Sharael

=Essentials=
*Full Name: Sharael bani Aetheri
*Aliases: "Shar" (nickname).
*Title: Though sometimes she is known among her cohorts as "that crazy woman" or something to that effect, she has no formal title.
*Allegiances: Currently her loyalty lies with no one. She had at one point been joined to Clan Exodus- a loose, somewhat regimented alliance that first stumbled upon her shortly after the crash of the Exodar, but they have since dissolved. She makes her own way now.
*Race: Draenei
*Class: Shaman
*Professions: Jewcrafting/Mining
=Appearance=
*Gender: Female
*Apparent Age: Sharael seems as though she is past middle age for her race, though this may be due to a pervasive unsettled mood that always casts its light upon her features.
*Height: 7'
*Weight: 216lbs.
*Eye Color: Aquamarine
*Hair Color: Blue-White
=Biographical=
*Age: Uknown
*Home: Booty Bay, for the time being.
*Place of Birth: Unknown
*Parents: Unknown
*Siblings: Unknown
*Other Relations: Unknown
*Language(s): Draenei, Common (which is still sketchy at times), Kalimag (the tongue of Elementals), she is also known to lapse at times- speaking in a strange tongue whose resonant tones are musical and lilting.
*Associates: Currently Sharael finds herself alone. Though she was once in the company of the Exodus clan, as led by Kraiion. And yet still other members of the clan, such as Accendie, Orsolya, Tylun and a handful of others know her fairly well.
*Alignment: N/A
=In-Depth=
==Appearance==
Full-figured, strong in bone and body, Sharael is quite lovely by the rugged standards of Draenei beauty. She stands straight and scarcely over seven feet. Her violet horns curl back gently along the crown of her head. Only her dour, somber expression disturbs her placid and pleasing features. She favors durable clothing that lets her skin breathe, and her weapon of choice seems to be the axe.
==Personality==
Most times troubled, many times dour and withdrawn, Sharael's perturbed demeanor is only deepened by the underlying sense that her companions- those among clan Exodus, who came upon her shortly after the crash of the Exodar- treat her at best as a child and at worst, as insane.
This is due in no small part to her apparent amnesia following the crash and her subsequent frequent lapses into fits of glossolalia following her recovery among clan Exodus.
She can't recall anything prior to waking up following the Exodar's crash. She does not know how she came to be on that beach, or even who she is, only her name, and a hazy sense that she doesn't truly belong among "her people" for some reason.
==History==
Sharael's story is primarily one filled with anomie. She has never felt she fits anywhere, and as a woman missing a past, she finds it especially hard to identify with her own people, who if nothing else are renowned for their long memories and historical records. So instead of a story of 'where I came from' presented here is 'what she knows' and nothing more...
===The Arrival===
Sharael awoke shortly after the crash of the Exodar on a beach in Azuremyst Isle. Disoriented, unable to remember how she’d gotten there, she was shocked to realize that she was surrounded by beings she couldn’t recognize, yet felt vaguely familiar to her. The Naga that surrounded her, for their part were mesmerized themselves by the crash and the thick columns of smoke pouring forth from the horizon.
When they all came to, it was apparently back to business as the Naga made clear their unfriendly intentions and a chase ensued. Sharael, still weak and sore ran hard and long, trying to escape her pursuers. She began to tire however. When it seemed readily apparent she would be overtaken, Sharael got some unexpected help in the form of Draenei Mage, Orsolya. Hailing the Naga with a vicious ice storm and bolts of frost, she was the first among the disoriented Draenei to come to the rescue. Soon others arrived and the Naga were driven off.
The group of Draenei who saved Sharael in the coming months would organize a loose confederacy. An idealistic young Paladin named Kraiion took the lead of the newly formed Clan Exodus and it set about gathering up survivors and helping others recover from their jarring arrival on Azeroth.
Sharael forged some friendships that would last at that time. She felt a kinship with Orsolya, who, like herself was a helpful if often misunderstood soul. Orsolya had a sister who had been left in a coma following the crash of the Exodar. Sharael helped her care for her sister, Aelevere- often wondering what she dreamed in her long slumber.
Tylun had been something of an example to Sharael as well, in his own simple way he exemplified to her that devotion had no need of fancy wordcraft, and in fact worked best when it was tempered largely with deeds.
