, a widower before his own demise, but he has mentioned a son on more than one occasion, and never detailed that young bull’s passing into the arms of the Earthmother.

His late wife, the tanner Aketa Sootmane, was slain by the dwarves of Bael Modan. A desperate, heartbreaking attempt to see her again has stunted the death knight’s willingness to raise any corpse, even those of his enemies.