| The Wild Druid | |
|---|---|
 Half in this world and half in the world of dreams, the primal Rueka stalks the forests and jungles of Azeroth. | |
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Race |
Kal'dorei |
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Age |
221 |
|
Height |
8'1" (2.5m) |
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Weight |
219 lb (99.5kg) |
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Class |
Druid |
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Alignment |
Chaotic Neutral |
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Faction |
None |
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Guild Affiliation |
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Description[]
Night Elf[]
Two shining golden eyes are framed by messy, grimed cyan hair, long twitching ears sprouting defiantly out of the unkept heap. The Kaldorei has compact, hard muscles which show underneath her dragonhide war-garb. Her garments are generally filthy, frayed, torn, and flaunts dried blood in some places. She emits an intense, chaotic vibe and her words are muddied by a low growl when she speaks. The way that the Kaldorei moves suggests a savage strength and vitality. She is larger than the average for Kaldorei.
Cat[]
Piercing golden eyes stare out hungrily from this huge panther. It might weigh in around 900lbs, and looks to be about 17 feet long from the tip-of-tail to nose. The great cat sports a rich deep velvet color. Two long fangs protrude down from its jaw, while large, dark, non-retractable claws adorn the feline's furry paws. Kaldorei moon runes shimmer softly in white patterns of fur on each shoulder of the cat, marking her as a druid.
Bear[]
This bear's face is fixed in a disgusting snarl, brandishing its incredibly powerful maw. The bear is massive, weighing over a ton, and is roughly 13 feet in height when on its hind legs. It has thick and matted browned-grey fur with a darker protrusion of hair running along the spine. Three long black claws accompany each huge paw, and dig into the ground under the crushing weight of the bear. Kaldorei moon runes shimmer softly in white patterns of fur on each shoulder of the bear, marking her as a druid.
History[]
Order of the Brawn[]
A decade before the events of The War of the Three Hammers, a small group of Night Elves seceded from The Cenarion Circle due to political and ideological differences. The group named themselves Order of the Brawn and consisted of no more than half a dozen druids and their mates. This order was different from The Cenarion Circle in the respect that they disagreed with the notion that, should a particular species be threatened by extinction, or should a forest begin to die out, there should be intervening preservational actions made. Instead, the liberal views of the Order of the Brawn stated that should a forest fall to decay and biological poverty, it is better to let the forest die, as well as the same concept for animal and plant species. The argument made by the Order was that nature favors strength and survival above all other attributes. To save a dying species because it is too weak to survive in its current habitat is to disrupt the flow of life instead of cultivating strength in nature. In addition, the Order of the Brawn also disagreed with the division by gender among the Night Elf society and believed that females should take up the art of druidism as well. For these reasons, the Order of the Brawn left The Cenarion Circle and their Night Elf kin to live in seclusion, deep in the forests of Ashenvale.
The next half-century would witness the organizational problems, deeper conflicting ideals and internal power struggles within the Order of the Brawn until the Order diminished and ultimately disbanded. The presence of the Order of the Brawn was so fleeting and reclusive that it was hardly recorded among the history of the Kal'dorei people. The Order had many irregularities among its culture responsible for its own deterioration, mainly a mindset that emphasized strength and true regression into natural living. As such, while females did begin to learn druidism within the Order of the Brawn, anything that promoted a rigidity of structure or society was done away with, including names and titles, monogamous relationships, currency and the like. Instead, the structure of the Order was largely based around trial by combat and an extremist mentality of survival of the fittest.
Birth of Orphan[]
Four years before the disbanding of the Order of the Brawn, a child was born within the Order. As a result being born in the Brawn, no name was given to her. After the child started walking, parental care largely ceased as a result of the Order's turbulent expectations. Soon after, the Order completely fell through, the members going their separate ways to either regress even further into extremist principles or to try to find some of the civilization that they had thrown away. Expected to fend for herself, the child was left alone in the aftermath except for one druid of the Order that took the responsibility upon himself to raise and mentor the child. Over the next fifty years, the child was instructed and raised in the arts of druidism, showing a significant affinity for druid magic, particularly shapeshifting and physical combat. The now young female druid abruptly left her mentor without warning, striking out on a path that belonged only to herself.
The young female druid then spent well over a century wandering the forests, seeing the different races of Azeroth with their cities and cultures, developing her personal bias and worldviews as well as gaining experience and confidence with her skills and druidic abilities. Drifting in this manner, she picked up the namesake Orphan, as she never had answers for when she was asked for her name or her lineage. It should be noted that this was predominantly a solitary chapter, Orphan (as the young druid will be referred to from now on) not being comfortable around company, neither making good company herself.
After this largely exploratory phase, Orphan returned to Ashenvale and took up the forest as her true home. From her wanderings, her shapeshifting abilities had progressed even farther, Orphan becoming a ferocious adversary, mixing aggressive nature magics with claws, maw and fang. She spent the days in Ashenvale exploring the nooks and crannies of the great forest, climbing the tall trees and hunting the game the forest offered her. In this way did she live until the coming of the Horde.
Unwilling to let Ashenvale be chopped to the ground by Grom Hellscream and his Warsong Clan, Orphan allied herself with the Sentinels and participated in the raids on the Warsong Labor Camp. It was during these raids that Orphan developed an obsession with the hunt of the Horde and their removal from her home. The fierce battles with the orcs and the frenzy of fighting such physically imposing and deadly creatures left an imprint on her being, maturing into something resembling the love of battle. It was also during this time that a festering desire to see bloodshed grew within Orphan, creating an addiction to bloodlust.
