Cedric Belcarthe

Cedric Heironymous Belcarthe is a Gilnean national who has gone forth into the world's conflicts since the days of the Northgate Rebellion by way of the Gilneas Brigade, acting as one of many would-be heroes alone or lost in the crowds of numerous calculating strikeforces.

Across the world, and in some regions beyond, the man has endeavored tirelessly for an end to the threats set against Azeroth, Gilneas and the Alliance that holds the remaining lot of humanity together. Time and again, the Horde has cast its lot in with those threats, and has been addressed accordingly.

Though the man has claim to a noble heritage, it has gone against his nature to boast or preen over his rights by birth or surviving the other unfortunate members of his family. Fiercely devoted to the people of his modest Gilnean barony, he has utilized the resources at his disposal to ensure the settling and re-establishment of Saelborough, and a legitimate Gilnean presence abroad.

Upon his return to Gilneas shortly after the Shattering destroyed the Greymane Wall, he was afflicted with the Worgen Curse, which has affected his sorcerous craft and personality extensively. No longer human, and not completely a beast, he walks a fine line between Creature and Composure, all while balancing the grim arts of Felmancy.

Recently, he has been contributing his efforts toward the Kingdom of Lordaeron Restored, in hopes that a growing human presence in the north will not only lead to securing the lands north of the Thandol Span from the undead and other prevailing threats, but to also secure a brighter future for humanity in one of its darker hours.

Appearance
Cedric suits the Gilnean stereotype of being as tall and sturdy as a mountain when he takes the guise of Man. His pale skin is left all the more striking by the long, black hair and dense beard framing his face.

The man moves with a fluid ease and surety of purpose, and yet the signs of his craft make themselves present in his features; a lack of sunlight has become a pallor, his features are strong and harshly angular like sharp-hewn rock, and his steel-grey eyes make their burdens known at a glance. His magic is just as much his burden as it is his strength.

Despite having a warrior's build, his vestments betray his deep pursuit of magic in its varied forms. Elegant embroideries and jagged, sweeping elements cast an eerie silhouette when the man dresses for war, made worse when rage causes him to lose his composure and accept the truth of the Worgen Curse.

On his person are several accoutrements of his craft. He keeps a spellblade of one sort or another sheathed at his left hip, and a heavy spellbook hangs at the other from iron chains. Closer inspection reveals his armor to be worked and interwoven with engineering in mind, more reminiscient of something nearly Titanic over the works of goblins or gnomes.

A series of tightly-bound belt pouches plot their way across his hip, their contents unknown. The strand is bound together with a bandolier cradling several obsidium bolts, all joining an ornate boltgun in a tooled leather holster on his thigh.

Noteworthy for its simplicity is a worn silver band on his left ringfinger.

Personality
Little can be said of a man who's nature is better witnessed than written of. Intellectual pursuits and fascinations are sacred to him, as is his particular faith, distant as it is from the Church. He loves his wife dearly, and counts her as his greatest ally and friend.

He enjoys feats of culinary and literary expertise, as well as fine brewing, with a particular fondness for heavily spiced dishes, aged bourbon and horror novellas - a guilty pleasure of his being the oft-derided penny dreadful. To this day he struggles to find a decent tobacconist. The curse has only seemed to spur on his discerning tastes, especially for music.

Before the Curse, Cedric was methodical to a fault, only becoming decisive when all potential outcomes were resolved and considered. His temper was all but nonexistent, and his emotions were only permitted to show in the close company of certain family members, friends or close colleagues. He had a keen wit and a sharp tongue, and the man's quips were chiding at worst.

After becoming a worgen, his calculating mindset is a race of churning possibilities and potential successes or failures. The heart for pleasant retorts and high-brow banter has become a tendency to snap back with ruefully negative observations, often edging on cold, brutal honesty with little regard for rank or station, delegating the man's life to one wrought by merit over honeyed words and socializing. Now, moreso than ever, he has an unshaking loyalty and obligation to the people of his town - one of the few overtly positive affects of his new state.

Beyond his curse, the touch of Felmancy is present in the apparent heaviness of Cedric's demeanor. Humor is seemingly lost on him, and kind acts are received with internalized warnings and second guessing more often than not. War, just as much as anything else, has left him jaded without the obnoxious arrogance cynics often entertain. He expects the worst, prepares for working with the situation at hand, and usually abandons the notion of hoping for a vague "best."

