The Last Emberblood

— PHYSICAL —

SPECIES — Voidforged Elf (Thalassian) HEIGHT — 6'1" EYES — Void Glass Blue HAIR — Dark as the night sky BODY BUILD — Slim, lithe, acrobatic

DETAILED DESCRIPTION —

Zyraden looks youthful, still spry for an elf. Zyraden is a slim, lithe elf, built for acrobatics, but not much else. He has a square-ish face, monolids, a round nose, pale blue glowing eyes, raven dark hair styled as a wolfcut/mullet, long ears, and typically sports black gauge earrings. He also favors fashionable clothes like low cut V-neck shirts that show off the large, insidious dark ring scars on his chest, the result of his Voidforging.

Often, the young man is seen smirking or looking smug, always ready to put on a performance. The world is his stage, and he's the main act.

— RELATIONSHIPS —

FAMILY —

Arcanist Toria Roseblood - Mother Status: Unknown (Presumably Deceased) Relationship: The shadow of her life cast on Zyraden doomed him to this Voidforged life and chained him to his faith. Disappeared shortly after Zyraden was born.

Vyrondis Sunhawk - Father Status: Deceased Relationship: Raised and mentored Zyraden until his murder. Tried to bury the stain of Toria's research, never wanting it to reach his sons.

Rheas Emberblood - Oldest brother Status: Deceased Relationship: Raised Zyraden after Vyrondis passed and mentored him in his runic teachings, then later Voidforged him to save his life. Rheas created the Coven of Salvation, where they worshipped the Three Holy Wives, and attempted to "save" Azeroth via subjecting the world to Voidforging as a preventative measure against the inevitable rise of the Void. Rheas met his end by the Knights of Repentance.

Vanlion Emberblood - Older brother Status: Deceased Relationship: Vanlion and Zyraden were close and developed their artificer tech together, amplifying Zyraden's music and bolstering Vanlion's defenses. Vanlion was the technological mastermind behind the Voidforge Facility and aided in the process of researching purified Void to better the Voidforge itself. Vanlion met his end by the Knights of Repentance.

MENTORS —

Rheas Emberblood - Taught him runic patterns and arcane, then the mastery of the Void Vanlion Emberblood - Taught him runic programming and helped refine the manipulation of soundwaves in the Void The Three Holy Wives - Mortals who ascended to godhood, the THW taught Zyraden to wield Void Plasma, a purified sludge-like substance of the Void without corruption, and taught him to remake people into the Void

OTHER —

Seaandra Sunblade - Commander of the Knights of Repentance, Seaandra gave Zyraden a chance at a new life, at redemption, and employs him under her banner of her small neutral faction. Veros Moonshine - Arcane Consultant of the Knights of Repentance, Veros was the one to discover the Coven of Salvation, which inevitably led to its destruction and meeting of Zyraden. They're coworkers now that get along okay, all things considered. TBA - TBA

— SKILLS —

LANGUAGES — Thalassian (fluent, first language) Common (fluent, second language), Shath'Yar (fluent) Orcish (fluent), Dwarven (slow), Gnomish (passable), Zandali (slow), Goblin (passable), Azerothian Sign Language (fluent) COMBAT — Skilled in the use of daggers, rapiers, one-handed axes, and crossbows. Hand to hand combat includes graceful evasive maneuvers, using the opponent's size and momentum against them, locating pressure points and exploiting them, and affording an amount of unnecessary flips and tricks while grappling and taking down enemies. TACTICS — Recon, covert ops, disguise, espionage, parkour, search and rescue, intel gathering, negotiation, manipulation, seduction ARTISTIC — Zyraden is well versed in various stringed instruments, primarily the violin. Zyraden writes his own music and has dabbled in writing poetry. He can draw a passable elf. OTHER — Capable of dancing, but needs practice and proper training. Knows his way around pole dancing, however, and is perfectly capable of performing great feats of strength scaling and maneuvering on a pole. Extremely organized, everything is labeled and properly filed at all times.

— PERSONALITY —

POSITIVE TRAITS — Attentive, loyal, confident, independent, charismatic, observant NEGATIVE TRAITS — Skilled liar, masks his true emotions, can be manipulative, evasive, avoidant, workaholic, attention whore LIKES — Violins, music, songwriting, art, dance, performing, theater, drama, baking, cooking, busy taverns, packed clubs, loud music, petting dogs, getting hit on by hot chicks and dudes DISLIKES — Cultists that exploit the vulnerable, religious fanaticism, being hit with the Light, the mortifying ordeal of being truly known, when other people touch his instruments

PERSONALITY —

Zyraden is a performer first above all else. The mask he wears is carefully crafted to appear nonchalant, entertained, smug, and confident. He is a bard, after all. At times, he's described himself as a ladies' man, and can be quite flirtatious when he wants to be. Only when appropriate, of course — Zyraden isn't tone deaf, he knows when is the right place and right time for his silly antics and boisterous performances.

