Wintercreep

==The Good Doctor==
::::The tormented screams of our patients is truly a lullaby for this good doctor. - Doctor Wintercreep
==Birth==
The Forsaken who has come to be known as the Good Doctor Wintercreep was born twenty-four years before the Second War in the sleepy little hamlet of Pyrewood Village in Silverpine Forest as a human child named "Cranston Wintercrow". His parents were Avisten and Thalia Wintercrow, the village's resident Militia Captain and Physician, respectively.
As happy as the Wintercrows were to have such an adorable bundle of joy in their arms, some people wish they could go back in time and push Thalia down a flight of stairs to keep Cranston from ever existing.
==Life==
Unlike the other children in Pyrewood and nearby Ambermill, Cranston never enjoyed frolicking and playing out among the woods with his peers. Instead, his attention was focused entirely on the How's and Why's of the world, his insatiable curiosity compelling him to have his face constantly buried in a book or haranguing the travelers who took up temporary residence at the Pyrewood Tavern & Inn for stories of different places and peoples.
At ten years of age, Cranston began assisting his mother at the makeshift infirmary in the Tavern's basement, helping to tend to his father's soldiers who were injured in mishaps with the local wildlife, such as the massive spiders from the nearby mine or the bears and worgs that seemed to be smarter than the average wildlife. The boy seemed to have a natural talent for the Healing Arts and he was subsequently sent away from his home in Pyrewood to study the path of the Holy Light at Northshire Abbey.
Apprenticed to an elderly Cleric, Cranston quickly grasped the essential concepts of The Light and became a full-fledged Priest by the time he was twenty years of age, nearly a full decade ahead of schedule. Following his appointment, Cranston set about touring the Eastern Kingdoms to alleviate suffering and learn new ways of treating disease and injury. Lordaeron, Dalaran, Gilneas, Kul Tiras, Stratholme, Silvermoon, and Alterac are just a few of the many prestigious cities he was honored to visit and learn from.
Returning home, Cranston put his skills to use once again to help out his mother and father, like the good son he was.
Little did anyone know that black clouds were gathering on the horizon.
==Descent Into Madness==
Five years after his return to Pyrewood, the Second War was in full-swing. The Horde was rampaging through the southern tip of the Eastern Kingdoms, decimating Stormwind and displacing thousands upon thousands of people. With the need for healers increasing a hundred fold each day, it was not long before both Cranston and Thalia were called in to report to the frontlines, being assigned to a support services branch of the Gilnean forces assembling just north of the skirmish zone, a small town now called Darkshire.
The Gilneas Brigade formed up and charged straight into the flank of elements of the Stormreaver Clan, augmented by droves of Ogres and Trolls, in an attempt to relieve the beleaguered Alterac Strike Battalion.
Cranston, Thalia, and several other Priests from other Alliance nations exhausted themselves in an attempt to keep their forces alive. Numbers eventually got the better of them and the Alliance forces crumbled and fell back, finding themselves in an increasingly untenable situation. Retreating into Westfall, the unit commander hatched a daring plan.
Taking all the soldiers that were capable of doing battle, Commander Ravenshade launched a suicide mission to hold off the Horde long enough for the Healers to fall back to the relative safety of Ironforge or Gnomeregan. Finding themselves alone, the Priests and Clerics were ill-prepared when they were set upon by a patrolling warband. Cranston watched in horror as the gruesome Death Knight that led the patrol resurrected murdered Priests and Clerics before their bodies could even touch the ground. Calling upon the Holy Light, Cranston attempted to save his brethren from such a fate, but it was not to be.
Before his very eyes, his mother was slaughtered and returned to life by the Death Knight and then sent against him. Petrified beyond the capacity for rational thought, Cranston blindly lashed out with his mace, decapitating his mother's body in one fell swipe. Overcome with grief, Cranston snapped. Calling upon the Holy Light with every fiber of his being, he (or rather, they..) annihilated everything in the surrounding area with a brilliant Smiting flash, incinerating Humans, Undead, Corpses, Ogres, Orcs, Trolls, and the Death Knight.