Cedric remains a resolute man in either form, and one with a mind and will like an iron tower. He satisfies the needs of his creature-self by way of running wild through the forests and over rooftops, as is its apparent wont, and sometimes permits himself to hunt elk with little else than fang and claw. Rather than struggling to fight his altered mindset, he works to accomodate his humanity into the worgen state, and vice versa, without letting one overshadow the other.

The effort is a struggle for him, despite any apparent ease others may contrive from encountering him.

History
Cedric's history is checkered at best; not for a mix of misdeeds and goodly acts, but for the harrowing shifts in stability, peace and war that tend to cause no small amount of upheaval in the man's life.

Family
Cedric was born to the Baron Morgan Belcarthe and his wife, the Lady Evayne, on the grounds of House Belcarthe's ancestral home within the Barony of Saelborough, tucked neatly away in the Headlands' forests,  which were bisected by the Greymane Wall's construction.

Morgan had followed the family's arcane learnings and practices, and had given several lectures on Applied Arcane Theory throughout Gilneas during his career as one of the Crown's court astrologers and civil engineers. Evayne Cordesse hailed from an unassuming but well-regarded noble line and had worked as a barrister within the Gilnean courts, but then settled into teaching law after the birth of her first child.

Cedric had three siblings; two brothers, Edryd and Mandrane, and a sister, Deliah. Cedric was the youngest of the four children, and thus the least to receive from the Belcarthe estate. While the two older brothers vied for supremacy of inheritance through Gilneas's military, as well as societal pursuits to climb the ranks of nobility as best they could in their father's shadow, Deliah's pursuit was taxidermy and zoology.

While ranging on her twentieth birthday in pursuit of an albino bear said to live within Saelborough's jurisdiction, she was mauled by one of the local black bears. The animal was slain, but her small entourage was too late in coming to her defense. Edryd and Cedric mourned their sister's loss alongside their parents, but Mandrane could barely contain his contentment, as relations between the two had always been strained.

Some years later, Morgan had fallen ill with a disease of the blood and passed away. His estate was willed to his wife Evayne, which had thus estranged her from her sons, save for Cedric, who would be unaffected by the shift in claim for the foreseeable future. Years later, when her own health began to fail from the use of leaded cosmetics to maintain appearances before the public eye, Edryd finally had his wish - Saelborough was his, along with numerous militaristic accolades from fighting abroad.

By then, Mandrane had begrudgingly settled into a waiting game, but from behind the scenes continued to attempt to undermine Edryd's hold over House Belcarthe and Saelborough by ways of petty politicking and installing agents to create public disturbances rallying against several contrived reasons as to why Edryd was unfit for his task.

Moreso, as the brothers bickered, Cedric had long-since begun his pursuit of the arcane within Greymane's court, and had left Gilneas entirely once the first of many failed assassination attempts had begun.

Youth
Despite the politics and conflict between his siblings, Cedric's least order within his family afforded him the grace to pursue his own ends away from the urgency of one day acquiring Saelborough and the mantle of House Belcarthe. He was close to Deliah throughout his upbringing, and she had taken the boy under his wing as a curiosity more than anything else. Unbeknownst to her, she had instilled a fascination for anatomical sciences, biochemistry and zoology within her younger brother, and more importantly a desire to go out into the world and see these otherwise book-bound subjects in action.

Morgan saw Cedric's budding interests and took him away from Deliah's influence before he had what he considered two oddities in his direct bloodline instead of one. From the time he was six years old, Morgan began a battery of intensive lectures on Cedric to bring him up into the learned circles of the Arcane, the House's true heritage. He had also instructed the boy on the faith of the old ways, hearkening to a druidic past among the Gilnean people.

Cedric had received countless lessons under the twisting boughs of the Blackwald, and performed his first sacrifice of a black ram when he was eight, for the bounty of Saelborough and the House, and to maintain a covenant between the Belcarthes and those spirits of old that Morgan claimed to go back to the first days. Whether valid or not, it was a belief that Cedric's father maintained vehemently.

On His Majesty's Service
By the time Cedric came of age, he had surpassed his father's expectations and quietly maintained the interests that Deliah had instilled in him. Morgan, vocally proud of his youngest, brought Cedric before the standing powers of Gilnean beaurocracy and had him officially signed on as an apprentice within Greymane's circle of court arcanists, a group that consisted of astrologers, mages, mystics and a scant handful of those with darker persuasions kept on retainer out of necessity for knowledge following the First War.

