Benoit Vauquelin

Summary
Benoit Vauquelin is a highwayman operating in the lawless northern territories of the Eastern Kingdoms. Once a cuirassier of Alterac’s Royal Calvary, Vauquelin turned caitiff and criminal in the years following Alterac’s collapse, involved in the attempted assassination of Uther the Lightbringer and a variety of revanchist treachery. An enemy of the Perenholde Syndicate and of the Trollbane Dynasty, Vauquelin is a castellan of Ravenholdt Manor, an old hand of the League of Assassins, a liaison to the Hidden Circle, and a safe-cracker of some repute.

Appearance
Here stands a man with treachery in his veins, a phantom in a lime-lit world. Slippery, slim, and drenched in taupe leathers, he stands with posture cocked and a Machiavellian grin plastered to his face, his quiet self-assuredness as lethal as any weapon on his person. He sways and swaggers with off-step grace and rakish flamboyance, the free-wheeling sashay of his hips and snakish splays of his jeweled digits omens of his moral abandon.

He dresses in muted hues of taupe, purple, emerald; he sports a tall collar, gaudy epaulets, a velvet vest, a long embroidered coat, a tall pair of heeled riding boots, and rings on every finger. This ostentation is contrasted starkly by his reticent demeanor, taciturn expression, and gentle mode of speaking — an indulgent Alteraci lilt that drips like honey from the comb. His eyes are raw umber, his gaze declaring a bold challenge to those who wish further insight: ‘come and pry it from me.’

He stands tall, but not unusually so. He’s lean and limber, built for speed and not for comfort. His vulpine features are uneven and sharp, his cheekbones precipitous and his nose crooked, his face pockmarked and rutty but jaggedly handsome. There’s something primeval about him, something forbidding, a dusting of gray hairs attesting to his success as a rogue — for not many in his profession can claim to have lived for so long as he and to have been as profitable. Still, there’s a youthful fire to him, a measured urgency with which he conducts himself; quick, but never harried. He’s young yet old, slim yet broad-shouldered, elegant yet unpolished.

This is a man from another time. A Merry Man of yore. A gentleman of the road. His name is Benoit Vauquelin — he’ll have your money or your life.

History
Benoit was born seventeen years prior to the First War in Montfaucon, a small town nestled in the Vosges Mountains north of Dandred’s Fold, in what was then the Kingdom of Alterac. Benoit’s father, Claude, served as a cuirassier at the Old Garrison — a small calvary outpost just outside Montfaucon; his mother, Florine, was a migrant, part of a nomadic troupe with ancestral ties to Lordaeron that had settled in the Vosges a decade earlier. He lived a quaint and folkish life; by adolescence, Benoit could ride, hunt, and trap proficiently.

Of fighting age at the start of the Second War, Benoit followed in his father’s footsteps, enlisting with Alterac’s Royal Calvary as a cuirassier, then later as an irregular franc-tireur. Benoit was deployed with other Alteraci irregulars at the Battle of Darrowmere, stationed in a firing line along the Throndroril during the attempted assassination of Uther the Lightbringer. Benoit was present when Arathor’s armies marched on Alterac; in the ensuing invasion, brief as it was, Benoit skirmished with Arathi regulars in the lower foothills and on the outskirts of Strahnbrad. When all seemed lost, he fled and deserted his regiment with a few other soldiers.

In the years following the Second War and Alterac’s collapse, Benoit turned to brigandage with former francs-tireurs and other Alteraci anarchists. Freebooting along the Throndroril River and robbing his way through the foothills of Hillsbrad, Benoit quickly made enemies with some of the occupying powers — namely the soldiers of Arathor and, to a lesser extent, Lordaeron. During the interim, Benoit also made enemies with the newly-formed Syndicate; holding the Perenholde line responsible for Alterac’s fate, and detesting competition from Syndicate robbers, Benoit took it upon himself to kill on sight anyone donning a persimmon mask.

Years later, Benoit made his way to Ravenholdt and swore allegiance to Lord Jorach. Over the next decade, Benoit worked in the service of the Manor as a safe-cracker, eventually becoming liaison to Ironforge’s Hidden Circle, with whom he was involved in a series of heists that saw several Dwarven notaries and banks robbed of contracts and valuable gems. By the time of the Third War, Benoit served as ‘scrutineer’ to the League of Assassins, acting on the League’s commissions to conduct investigations on various matters throughout the Eastern Kingdoms and report back to present his findings.

Present-day, Benoit has retired many of his more daring roles with Ravenholdt, mantling the position of Manor Castellan — a role more symbolic than dutiful. Three decades has not served to slake Benoit’s taste for vengeance; the consummate brigand-anarchist, Benoit spends six months of the year plundering the highways and hunting down Syndicate affiliates, making it his business also to harass and waylay knights in service to the League of Arathor. Though among the more venerable of Ravenholdt’s many agents, Benoit has never earned the fame of peers like Winstone Wolfe and Myrokos Silentform. To this day, he introduces himself chiefly as “Benoit Vauquelin — Revanchist of the True Alterac.”