When the dust cleared, the compassionate, intellectual Cranston Wintercrow was no more. Instead, his mind had fractured under such stress, creating two completely seperate personalities.
One is a shadow of what Cranston used to be. Inquisitive, bright, and compassionate, this personality is also incredibly weak-willed and is easily subverted by its opposite number. This personality, calling itself Cranston in honor of what it used to be, is the weaker of the two personas, but attempts to make the best of the time it has by following the path it distinctly remembers - healing the sick, tending the weak and infirm, and so forth.
The second is the antithesis of the noble and caring Cranston. Possibly the only redeeming quality of this personality, which refers to itself as Wintercreep or, somewhat more derisively as The Good Doctor, is the intelligence. Having full access to the wordly medical knowledge acquired during Cranston's sojourn, Wintercreep is the very definition of a sociopathic, homicidal sadist. Torture became the sole time-consuming project that appealed to the "Good Doctor", feeding his fascination with the limits of human endurance under horrendous conditions and madness-inducing "experiments".
Proceeding back to Lordaeron, Cranston/Wintercreep flip-flopped between personalities almost on a minute-by-minute basis, sometimes the switch happening so quickly that the two blend together in a schizophrenic tornado of bi-polar mood swings. Were it not for this switch, the two minds probably would never have been made aware of each other. Along the way, Wintercreep established dominance over the weaker Cranston mind and decided that perhaps it was time for "a little research". After all, he reasoned, Faith didn't help anyone. Why not try things a different way? One can not effectively tend to the needs of others, he concluded, if one does not understand the limits that someone can endure before surrendering themselves to fate.
Descending on the familiar confines on Ambermill and Pyrewood Village, Wintercreep first began experimenting on animals - torturing the creatures in such gruesome ways as to leave their remains completely unrecognizable. One citizen of Ambermill reported to the local constable after discovering the remains of a butchered housecat..
::::"..it was awful. I mean, how can someone simply rearrange the insides of a poor, defenseless cat?! The animal's guts look as if they were just shaken up, dumped out, and then jammed back in there any old way. A lung for a stomach, the brain inside the rib cage! By the Light, I have never seen such..atrocities.."
The discovery put a damper on Wintercreep's activities, much to his chagrin, and he made his way out of Silverpine and he subsequently set up shop in Tirisfal Glades, first resuming his activities on animals, but quickly growing bored with the weak-willed creatures. What the Good Doctor needed was something that could think, feel...scream...beg.
After a lengthy argument between Cranston and Wintercreep, the two now fully integrated and aware enough of each other to commence such discussions, Wintercreep succeeded in supplanting Cranston again and orchestrated his first human "experiment" - the youngest daughter of the Balnir family, Emily.
While young Emily was at play one beautiful morning down at the shore of Brightwater Lake, Wintercreep bludgeoned the girl across the head and dragged her unconcious form back to his camp near the Whispering Shore. There, he used his knowledge of medicinal herbs, surgical techniques, and of course, the Holy Light ("borrowing" this ability from Cranston) to amputate the girl's limbs and graft various animal parts in their place. Amused by his success, but quickly boring of the girl's piteous screams, Wintercreep embalmed the girl while she was still alive and hung her corpse from the arch of her mother's beloved Snapdragon garden. Upon discovery, her mom's heart simply stopped, killing her.
