Torven Velmon

Torven Velmon is a Lordaeronian mage formerly of the Kirin Tor, and veteran of the Second War. His first lover, Maege, was a fellow mage and soldier in the war, and died giving him a son. After suffering a wound to his leg which left him with a permanent limp, Torven was discharged from the war. He returned to Lordaeron to start a new life with his son Owen, and before long married Maria, with whom he had two children, Christa and Brinnea.
When Owen was fully grown, he joined the military and on his first tour of service, he went missing. Torven fell into an alcoholic depression, and when he began beating his wife, she took the girls and left him behind. Alone and destitute, Torven sought fruitlessly for his family until the Scourge threat forced him to abandon his search and flee south. Four years of depressed homelessness left him with a smoldering desire for redemption. Against all odds, he hopes to find his family again and make things right.
==Physical Appearance==
 In his forties, Torven looks almost ten years older than he is. His brown, grey-streaked hair is frequently messy, tattered, and unwashed. His mustache and goatee are shaved enough to be somewhat neat, but his facial hair grows in dry and messy regardless. His eyes are brown and full of sadness. He is built frailly, and walks with a constantly limp. His hands are cut, wrinkled, and stiff. His physiognomy is long and thin, giving him an almost horselike appearance.
He wears simple clothes and a coat with many pockets, one of which always contains his keepsake book from Andorhal. He carried a staff for personal protection and a crude wand for performing magic.
==Personality==
Torven is usually quiet and keeps to himself. He does his work, but keeps his mind on his sorrows almost constantly. He shows compassion for others and advocates for those who are downtrodden or mistreated. His experiences on the street have given him a new appreciation for such people, as the poorer a person is, the more generous they tend to be to others.
Despite his meek and empathetic nature, Torven's anger and addictive personality are his greatest downfall. He avoids alcohol as much as he can, but on really bad days he can't control himself and slips back into his old behavior. Once he's had one drink he can't stop until he's passed out or incapacitated from a fight. His anger burns brighter the drunker he is, but rage comes to him quickly in times of high stress. When fully lucid, he tends to warn people away from getting close to him.
Torven possesses an obsessive personality. He frequently checks his pockets for possessions and falls back on habits when he doesn't know what else to do. He enjoys working with his hands despite developing arthritis while living on the streets.
==Biography==
===Childhood in Ambermill===
Torven was by all accounts an unimpressive child. He was plain-looking, not particularly strong or fast, and had little in the way of charm. He did, however, show an aptitude for magic at a young age which encouraged his parents to send him to Dalaran for training. His father was a mill owner, and not a wealthy one. He spent all of his savings on Torven's education, and paid off loans until the day he died. Torven's mother was an aspiring writer, and doted on the boy endlessly. They shared letters often until she fell ill and died of fever.
===Dalaran Apprenticeship===
Torven proved decent at magical endeavors, never standing out but never flunking either. He made few friends among the mages, instead finding himself the butt of all the jokes. As a poor backwoods mage, he was expected to either fail hilariously or prove himself to be a savant. By doing neither, he failed to catch anyone's attention, except for that of another human commoner named Maege.
Maege made fun of Torven relentlessly. She was popular, as she was highly skilled and witty, so her pack of followers turned her every sally into a joke known to all at the academy. Where Torven didn't catch any attention on his own, she managed to make him known to all. Torven hated the attention. He hated her carefree manner and how easily she breezed through classes and social situations. Because of her, he found a fire within himself, and a goal to strive for: he would become a greater mage than her, and make the laughter stop.
The year their class graduated from basic training, the kingdom of Stormwind fell to the Orcish Hordes. The young mages were soon prepared in the ways of war in preparation for inevitable conflict. Torven saw this as his opportunity. He would make a name for himself, and make his parents proud.
===The Second War===
The Horde smashed into Lordaeron like a hammer through a rotten board. In his first battle, Torven took a wound that nearly cost him his life. Maege took care of him until the battle was over, further boiling his blood with the need for victory. Yet he learned discretion as well, and tempered his hot-headedness with patience.
Years went by. His mother died shortly after the war turned in the Alliance's favor. Maege offered Torven comfort in his sadness, and for once she spoke to him not in her carefree, joking manner, but in full seriousness. She had lost both her parents when she was young, she explained. Growing up with nothing but her magic, she learned to become one with her abilities in order to survive. When she joined the Kirin Tor academy, for once she was treated as an equal by others, and she found that she had a gift for making friends. Instead of letting her pain get the better of her, she used it to bring others closer. She laughed at the silly things that made people nervous or angry. All along, she had wanted to make Torven laugh. He laughed now, until he cried. They became inseparable ever after.
By the time the Alliance retook the ruined city of Stormwind, Maege was pregnant with Torven's child. They took a leave of absence for a time, but the battle for the Dark Portal was soon at hand. Torven could not remain to see his son born. In the battle for the portal, his horse was killed by a dragon's flame. He protected himself from being burned, but the beast fell on top of Torven's leg, crippling it thereafter. The battle was an Alliance victory, and Archmage Khadgar sealed the portal, locking the remainder of the Horde on the other side. For Torven, it was a hollow victory. He was rewarded with a homestead in Andorhal, a shattered leg, and the news that the love of his life had died in childbirth.
But his son had lived. Torven named him Owen after Maege's father.