The following years were particularly uneventful for Cedric, despite his family's ongoing complications. When his father passed, Cedric was burdened not by matters of inheritance, but by concerns of filling the man's proverbial boots; those in the court looked to him as a successor, while his own family disregarded him. Cedric turned his focus fully to his craft, and had received accolades and commendations for his services in Greymane's court through addressing astrological complications and magical concerns within the kingdom alongside other court arcanists.

Having his own wealth and access to the Royal Libraries, Cedric began to pursue other avenues of science, technology and magic away from astromancy, dimensional theory and astronomy. Chemistry, engineering and several hushed tomes concerning black magic were at his disposal, increasingly so as the years went by and the boy became a man in body and studious progression.

Cedric made a name for himself in the royal court. He refused lectures and lessons, citing a reasoning that because he wasn't a full master of his skillsets, he was in no position to educate others. In truth, it permitted his selfish pursuits in acquiring more knowledge on increasingly esoteric or guarded topics. His growing investment into darker magics came to the fore when he summoned his first familiar, an imp named Piprin.

It, too, was eventually sacrificed along with the rams to House Belcarthe's yesterdays.

The Gilneas Brigade
Prior to the Northgate Rebellion, land conflicts were escalating within Gilneas as several noble houses had become recalcitrant following Greymane's growing isolationist policies toward the Alliance and within Gilneas. With his heart in Crowley's court, Cedric had volunteered to accompany the Gilneas Brigade - a detatchment of nationals who joined Lady Proudmoore's expedition to Kalimdor.

Although he was only one face out of many within the Brigade and the Expedition, it afforded Cedric the opportunity to travel abroad and to interact with worldly events. He was no longer under the direct service and observation of Greymane's authority; in fact, the act of going forward did more to brand him as a rebel in a nation that wanted nothing to do with the outside world.

Cedric went were he was needed, fighting back whatever foes brought themselves to bear against what seemed like the last vestige of the Grand Alliance. Here his mind mingled with elves on the matter of magic, with dwarves on the subject of solid engineering and with the scant handful of gnomes who lingered behind the scenes to provide potent alchemical solutions to aid in the war effort. Though he was a stranger in a strange land, Cedric had also found brotherhood and camaraderie among the Expedition's soldiers, which had been something he had found wanting back home.

He may have even found love, but it was a fleeting and short-lived affair with one of the few Quel'dorei sorceresses within the Expedition's contingent.

After the Battle of Mount Hyjal, Cedric had several wounds to tend to, and no small degree of mental exhaustion. Knowing he couldn't return home, he made his residence within Duskwallow Marsh and the growing holding of Theramore. This home, however served more as a base of operations - above all else, the man was overwhelmed with wanderlust, a desire to advance his scientific pursuits, and a growing addiction to practice the full force of his magics in all of their forms.

A World of War
Despite the harrowing accounts of the period following Archimonde's destruction to the present day, Cedric's story largely follows that of the shifts in power, presence and pyrrhic victories for the Alliance and life on Azeroth. War unending had taken him across Azeroth, along arcane pathways to Outland and back, and abroad through the ungodly snows of Northrend to fight the Scourge and worse things lying in wait beneath the world's churning, archaic engines.

One thing that can be said of his travels is that he had a bewildering exposure to varieties of magic on a cultural level. Away from the academia of Man and Elf, he was exposed to the black magics and dark alchemy of trollkind, and to the shaman-like ritual invocations of orcish warlocks. From afar, he was able to witness the druidic rites of the Kaldorei and hearken back to some of his father's teachings, and the dwarves had introduced him to hypothetical Titanic origins, along with measured rune crafts.

Worst were the horrors beneath Ahn'Qiraj, of which Cedric had only seen the surface, and the full, nightmarish brunt of what dwells beneath Northrend to this day. The presence of the Old Gods, and an odd dance with understanding their magic and presence while simultaneously fighting them, would become a continued effort for Cedric from then on.

While it was all fascinating, Cedric's interest and ongoing practice centered upon Felmancy. Over time, and as others had proven themselves worthwhile to the cause of continued survival, the overall regard for the left-handed path had permitted Cedric some small degree of open practice. This was further buttressed by the man's own efforts for the Alliance's causes.

