Viktor Ebonsteele

History:

~Early Life~

Twenty-four years prior to the first orcish invasion of Azeroth, in the affluence of a city once called Andorhal, and from the loins of a man of piety, Viktor Alexander Aquinas was thrust into this world. From an early age his father, a man of the cloth, of matchless devotion, and a notable member of the priesthood of Lordaeron, had instilled in young Viktor a singular love, a burning passion for the grace and mercy of the Holy Light. For the length of his young life, Viktor walked the path of piety as his father before him, devoting the whole of his free time in pursuit of its philosophies. Once of age, Viktor was torn abruptly from his life of comfortable certainty. He was conscripted into the standing army of Lordaeron, and while crippled with trepidation, his loyalty to his King and country trumped his fear. Viktor was soon taken by cart, herded in along with many young faces which he had grown to know intimately throughout his young life, and several of whom he regarded as close as brothers. The lot of the Andorhal boys, and dozens of others from neighboring and outlying towns, were promptly shipped off, sent to the nearest of Lordaeron’s military garrisons to become men.

While single-heartedly devoted to his new life of steel, showing great promise and exceptional aptitude with both blade and board, Viktor never abandoned his ardent devotion to the Light. Nightly, Viktor would turn to his prayer. The recital of the blessed words filled him with unfathomable warmth and comfort as they gently rolled off of his lips. For years this was his routine: back-breaking exertion during the day, calming, warming prayer during the night. Soon, news reached the encampment by way of courier, news of a new order, a budding brotherhood of warrior priests, the Knights of the Silver Hand. In an instant, Viktor knew where he truly belonged. Following his father's recommendation to Archbishop Alonsus Faol, Viktor and several of his closest friends, now brothers, were once again herded into carts, bound to the summons of a man who in time would be known as the Lightbringer. The lot soon found new meaning as they were cast between the lives of piety and war to become something greater, weapons of the Holy Light, the wrath of grace incarnate, paladins. The first of their kind.

~The Second War~

For years the lands of Lordaeron had known naught but peace and prosperity, untouched by the barbarian Horde that had sacked the lands of Azeroth. Tales of the orcs savagery had reached the far flung reaches of the kingdom of Lordaeron, and eventually into the ears of Viktor who indeed thought the orcs beings of myth. Fanciful tales spun by the survivors of Stormwind as an excuse for their fall and failure. It would not be long before Viktor and his brothers learned exactly how wrong he was.

Following the envoy of Sir Anduin Lothar, and King Terenas II’s decisive action against the encroaching Horde, Viktor and his brothers found themselves deployed for actual combat for the first time, riding together as the kingdom’s first division of paladins. Despite the green of their boots, the division proved remarkably efficient and singularly deadly against the demonic Horde. Together, the company purchased many hard fought victories for their king and country, and their exploits became tales of swelling morale for the lot of the army. Viktor was thirty years old at the battle of Blackrock Mountain, the final stand of the orcish Horde. The countless battles of the war had honed his skills with a blade, and a lifetime of devotion to the Light hardened his resolve. Viktor and his brothers rode and fought as a singular entity of avenging wrath, cutting down endless waves of blood-crazed foes. Though as the heat of battle raged on, as the sky wept with the blood of the fallen, Viktor watched his brothers fall one by one to the endless Horde. Men he had known since childhood, who had been at his side from the schoolyards of Andorhal to the ash of Blackrock. Tears bathed his face in a mute weep, but for his king, for his life, he pressed on. His rage was ceaseless, his resolve unending, the only fault of his onslaught came with the unthinkable as Sir Anduin Lothar, the legendary Lion of Azeroth, fell before his tear stained eyes. Hope he thought, had truly been extinguished. Though the Light does not abandon its champions, and for the first time, the wrath of the Light manifested in battle, bending to the call of the hero Turalyon. The effulgent display ignited Viktor’s, and the whole of the Alliance army’s rage once more, driving back the demonic Horde and leading the Alliance to victory on that fateful day. Viktor was the only one of the Andorhal boys to return from Blackrock Mountain.

~The Scourge of Lordaeron~

Fourteen long years had passed since the battle of Blackrock Mountain, and Viktor had since settled into a life of peaceful certainty once again. He had returned to a hero's welcome for his acts of valor during the war, earning himself forever a place in history, and glory among his countrymen.

For fourteen long years Viktor lived in his childhood home in Andorhal, the estate having fallen into his possession following the death of his father during, yet separate from the great war. Viktor had learned not of his father’s passing until his return home, and though wracked with grief, he saw plainly the light in his new life. As a veteran, he would want for nothing, his kingdom providing all that he would need, and he would use his seemingly infinite time in his study of the Light. The events of Blackrock Mountain had troubled him greatly, and for the first time in his life he had felt true uncertainty, the seeds of despair and unfaith sewing themselves in his mind; only his rigorous meditation kept the darkness at bay. Though soon he would find another source of light, a woman so beautiful and so enrapturing as to blast the darkness away in her effulgent glow, the woman he would make his wife, Natalia Evendale.

For years their love blossomed, never knowing rest and eventually bringing to bear Viktor's only son, Thomas. Thomas Alexander Aquinas, named for his grandfather. Thomas became the most precious thing in Viktor’s life, a reminder of the Light and its glory. Viktor was an exceptional father, teaching his son the art of carpentry, fishing, and the hunt. And in the path of his late father, Viktor took to cultivating the love of the Light in his son, extolling to him its virtues, its truths and philosophies. Thomas would never know of his father’s own waning faith, but for the first time since the war, Viktor knew true peace. Though it would not last. For the forces of the Legion laid once again upon the horizon, this time presented through the manifestation of Death itself, the undead plague.

