#broktan

Broktan's birthday is November 14.

As a child in an internment camp, Broktan was given a stuffed elekk, made for him by a grandmotherly orc (originally from Nagrand) who helped with the children whose parents were unable to care for them. She was eventually transferred to another camp and he never saw her again. To this day the elekk is his most treasured possession and he keeps it very well protected.

Broktan was an Orgrimmar Grunt alongside Zak, a troll Roof Stalker. After the trolls were kicked out of the city he intended to quit in protest, but Zak convinced him not to. When things started heating up in Orgrimmar, he did quit and went into business as a professional freelance hunter-gatherer alongside Zak. (They hunted and sold meat and fish, skins, ore and gems, in other words.) They both fought alongside Vol'jin in the Rebellion, and after the Siege were reinstated in their old positions, but Broktan ended up leaving again to fight the Legion.

Broktan is a very good cook. While in Draenor, he made sure to learn his mother’s favorite recipe, braised riverbeast, which she had not tasted since before coming to Azeroth. (She was nearly overcome with emotion when he brought some back for her. And very proud.)

The name Broktan came from a Klingon in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Barge of the Dead".

Broktan was born in a Horde war camp or small village in Duskwood, late in the First War. His birth father was a shaman, later a warlock. The warlocks were taking babies - nobody knew what they were doing with them, but their families didn't see them again. Broktan's father claimed he wasn't told what was happening to them; who knows if that's true. He kept them from his son for a while, but when he told his mate, Roka, it was time to hand him over, she took the baby and ran. She'd been a tracker, so she knew how not to be found, but he knew her better than anyone, and had ways of tracking her - or the baby - that others wouldn't. Using a spell that used his own blood to track his son, he caught up with them not far from the camp.

"No, I want to come with you." "Oh, no. No, no no no. You had your chance and you chose your side. You think I'd trust you now?" "But I'm his father, you can't take him away from me!" "You don't give second chances to someone who threatens your child. A father would know that."

Roka traveled on her own, always in hiding, from Duskwood, through Elwynn, into Redridge, where she met a couple with young daughters who seemed trustworthy enough. She never told them what clan they came from or why they were traveling alone, and they didn't press her. She traveled with them only briefly before she fell sick. On an unfamiliar world, with unfamiliar plants and animals, it would be very easy to accidentally eat something poisonous, or be poisoned in some other way. Foraging for mushrooms, berries, or plants, even eating out of a human's pantry would be dangerous. Most of the shamans who would have been capable healers became warlocks, and orc herbalists wouldn't have known enough about Azeroth's plants to be able to help. Many orcs may have gotten sick or died this way. Before she died, she made them promise to take care of her baby. They tried to get her to tell them the name of her clan so they could return him to them, but she refused, insisting he couldn't go back, it wasn't safe, "he's yours now, take care of him." She hadn't settled on a name yet, so they named him after her.

As a child in an internment camp, Broktan was given a stuffed elekk, made for him by a grandmotherly orc (originally from Nagrand) who helped with the children whose parents were unable to care for them. She was eventually transferred to another camp and he never saw her again. To this day the elekk is his most treasured possession and he keeps it very well protected.

On the journey to Kalimdor, when he was around seventeen, Broktan was among the orcs captured by murlocs and rescued by Thrall, and witnessed the death of Sen'jin.

While wandering the ship one day, he came across a lone troll at the stern, perched on the railing while barely holding a line for balance, gazing out to sea. (Very cool.)

"We all just lost our home. Our chieftain. My mother." "Oh. I'm sorry." "My sister be thirteen years old. Can you imagine, being a thirteen-year-old girl goin' through all this without her mother?" "...I can't."

Broktan went and found his mother and gave her a good, long hug after that.

He had a boyfriend at the time, and they spent much of their time at sea fooling around in what they thought were secluded areas of the ship. They were together for a while but started to drift apart during the settlement of Durotar, and eventually broke up with little drama.

After Orgrimmar was established he joined the city guard, and eventually befriended a troll Roof Stalker named Zak.

He was dating another guy early in Mists, an orc of the Shattered Hand, but they broke up for reasons relating to the guy being a racist asshole. It may have been as big and all-encompassing as Hellscream loyalty and orc supremacy, or as personal and petty as not liking that Broktan was friends with Zak. Not sure who broke it off, or the exact reasons why, but when he left Orgrimmar and joined Zak in the Barrens he was dealing with an ugly breakup on top of everything else. Zak felt guilty but, it wasn't his fault and why would Broktan want to be with a guy like that anyway?

"Spewing racist, hateful garbage is a waste of a good mouth."

"A guy who's that hot, good in bed and apparently just a good guy but then turns out to be a racist douchebag is just a waste."

Once when Broktan was in a particularly bad mood, Zak goaded him into a fight in hopes of working out some of his frustrations. It ended with Broktan crying, so it worked, just not in the way he'd intended.

"I don't want him back, but...fuck, why did he have to turn out to be the kind of guy I don't want back?"

If you think about it, there’s nothing in the story of Pinocchio that couldn’t exist in Azeroth. There’s no reason it couldn’t be a well-known musical with songs everybody’s familiar with.