The population of Lordaeron flew into a frenzy over such a brutal crime. Investigators combed the countryside looking for the sick bastard responsible for such a heinous act. When approached by the investigators, Wintercreep subsumed himself into Cranston's personality, but kept a tight hold on the "goodly Priest", preventing him from spilling the proverbial beans and getting the two of them arrested. In the back of Cranston's mind, Wintercreep kept on repeating, "I'll do it again, Cranston, if you tell them we did it. I'll kill them, probably some animals too, and then I'll go back to Balnir Farmstead and find that delicious other daughter of theirs', the one with the beautiful singing voice, and I'll let you watch as I make her scream and beg for her life. I think I'll see how long I can keep her alive after I remove half of her brain and replace it with fungus. Know who the blame will rest with, Cranston? You, my friend, for the Holy Light that would allow me to do such a horrendous thing resides in your mind, not mine. Think about that!"
Cranston reluctantly told the investigators that he had heard some bestial howls the night before that reminded him of the War and offered to keep a lookout for signs of Orcs. Immediately after, Wintercreep resumed control and promptly went after the eldest son of the Solliden family, doing to him what he said he'd do to Yvonne Balnir. Much to his surprise, he managed to keep Vincent Solliden alive for the better part of a month before Vincent finally expired, his face contorted in a horrified expression, and his body was dumped on the side of the road near the Brill Cemetery.
Packing up, Wintercreep moved on to Andorhal, Quel'Thalas, Tranquillien, Quel'Danas, Aerie Peak, and other such places where he could carry on his experiments with a fresh batch of "patients".
==Karma Catches Up==
When the Plague of Undeath began claiming victims all through what is now the Plaguelands, Wintercreep's twisted mind saw it as a reward for his "selfless service" in pushing the boundaries of medicine, a veritable playground where he could work without impediment or threat of capture. With rumors of the dead rising from the grave, who would honestly look for someone living as the cause of their fear? After all, he was clothed in the vestments of a member of the Church of Holy Light, and surely noone would ever suspect one of the Holy Order of being a monster!
While exact records of this time are fragmentary at best, Wintercreep recalls even less, his mind simply refusing to acknowledge anything but one long, euphoric journey in the name of Medical Science.
Fortunately for the living, Wintercreep himself was not invincible when it came to the Plague itself and subsequently succumbed to effects with almost a maniacal glee. In the tattered journal he carries, one clear line stands out among the mad scribblings that were apparantly written during the onset of the Plague:
::: At last, we can finally move the experiments to the next level.
==Servitude==
Wintercreep's service as a member of the Scourge taught the lunatic more about depravity than he would have been able to learn on his own. The Lich King managed to fully suppress Cranston at this time, letting Wintercreep loose the entire time. In fact, some of Wintercreep's dubious experimentation laid the inspiration and groundwork for such creations as the Abominations and Flesh Giants. Enough of Wintercreep's mind was intact for him to be able to revel in the mayhem he caused.
Along with the massed army of the Scourge, Wintercreep tore through the still living areas of the Plaguelands on their way to deal with the High Elven city of Quel'Thalas. Wintercreep killed hundreds at that fateful battle, his joyous laughter heard over the crashing of swords, the screams of the dying, and the sloshing of feeding.
After withdrawing following the defilement of the Sunwell, Wintercreep became seperated from the Scourge forces and found himself with new playmates: The Amani and Shadowpine Trolls of Quel'Thalas. The Good Doctor, whether through distance or some other factor, began gaining more control over his shattered psyche and he resumed his horrific experiments on the resilient Trolls, fascinated by their inherent regenerative qualities.
One of his experiments revolved around slicing open multiple wounds on a Troll's body and sewing broken glass shards and wooden splinters into the gashes. Upon regeneration, Wintercreep was amused to find that the glass and wood would not be excised as he had theorized. Instead, the foreign material would be forced deeper into the body, causing excruciating pain on an almost constant basis.
Another experiment involved cutting away the extremities of a Troll and replacing the limb with inanimate objects, such as knives at the fingers and seeing if the object would be excised or integrated. Much to his own deranged amusement, he found that with proper conditioning, the object would be integrated.