In the events of the Shattering, word had come to him that the Wall had fallen. Cedric's immediate effort was to see to the condition of his homeland. What followed was almost worthy of print; the revival of Saelborough, and of House Belcarthe.

Unfortunately, Cedric had found himself stricken with the Worgen Curse, the sole survivor of his family, and a barony besieged by the Forsaken. The whereabouts of his brothers were unknown, and remain so to this day.

Lordaeron and the Present Day
After Belcarthe Manor had been re-established and a reborn Saelborough glimmered in his eyes, Cedric and Rinnaelle Ravensald, his closest ally in combat and life in general, travelled along a northern pass to avoid Forsaken territory in Lordaeron on a roundabout way to Gilneas, only to wander unknowlingly into Myrwood. Here the two were intercepted by Andre Davol and a contingent of mounted soldiers.

Davol had taken them to the newly acquired keep of Starkholme, from which Cedric and Rinnaelle had a starting point to work within the kingdom. Cedric's interests had taken him to pursue the Queen's Gilnean Legion within Stranglehold, which had thus far lead to a growth in the region's industry, as well as more sorcerous pursuits within the Ebonloch Hold.

Within the past months, Cedric had withdrawn from Lordaeron to tend to Saelborough's growth in the wake of the Cleaning of Myrwood and the fall of Garrosh Hellscream. In this time, he and Rinnaelle enjoyed a quiet marriage and honeymoon, though she had returned to Ravenwood in Lordaeron shortly thereafter to pursue her training as a paladin.

Shifting between one kingdom and the other, Cedric has since returned to active pursuits among both regions.

Saelborough
Settled amidst the forest and divided by a small river not far from the sea, the Barony of Saelborough and the modest town of its namesake are both under the jurisdiction of House Belcarthe, of which Cedric is the present head.

Saelborough is home to a meager number of refugees and Gilneans returning home, a quarter of which are appointed to tasks of guardianship. To make up for the town's lack of any sizable standing force, wards and other similar incantations were woven throughout it to aid in concealing and defending the land from interlopers. Similarly, technology has been a sizable provision on Cedric's part, ensuring the folk are well armed should the need arise.

The town produces fruit by way of its apple orchards, harvests lumber judiciously from the surrounding forest and fishes freely. Though the steadlands are miniscule compared to what they once were, the residents make an effort to raise sheep and goats. Saelborough's largest productions stem from two small mines within the Barony, one for copper and the other for iron, and the small forges that make these raw materials into more useful things - namely arms and armor for the ongoing resistance, and Alliance efforts abroad.

Due to the state of Gilneas, however, word is unable to spread about the tiny glimmer of hope in the north; a brightness which is thankfully drowned out due to larger efforts within the fallen nation. This provides the people a chance to rebuild and continue their lives in a productive sort of peace, even if they must do so in relative hiding.

Belcarthe Manor
Nothing is particularly outstanding about the manor which overlooks Saelborough from a gentle rise of sloping hills to the northwest. Its architecture is of an old Gilnean sensibility, and built to withstand a beating, be it from storm or conflict, despite its branching levels. Though its grounds are bisected by the Greymane Wall to effectively separate the manor from the Belcarthe ancestral barrow, a tunnel bridges the two from deep within the manor's cellars.

Haunting and hidden behind the gnarled treetops of Saelborough's forested domain, Cedric uses the storied manor as his base of operations away from the world to consolidate his efforts and ongoing plans. Well beneath the manor's cellars and the light of day, Cedric has established a laboratory, workshop and study to pool his intellectual resources.

The estate is overseen in his absence by his imp and several bound felhunters.

The Days Ahead
Presently, little is known of any consolidated effort on Cedric's part. With his interests divided between his people, the Legion, Ebonloch, and the world's ongoing events, future endeavors are difficult to pinpoint.

His actions would do better to speak in his stead; the man hunts Forsaken patrols when he can in Gilneas, and contends with small groups of Scourge along Lordaeron's fringe and into the Plaguelands. Any works in Pandaria have been abandoned, along with his interest in what the lost continent had to offer. His time is given to his wife and to Saelborough, though frequently the man can be seen abroad in foreign cities or continuing to fight lingering Horde groups who go against the standing armistice.

Cedric has also been returning to the Grasp as Duke Viktor Romel pushes further into the River's Eye region.