Rueka is actually yawning in this picture.
The Order and the Beast of Bloodlust[]
Years later, slightly after the Third War started, a druid by the name of Amoona Everclaw, who Orphan had fought alongside against the Horde on multiple occasions, introduced Orphan to Aktarin Shadowsong: Warden and commander of the Order of the Nightsabre. Orphan was offered with a proposal to join this Order, which was a specialized military unit, to fight the Horde, protect the homelands and be called upon to operate in more dire missions. The offer was accepted without hesitation, Orphan immediately feeling drawn to the Warden.
Following her welcome to the halls of the Order, Orphan began to develop significant problems with controlling her need for bloodshed and its euphoric effects on her being, often becoming needlessly violent and aggressive towards her comrades. A particular event involved Orphan going to Nighthaven to ask the Cenarion Circle for help in mastering herself. However, she lost control while in Nighthaven and as a result, a number of druids and Cenarion Circle affiliates were killed and many were injured. After that incident, the Cenarion Circle named Orphan as too dangerous and uncontrollable, labeling her more berserker beast than Kal'dorei, permitting her never to set foot on Cenarion grounds again. Thus began a steep decline in her morality and character, with mental breakdowns as she tried to force herself against and fight the bloodlust addiction. As a result of severe mental incongruence and conflicting desires, Orphan developed dangerous psychological problems, including bi-polar states, impulse control disorders, suicidal actions, self mutilation and antisocial tendencies. Not long after, Orphan suffered a complete and utter mental meltdown in which she went into a self-induced coma, returning from the week long coma with severe memory loss.
The dreaded "Ow-kitty"
Rueka, the Wild Druid[]
Orphan emerged from her coma in a calmer, controlled and quiet state, at peace with her own being at the price of amnesia. This is not to say that the desire for bloodshed had disappeared, but rather had been integrated into her being; that a balance had been found and Orphan was whole. Now that her mind was quiet and focused, Orphan began to transcend into higher levels of druid magic, eventually being able to hear the voices of the forest. In their chanting and their ethereal whispers, they called her "Rueka", and so she took up the name as her own, leaving behind the Orphan namesake for the past. In addition, the druid magic that she wielded so skillfully now began to wield her, physically changing and strengthening her being. She grew more muscular, taller and acted and looked more like a beast everyday. In Rueka's own words, "This forest belongs to me. Only because I belong to the forest. I realize now that I do not use the power of Nature, but that I am a tool of Nature and an instrument of her great will. My actions belong to me but are not my own."
In addition, Rueka has now been blessed (or afflicted, it is not certain at this time) with visions of the Emerald Dream. These visions come in episodes, with Rueka possessed in a trance-like ambulatory state as her consciousness receives sensory information from the Emerald Dream, the reason for the episodes happening a mystery to her. Since then, she has taken up a secret grove in Ashenvale which she has named "Grove of the Beasts", and resides there at the current time, although frequently leaving Ashenvale to prowl other forests and jungles.
The secret and secluded grove of Rueka
The Rueka Nut Shell[]
Rueka first and foremost is a physically imposing being with an aggressive and intimidating personality. She stands a good head above most other Night Elves and talks with strong, harsh consonants and guttural tones, sometimes to the point of being hard to understand. When in other company, she tends to act with distrust and even scorn towards those she views as weak, resulting in a superiority complex. She possesses a love of battle and physical conflict, and cares little of the thoughts or feelings of others, unless they belong to the Warden. The Warden is a very important person to Rueka, seeing her as a sister, a friend, a mother and a commander all at once. Also, Rueka regards Tamlin Ohtar as an equal and a friend, having defended Ashenvale many times with him. It should be noted that Rueka has a romantic interest in Tamlin, although she has never spoken of this, and the fact has never ventured beyond the confines of her mind.
Although Rueka is a deadly adversary in combat, she can function very little in formal or structured societies, either not knowing or not caring for manners or pleasantries. She possesses almost no mathematical skills and can hardly read or write. When in bustling cities like Stormwind or Ironforge, she suffers from claustrophobic like symptoms and can become very irritable. While she may wield a frightening animal cunning and intuition, she does not exercise reason or logic on a normal basis. She does, however, have a very intimate knowledge of plants and animals and the effects their products can produce when administered.
Rueka does not consider herself necessarily a member of the Alliance. To pull from her own words, "If the humans were to come and chop and burn at the trees, I would not hesitate to rip their throats out as I have done with the orcs." Rueka has at best a situational relationship with the Alliance and seeks no comradery or help from the faction.
Rather than charging straight into battle, the style of fighting that Rueka prefers is a primal type of guerrilla warfare, hit and run attacks. While Rueka hardly ever runs away from a confrontation, she does often give the appearance of it to regain initiative and elements of surprise, similar to traditional Night Elf warfare. The giant panther she transforms into is her primary state for almost all combat. She uses her weight to unbalance and crush, her claws to rip and shred, as well as her fangs to crush bones. Wounds caused by a surprise attack by Rueka are often extremely serious, resulting in critical lacerations over many parts of the body that cause bacterial infections, although victims tend to bleed out fairly quickly unless mended by healing magics. Rueka tends to revert to her bear magics when caught by surprise and not able to get away, or when facing multiple opponents by herself.