But beneath that mask, is someone who cares very deeply about people. He's burdened with thirty years of sin, stains that he fears will never wash off. As an ex-cultist, he has spent years trying to repent for what he's done, the guilt nearly eating him alive at all times. But he does his best. He wants to do good, he wants to do right by people, do whatever he can to help others in an attempt to undo the horror caused by him and his brothers' hands.

So he holds his head high, and acts like it doesn't bother him. Acts like he isn't a monster unworthy of forgiveness. One day, he will do more good than he's done wrong. But that day isn't today.

INFORMATION ON ZYRADEN — #canon IMAGES OF ZYRADEN — #visage INSPIRATIONS — #zyr core

Can be found ingame on WrA-A and MG-A under the name "Zyraden"

— ♥ —

MUN INFO

NAME - Mimi AGE - 28 Pronouns - She/Her

Ello I’m Mimi! You can also find me anywhere else under the name “BoilingHeart”. I’ve been a Horde main for the past 15+ years but somehow got MADLY obsessed with this homebrew Void Elf I came up with in 2019 for a guild campaign.

The Void reverberates around the stage, drums beginning to hype up the song. The floating violins behind him play their single notes in a steady rhythm, increasing in ferocity as he slowly twirls the eldritch staff of fire in time with the beat.

As the music reaches its ascension, a near electric sound surges out of the Void, and Zyraden begins to move with certainty.

Zyraden moves his feet in time with the rhythm, twirling the staff in wide beautiful arcs, the heat of the shadowflame painting brilliant strokes of orange through the air like an artist.

He spins, galloping around the stage with skilled footwork, moving his body and torso fluidly like water, fire roaring in grand contrast, illuminating pale blue skin in oranges.

A disjointed chorus pours through the rifts of the Void as the strings ascend in their music, ringing through the air.

Zyraden splits his eldritch staff into several torches of fire and tosses them high into the air expertly. With his eyes fully covered, there’s no way he can know where exactly each torch will land — the music ascends higher, higher, higher!

The violins streak their notes down, and as they reach the bottom, Zyraden thrusts a hand up, siphoning the falling flames to his hand and his body ignites into flames just as that electric music blasts through the rifts of the Void.

The chorus blares, chopped and disjointed from different realities as Zyraden lets out a breath of colorful fire, splitting his staff into a fan of flames like an army knife and twirling them with new intensity.

Zyraden skips to the beat, moving to either side of the stage and standing on one hand, the other outstretched twirling the fan of flames, and a foot kicking out, striking a pose before flipping back to position and repeating the action on the other side of the stage with the beat.

That chaotic chorus continues with eldritch horns of the Void reverberating through the air in quick notes as the violins shriek in harmony. A wide grin is visible on the man’s face as he moves with the flames.

Zyraden leaps off the ground again and again, dancing with the beat and the fire in both hands now, jumping and swirling the fans of flames in S formations hypnotically as the otherworldly horns blare their tune.

The chorus and the horns continue, Zyraden’s feet moving quickly with each clap of the beat, the fire trailing from the fans vividly with each pirouette. 

Zyraden leaps, flipping in the air without touching the ground, landing on his feet only to leap back into the air and repeat the motion. He gyrates his hips and rolls his belly, a riptide of motion twisting and winding the flames like serpents.

He folds the fans inward, the saronite fusing back into a staff with a metallic howl in tune with the beat. Zyraden spins the flaming staff on the back of his head and around his shoulders, moving up and down with the motion to keep it steady.

Zyraden balances the staff on the back of his neck, ducking and leaping into the air with a spin. Even with his rough movements, the staff remains balanced behind his head, twirling with him fluidly as he performs several cartwheels around the small stage.

The Void pulses in time with the beat, humming its cosmic tune controlled by Zyraden. The vocals within the Void strum and vibrate in the air as the Shadow beats down on its drums. 

He flips his staff expertly as the music begins to ascend once more. Zyraden commands the saronite to shift again, splitting it into several torches and tosses each one into the air as the chorus screams to the beat, the violins in crescendo—!

The violins shred their arpeggios downwards in classical fashion as Zyraden bolts through the air lightning fast, the flames rescued from their descent, violins igniting into a glorious inferno as eldritch vocals let out their hum.