==Shattering The Bonds of Slavery==
While Wintercreep was not completely free of Arthas' control, he had managed to regain enough control of his mind to realize that his experiments were little more than bored games he played, since he was cut off from the bounty of medical knowledge that was locked up in his other half's suppressed skull.
Embarking on a journey to quiet the bossy whisper in his skull and restore the weak-willed Cranston, Wintercreep made his way back to Silverpine Forest, where it all started. There, he lurked in the shadows, refamiliarizing himself with the area and attempting to cajole Cranston back with the memories of their childhood.
After the better part of a year, Cranston still had not reappeared and Wintercreep decided to take a more drastic approach. Staging an ambush, Wintercreep descended on the Pyrewood Militia, who were occupied trying to calm the refugees at the Greymane Wall. Slaughtering the soldiers and dozens of innocents, this action and the weakening of the Lich King allowed the Good Doctor to shatter the mental bonds and Cranston returned, seemingly worse for the wear, but back nonetheless. Now free, Wintercreep found himself surprised when Cranston managed to pull a mental coup and supplanted Wintercreep, taking charge for the first time in years.
Deciding it was time to end the suffering, Cranston dragged his tired and worn body to what is present-day Deathknell and descended into the Crypt, hopefully never to see the light of day again.
==Delightful Dementia==
While sealed in the coffin that was to be their eternal resting place, Cranston and Wintercreep argued constantly with each other, aware that there was no death coming for them and consigned to eternal companionship. Wintercreep amused himself by studying the medical knowledge locked in Cranston's mind and then regaling his alter-ego with dozens of half-cocked medical theories and demented experiments he intended to perform once he regained control and got back to work. Cranston stoically endured, knowing that as long as he was able to remain in charge, Wintercreep would not be able to commit his detailed atrocities.
Some time after being sealed in the coffin, Wintercreep had grown bored with Cranston and began plotting his escape in secret, even going so far as to stop talking to Cranston altogether, despite the many fanciful ideas he concocted in the meantime. Cranston, aware that the Good Doctor was still there, meditated on the good works he had once performed and what atonement he could perform for those families should he ever be free of Wintercreep.
Finalizing his plan, Wintercreep decided to make his move. Launching into a vile, ranting tirade, Wintercreep got under Cranston's skin, forcing the Priest to scream loudly with commands such as "Shut up! I tire of listening to you! Holy Light, Wintercreep, stifle it!"
That was all Wintercreep needed. By agitating Cranston, he forced the Priest to let his mental control slip and Wintercreep slid into the hole created by the frenzy. The Good Doctor annihilated every shred of control Cranston possessed over their body and took full control, ripping apart their coffin and rising from the grave. Ascending to the surface despite Cranston's protestations, Wintercreep found himself startled by the cold visage of Undertaker Mordo, who greeted the newly risen and welcomed him to the ranks of The Forsaken.
Equally confused and delighted to meet "people" in the same condition he was in, Wintercreep offered his services to his kin, under the pretense he was a healer of broken bodies and spirits. Overhearing this, Executor Arren beckoned the Good Doctor over and told him of a..Society..that could make use of his skills.
==Senior Surgical Researcher==
Dispatched to the Undercity, the Good Doctor was directed to the Apothecarium - home of the Royal Apothecary Society. There, he met with and discussed his "abilities" with Master Apothecary Faranell. After regaling the Society's leader with his wild (and somewhat intelligent) theories, Faranell awarded the Doctor with a membership into the Society, provided he made his abilities available to the Society whenever they called.
The Good Doctor did better than that. Acquiring equipment through dubious means (read: murder, theft), Wintercreep converted an empty storage room in the Apothecarium to his personal Laboratory of Horrors, where his "patients" were kept in permanent states of agony as they waited for the day when the Good Doctor gleaned enough from them to finally allow them to expire.
Using the Society's resources, Wintercreep was able to acquire new batches of specimens on an almost weekly basis. Humans, Scourge, Trolls, Elves, Orcs...they all suffered equally and without prejudice.