===Building a New Life===
Torven's father left Ambermill to help the rebuilding effort in Andorhal. Torven did what he could to help despite his wound, and he learned how to be a single father along the way. While helping cut boards for a new house, Torven struck up a conversation with a tailor's apprentice named Maria. The two hit it off and after a short courtship, they agreed to be married. Maria moved in with Torven and helped raise Owen through infancy. Torven's father lived long enough to see two more grandchildren born: Christa and Brinnea. The girls had their mother's look for the most part, but Brinnea loved Torven more than anything. Torven read stories to her every night to help her sleep, and taught her the basics of magic. Yet even still, he had a bond with his son Owen that no one else could match. He was his only living memory of Maege, who was and always would be the love of his life.
During this time, the kingdom underwent financial trouble, and Torven struggled to stay afloat. His work in arcane engineering was put on hold due to budget cuts, leaving him to find a new branch of work. A group of necromancers offered him a job, and he couldn't afford to turn them down. This was after the incident with Kel'thuzad, however, and the Kirin Tor were quick to catch wind of the dark magic practice. Torven received the lightest punishment of the group: his license to practice magic was revoked and he was banished from Dalaran henceforth.
His greatest source of monetary support gone, Torven started slipping more and more. He worked with gnomish inventors to try and cobble together a living, but they didn't stay in Andorhal long enough for him to master the trade. He helped around town with odd jobs, but it was barely enough. Despite the hard times, his love for his family helped him through it all.
Owen had been in training for the military for years by the time word of orcish cultists performing kidnappings began to spread. Owen was taken along with the soldiers sent to put the cultists down. Owen sent a single letter home during this time, mostly complaining about the poor weather. The next letter than came declared Owen MIA and likely dead. Torven collapsed, the emotional strain too much to work through.
His daughters and wife could do nothing to shake his depression. Torven turned to alcohol to keep himself going, and soon that became more of a dependency than an aid. He was fired again and again from his jobs, and came home angry and bitter. His wife-beating started subtly, usually escalating from arguments. He stopped reading Brinnea stories before bed, and Christa rarely stayed in the house. One particularly bad night, he started smashing things in the kitchen. Brinnea ran in to try and stop him, and Torven hit her by accident. Maria had taken the beatings before, but this was too much. She went after him with a knife, threatening to kill him if he came near her or the girls again. Torven retreated into the bathroom, in disbelief at what he had done. He passed out in a puddle of booze and tears, and in the morning they were all gone.
===The Third War===
Nothing kept Torven in Andorhal after that. He sold the house and everything in it, took a few travelling supplies, and limped his way across the country to try and find his family. The Scourge attacks had begun not long before, making the road unsafe to travel, but Torven had no other options. He encountered them first at a town on the road, where all the residents had been turned. He stayed in the capital for a time, and fled when Arthas conquered it. Unbeknownst to him, Maria and the girls had done the same thing, but they fled in opposite directions. They went to Silverpine in the south, while Torven went for Dalaran.
The city admitted the refugees for a time, and Torven managed to make it in before Dalaran came under siege by the Scourge. He joined the militia against Arthas' forces, but when it was clear the city would fall, Torven escaped through the sewers along with many others. There were great dangers down in the wet depths, and many did not live to see the sun again. Torven managed to escape, and took ship for the south at the first village he came across.
For the remainder of the war, Torven wandered as an exile in Dun Morogh and Elwynn Forest. He eventually found work in Stormwind, and made a somewhat permanent place for himself in the city. He was homeless, but with what skills he had, he was able to stay alive. He quickly learned how to avoid muggings and the cruel members of the city guard that tormented transients such as himself. Four years passed, and all he had to remind himself of his former life was a worn-out children's book, the last he'd ever read to help his daughter sleep. He read it every night while living in the streets and on the road. And every night he swore to himself, "They are still alive, and I will find them."
===The Drums of War===
With the Alliance army preparing to counter the Horde, Elwynn, Westfall, and Redridge became less and less safe for the common folk. Torven, wanting to find some way to redeem himself and help others, began saving money to either start a new business or return to the fold as a soldier despite his lame leg. A letter arrived for him, inviting him to join a coalition of adventurers planning to fight the threats against the people while the army is away. The group called itself Intrepid, and its mission appeals to Torven's ideals. He signed on, hoping that this group would live up to its mission and help others above all else.
Torven decided to dedicate his attention to the problems in Westfall, where the Defias outwardly attack people, a threat answered only by the People's Militia. Torven set out to find the entrance to the rumored location of the Defias Hideout: The Deadmines. Along the way, he discovered that the Defias had recruited children off the streets of Stormwind, many of which Torven knew personally. His priority shifted to getting those kids out of the gang, and to help them find a new path for themselves.
==Trivia==
*Torven studied fire magic primarily during combat lessons. His scholarly endeavors led him to perform research on the Firelands and fire elementals in general. He knows a smattering of Kalimag as a result. His efficiency with fire magic allows him to use more fire spells than the average mage.
*In basic training, Torven learned the rudiments of arcane magic. He uses arcane spells in addition to fire magic to keep his enemies on their toes. His conjuration is below average, so don't try his summoned food or water. They taste terrible.
*As a soldier in the Second War, Torven received basic combat training. He specialized in the sword and staff, and retains his knowledge of self-defense with both weapon types.
*To survive on the streets, Torven turned to some less than savory methods, including stealth and subterfuge. He knows how to spot traps and disarm basic contraptions. He's even been known to pick a lock or two. He lacks the finger dexterity for any intermediate or advanced techniques.
==Notes and references==
Category:Characters
Category:Human
Category:Mage
Category:Alliance