He dispels the torches and combines the metal back into the staff formation, the dark magic shrieking with the otherworldly chorus.

Zyraden extends the staff out to the left, twirling it, then to the right, spinning it, then up high, where he tosses it overhead. He flips then into a handstand straight up, catching the staff with his feet in the nick of time. He kicks the staff into the air, flips back upright and catches the staff with a pirouette, a fiery trail at his feet.

The Void hums, the chorus echoing music from different realities of truths before fading away, leaving only the drums and burning violins to fill the silence.

Zyraden spins the staff overhead like a gyrocopter powering down, crouching to a kneel. The shadowflames slowly snuff themselves out, darkness engulfing the stage, engulfing the Voidforged elf, light unable to escape the dark stain where Zyraden once was.

Zyraden drops his backpack down, flipping it open to review his costume. Brilliant reds and golds greet him, ribbons and phoenix feathers — extravagant. He wonders what his brothers would think of it, if they were still around to see.

He steals another glance down south. He hasn’t been back to the Voidforge in years… has someone come across the destroyed Facility? Discovered the destroyed secrets? Reaped his sins and drowned in the purified Void leaking from those chambers? Has the land suffered at all? Deep underground, their laboratory had been sabotaged and destroyed… has nature recovered itself from that sundering?

Zyraden frowns. It’s been eight years since the Coven was dismantled by the Knights of Repentance. Eight years since they slew his brothers and swayed the Three Holy Wives to abandon the Coven. Eight years since Zyraden betrayed the Coven of Salvation’s ideals and joined the Knights, swearing upon repentance. 

The time hasn’t dulled the pain nearly enough.

Zyraden closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He needs to focus. He’s here to rehearse for his big performance, not reminisce on times long since passed. Zyraden is many things, but he’s no longer a cultist, no longer a scientist working in the Facility changing – ruining – innocent lives. He is a Knight, he is a bard, he is a performer. The Coven does not define him anymore.

He opens his eyes and stares at his costume. He will dance with the flames, use the Void in brilliant, magnificent ways. He will show the people how the Void is more than just a cosmic destructive power. It’s a beautiful, versatile one, and his mastery of it could at least be used to spread joy and wonder and awe.

But at what cost was the Void given to him? Twisted he is within the dark power, stripped of his elven self and turned into a fiend, an aberration, a monster reforged in the cosmos. He can never be the same. He can never go back. And the sins that weigh upon his shoulders, the blood on his Void-stained hands will never wash out. Rivers of blood flow from here to the south, where the remains of that Facility lay, untouched, undisturbed, resting in the coffin six miles beneath the earth.

Zyraden takes another steadying breath, and exhales shakily. He looks up to the sky, and can’t help but trace the arc of sunlight down to the east. In the mountains rested a cavern hollowed out by the Coven years ago, where another Voidforge rested unused. Zyraden remembers reading the reports of what happened there, how his brother Vanlion, still recovering from the Knights’ first assault on their facility, was tracked down and butchered. It wasn’t long before the Knights tracked down his eldest brother Rheas in the Twilight Highlands and slaughtered him too.

He wonders if he were to visit their deathsites, if their black blood still stained the grounds in which they perished.

Zyraden winces. He doesn’t want to think about this. He closes his backpack and rises, looking for a building where he can change into his costume. While he’s already practiced and rehearsed in Recompense Village, he needs to practice in Uldum’s heat. It’s been many years since he’s felt the weather here, and he’s no longer accustomed to its blistering sun beating down on him.

Even the rays of the sun remember my sins.

He shouldn’t think about this. His past is just that: his past. He moved on. He made peace with it. The second Zyraden realized he and his brothers had done horrible things in the name of salvation, Zyraden defected. He took their soul boxes and destroyed them, then showed the deed to the Knights, proving that he had prevented his brothers from ever returning to life.

(He never forgot the feeling of their souls slipping from those boxes and entering the wrong channel of the afterlife. Learning later that what he felt was the pull of the Maw sickened him, and he didn’t eat or sleep for days.)

The point — the point is he did the right thing. He can never be fully absolved, but he can use the remainder of his life to repent. So long as he was doing good now, he could slowly wash away his sins, wash away his pain, wash away these memories. Perhaps then, the ghosts of his past will cease haunting him.

But is putting on a costume and dancing for an audience repentant? Is this true restitution? Should he feel guilty for joining a troupe to perform and live out his life as if he never did anything wrong? As if things were just fine and dandy, as if he didn’t steal the Light from hundreds of others and condemn them to the same twisted fate as himself? How dare he, how dare he try now to live out his old life’s passion? You spit in the face of every survivor Forged in your facility! You are rotten, irredeemable, you are selfish, selfish, SELFISH — !