All in the name of Medicine.
He was quickly promoted from Junior Researcher to Senior Surgical Researcher, a post the Doctor learned to abuse and manipulate to continue his sadistic experiments.
==The Tirisfal Medical Journal==
Pleased by his professional zeal and his dedication to working on the New Plague, Master Faranell requested that Doctor Wintercreep begin publishing research papers on the very nature of his experiments. Physiology, Psychology, Surgical Techniques all are discussed in monthly "newsletters" distributed by the Society to its members. Named The Tirisfal Medical Journal, the pamphlet became the standard by which Society members conducted their own experiments.
After some months, and a lack of results, Society members began doubting the Good Doctor's methods (and some even doubted his sanity). Wintercreep was called before the Banshee Queen, Lady Sylvanas Windrunner, and forced to explain his methods and where his "spectacular insights" really came from.
==Expulsion==
Unable to come up with anything even remotely logical by way of an explanation, Wintercreep was summarily dismissed from the Royal Apothecary Society and has become something of a pariah among the Horde. Few deal with him on a personal level, due to his penchant for describing his experiments and theories in great detail, while even fewer will tolerate him on a professional level. It has not been unheard of for the Good Doctor to allow a companion to die a horrible death just to witness how much of Life is actually the WILL of the person in question to stay alive versus the BIOLOGICAL functions which necessitate said state.
Since his expulsion from mainstream Forsaken (and Horde long before that) society, Wintercreep has returned to his old stomping grounds - Pyrewood Village - where he experiments on both the Human-Worgen population there, in addition to any stragglers -Alliance or Horde- that happen across his path. To him, all suffer equally. And sometimes, the greatest suffering can lead to the greatest breakthroughs.
==The Pyrewood Medical Journal==
Compiling his journal entries, "professional theories", and discoveries made because of surgeries, Wintercreep (much to the continued annoyance of Cranston) has begun releasing his own newsletter known as the Pyrewood Medical Journal to those who seek an insight into the Healing Arts as described by the Good Doctor himself.
==Current Activities==
Outside of toiling away and performing his atrocities, Doctor Wintercreep has not been a contributing member of society for some time now. If it weren't for the timely arrival of the PMJ, most people would have assumed long ago that Wintercreep finally self-destructed or was destroyed by outside forces.
On a much lighter side, Cranston has regained strength and has begun working against the too powerful Wintercreep - attempting to gain control over their shared body once again. When that happens, Cranston feels he will have made a great penance and redeemed himself in the view of the Light. On the day this happens, Cranston is going to make the long sojourn to the Burning Steppes and cast himself into a pit of lava - destroying Wintercreep for good.
==OOC Notes==
*Wintercreep is, for all intents and purposes, insane. By no stretch of the imagination can he be considered reliable, outside of delivering the Pyrewood Medical Journal and conjuring wild medical practices.
*The Pyrewood Medical Journal is available to those who wish to subscribe to it, for a modest fee of 2 Silver a month, payable on or before the delivery date. This cost covers the delivery of the full four-page Journal plus any items the Good Doctor may send to the recipients as an aid in their own research.
*In a group setting, there are certain things one must contend with if they wish the Doctor to accompany them;
**If we are Roleplaying in a group setting, Wintercreep may let you die simply to observe the effects of your demise. If this is the case, I will discuss this fact with everyone beforehand.
**If we are not in a Roleplaying setting, I will do my very best to keep you alive, but if you die it ain't because I was "IC". Sometimes, it just happens. I apologize in advance. We Priests take quite a bit of abuse after a wipe, so..
*I may start publishing back issues of the PMJ on here or another site, depending.
*If you have a Medical character and wish to contribute to the Pyrewood Medical Journal, leave a message on the PMJ's talk page and we'll discuss format and such. Not all entries will get published, but each will be heavily considered.
Category:ForsakenCategory:Horde PriestCategory:Horde