~Death~

As a veteran and war hero, Viktor had been invited to Capital City to join in the celebration of Prince Arthas’ return from Northrend. A witness to cataclysmic history, Viktor stood mutely in stunned horror as he bore witness to the betrayal of his beloved King, and the malice of his prodigal son. In unnatural haste, Viktor stormed out of the palace, paying no heed to the ensuing slaughter, carrying only his wife and son in his fevered mind.

As the blades of Prince Arthas' most trusted lieutenants turned against his people, Viktor snatched at his loyal steed, Calamity's, reins, leading her back to Andorhal with incredible speed, fearing what was to come. In horror Viktor looked on as Lordaeron’s fall echoed around him. Finally, Viktor rode into Andorhal, to be met by the unfathomable horror of what lay before him.

Seeing the hideous abominations, the twisted and writhing forms of his neighbors that shambled disgustingly about the burning town, and the foul and unholy machinations of the Scourge that now defiled his land, Viktor flew into a hysterical craze, his mind succumbing to a blood-crazed insanity. He drew on his ceremonial sword, and singlehandedly he cut through a swath of undead, dashing through the ash, slicing through blighted flesh and twisted bone in a tempest of singing steel. Brief flashes of consciousness brought him back to Blackrock Mountain, to the broken bodies of his brothers, of Sir Anduin Lothar, and to how the Light had abandoned so many good men that day. He remembered what used to be, the ground upon which he now fought vainly to redeem, realizing it was beyond redemption. Realizing that the Light had abandoned it, that it had abandoned him. As his faith abated, replaced with rage and soul consuming despair, as he could feel the warmth of the Light give way to frigid rain and fly-blown winds of carrion stench, he stopped. Dropping his bloodied blade to the cold ground, surrounded by twitching corpses, he simply stood in stunned horror. Cold torrents of tears poured from his eyes, his jaw falling agape and quivering, and he dropped to his knees, taking the convulsing body of his own son in his arms as the broken body twisted hideously. The last strands of reality had snapped, and all Viktor could do was kneel, and stare. He moved not an inch, not as his son writhed and twitched with the foul magic of his hideous reanimation, and not as the twisted thing that was once Thomas ripped his father’s throat out with his teeth.

~Undeath~

Arthas, in his crusade against all life, had begun to raise the most righteous weapons of the Holy Light, as the most abominable extensions of his will, crusaders of death, pestilence, and agony, Death Knights. Viktor's march against Andorhal made him a prime candidate, one to be measured, and not to be found wanting. What remained of his broken body was gathered, and thrown into a wagon with the innumerable and indistinguishable bodies of Andorhal. Separated from the lot, his remains were taken deep into the newly named Plaguelands, and delivered to the vile necromancers of the Cult of the Damned. In their twisted hands, Viktor's body became as clay, material of infinite potential into which they might have woven their malign magics. Far from whole, Viktor was sewn together, an unholy amalgam of blighted flesh and foul magic. The final touch upon their twisted miscreation, was to bind its desecrated soul into a weapon of manifest malice, a runeblade that would serve as his phylactery, and ensure that their dark champion be nigh invincible. Viktor was raised as a weapon, an unholy juggernaut of destruction, a violation and perversion of the Light which in life he held so dear.

~Service to the Scourge~

Viktor served as one of Arthas' most trusted lieutenants during the Scourge desecration of Quel'thalas. His blade would earn the name Thori'talah, Death's Fury in the elven tongue, after it sent hundreds of Quel'dorei to the shadow of death, its terrible presence becoming something of nightmare to the elven people. In his march, Viktor held no quarter, he was tasked with the complete annihilation of the Quel'dorei, and he pursued his goal with nightmarish savagery. In a mirror of his own agony, Viktor elated in destroying families especially, slaying wives and children as men could do not but watch. The sight of the men, stunned with horror and despair as he tore their families to pieces, made his blood run hot, entering into a crazed frenzy of death as the broken families laid convulsing on the ground, gargling as they drowned in their own blood. In a final act of depravity, Viktor would slay the men in the slowest fashion he could, draining them of their blood drop by drop as he gorged himself on the hot crimson, only to raise them into undeath, ensuring their suffering might live on for eternity as his own.

Victory came swiftly that day, and as Arthas dropped the remains of Kel'thuzad into the elves fount of power, the Sunwell, the waters twisting and blackening with the foul magic of the mage's resurrection, Viktor drowned Thori'talah in its waters, imbuing the terrible blade with the twisted blood of a fallen god, forging it into a blade of legend.

For his deeds, Viktor was named Scourgelord, and would forever keep the title of Sanguinaire, for his insatiable appetite for the blood of the fallen. To the elves that survived, he would be known forever after as the Horror of Quel'thalas, the manifestation of Death.

~Defection from the Scourge~

As the forces of the Alliance, Horde, and the Argent Crusade made considerable gains in their war against the Scourge, Viktor could feel his master's power over his mind waning. Disillusioned with his master's apparent failure, he sought out the Ebon Lord Darion Morgraine in Icecrown, and from then, avowed himself against his former king, swearing allegiance to a new order, and leading the charge against the Scourge in Icecrown.