The guttural roar of frustration that rips from his throat is nothing elven of the sort. He drops the backpack and claws his hands down his head, pinning his ears down and scratching, trying to get the thoughts out, trying to chase them away. He trembles, each breath he draws shaking, and when he looks down at his hands, he sees that they have darkened and twisted with gnarled claws and teeth where they shouldn’t be.

Shit. Get a hold of yourself.

He smooths out his skin, pulling the strands of his DNA back together, weaving them until he looks like a proper ren’dorei again. The people can’t know he’s a monster in disguise. What was once a man is now an eldritch fiend wearing the tainted skin of who he used to be. The innocent musician died forty years ago, and in his place walks the Emberblood.

He needs to see the Voidforge again. He needs to. He needs this closure.

Zyraden retrieves his bag and rushes back to his mount, a large, Void-infused dragonhawk, guiding it to fly quickly down south. Just thirty miles away, his sins lay buried. Just thirty miles away, lies the tomb of salvation.

The dragonhawk is swift in its travel. Zyraden has the path to the place memorized. He could never forget. How could he ever forget? The tears in his eyes flutter away in the speed of the wind, and he hunches over his mount, gripping the reins tightly as the dragonhawk makes its descent through the clouds. The entrance to the Voidforge Facility is easy to miss, as it was built to be inconspicuous. The first floor being just an office, where the secretaries and security systems operated. The rest was deep underground, no doubt flooded with the purified Void sludge that they once worked with.

He has to see it. He has to.

The tears are becoming too much. He wipes a fist haphazardly beneath his sunshades, moving with the dragonhawk as it weaves high speeds in the air. Why does he care so much? Why does he still mourn? His brothers orchestrated the Coven’s ordeal, Zyraden was the first one Rheas put under the Voidforge before the rest of their victims, they ruined him! They ruined his life! They took everything from him, and here he is, chest heaving and sobbing because it’s over, it’s over and he never got to say goodbye, never got to see it all go — it’s over, the Coven is destroyed thanks to him and the Knights, it’s over, the nightmare is finally over and yet, and yet it feels like it never ended —

Why does he care? Why does he care?!

He pulls back the reins, and the dragonhawk stalls, halting until it stabilizes in just one spot, flapping its wings idly. The dragonhawk turns its head, as if to question Zyraden’s change of mind. Zyraden wipes his face, inhaling a stutter of a breath before petting the dragonhawk’s neck. “Sorry, girl. I just…”

He looks up to where the entrance of the Facility lies. The lights are all off, and vines and flowers grow over the dilapidated building. His face twists. “I don’t think I can do it. I… I don’t want to see it.”

The dragonhawk chirps in response. He reaches out and pets the dragonhawk’s head, sniffling. This is pathetic. He was just out here to rehearse, it shouldn’t have ended up like this.

But he thought he was over it. He thought enough time had passed that he didn’t have to think about it all again. Yet, here it is, the grief back in full force, as if it were fresh. It lances through his body and he surges with the pain, and oh, if he could just reach into his chest and claw it all out, he would, he would tear this grief out with his bare hands just to be over it. Oh, the things he would do to get it out, get it out, get it OUT!

Steady now, steady.

Zyraden allows himself a moment to cry, to just let it out in the sky. Once his sobs became sniffles, and his shuddering breath evened, Zyraden took the reins and directed the dragonhawk back north, allowing the Voidwing to take its time in its flight. He was in no rush. He needs to rehearse, at the very least get his mind off things.

He flies over a small city, and hears a booming draconic voice shout.

“Welcome one and all to tha' Shadow Sands Bazaar! If anyone is lookin' fer some brawling, come to me to tha' west stage!”

Huh. He did hear through the Tarts somewhere that there was an event happening in Uldum at some point. He didn’t realize it was today.

He looks down, seeing the gathering of people and stalls below. “A brawl too, huh? Think I should go?” he asks the dragonhawk, who trills in response. “Hm.”

The grief still rests heavy in his chest, and he’s not sure when, or if it will ever go away. Eight years, ten, twenty, hundreds, thousands — will he ever shed it? Will he ever forget? He’s not sure.

But he deserves to try to live in the present. Always and forever, Zyraden will tote the past chained to his ankles and drag its weight with him, but maybe some day, it’ll get lighter. Maybe some day, he’ll stop thinking about it. Maybe some day, it’ll get easier to live with it all.

Either way, he needs to not think about this. At least for now. He needs to let it go. Maybe a good brawl will help clear his head, or at least knock reality back into him.