===Embers and Afterglow===
While she certainly made some friends at that time, Sharael never quite felt welcome in Clan Exodus. Sharael, always feeling ill-at-ease with her “countrymen” for no reason she could explain was further disenchanted by her treatment while in Clan Exodus. While she wasn’t treated with outright cruelty, there were subtle signs that they didn’t entirely trust her. And then of course there were… differences.
Sharael could not find in her this deep connection to the Light that her comrades seemed to share. Try as she might, she could not see its hue, nor feel its warmth. It seemed as though she was removed from it- much like the “degenerate” cousins of the Draenei, who were called the Broken. And like those who were twisted by the explosion of Fel energies that ripped apart Draenor, Sharael was at worst, mistrusted and at best, patronized heavily.
It didn’t help that long after the crash, her memory had still not returned to her. Save for her name, which she heard whispered to her nightly in dreams both mystifying and terrifying, Sharael was a blank slate. Worse still, she had fugues and lapses. And when she was in these states, she would often start speaking in strange and unknown tongues. This only deepened the mistrust between her and her new comrades. They thought of her as insane, and Sharael could not bear the terse nature of the relationship.
Sharael resigned to study the mystery that was herself. And having spent some time on Azuremyst Isle helping the indigenous inhabitants adjust, she found something that resonated with her. Arugoo, one of the Stillpine Furbolg, and a practicing Medicine Man amongst his people put the proverbial bug in her ear. Sharael began to practice the Shamanistic arts at first with Arugoo’s help, and then on her own- eventually leading her to Farseer Nobundo. Sharael learned to reach out to the Elements and governing principles of the universe. Already a potent dreamer, she opened her eyes to the stream of time and space that was possibility and her perception expanded immensely.
Though Clan Exodus had other Shaman (most notably Tylun), Sharael’s persistent odd behavior kept her apart from her companions, and her choice of what was still a fairly new calling among Draenei didn’t help matters any. During her apprenticeship with Farseer Nobundo, she found her affinity for the elemental principle of wind. Nobundo in turn gave her a surname to befit her talent with the element, and so Sharael bani Aetheri had a whole name.
At Tylun’s urgings, Kraiion consented to bring the Clan for a visit to Shattrath City. Tylun had visions related to the fate of Outland, and felt the Clan may have matters to attend to there in time. As the cohorts of Clan Exodus toured the city, Sharael found herself overwhelmed. The city was old, and the ghosts of the past cried out to her, but even more than the wailing of spirits, Sharael was haunted by the faces of the refugees and orphans of the war with the Legion. She felt more than empathy for them. Sharael felt once again that strange sense of familiarity, and more than a pang of guilt, none of which she could explain. She had never known these people, after all.
And while she had felt the need to help the unfortunate before as she had in the months after the crash of the Exodar upset the balance on Azuremyst Isle, this pull was stronger. It struck a chord so deep in her that she resigned right then and there, as her comrades continued to coddle and patronize her like a child, that she would take her leave of Clan Exodus, and stay in Shattrath to help in any way she could.
And thus it was that she parted ways with Clan Exodus, deciding to go further down her own path of soul-searching.
===The Calling===
In the months that followed, Sharael did wonderful things in helping the Orphanage and Infirmary in Shattrath care for the victims of the War. She learned much of the conventional arts of healing and developed a camaraderie with others of like mind. And yet, she came to feel once again a sense of disenchantment. It wasn’t a disappointment with helping the helpless, but a desire to do more, and the realization that she could not.
Sharael was treating the symptoms but not the disease itself. So long as the War with the Legion raged on, there would continue to be refugees and orphans streaming into Shattrath’s gates. She wanted to take a more active role, and to do so she knew she would have to pick up again the raiment of the warrior- skills that had softened since she began volunteering in Shattrath.
She resigned to once again return to Azeroth, and start again there. She knew that this was the only way to regain what she’d lost. Once she’d acquired the skills needed to survive in the wilds of Outland, she would take her grievances straight into the Legion’s teeth.
When Sharael returned, she’d decided to stay away from the Exodar, and indeed any of the Alliance cities- for she knew she’d find the same “welcome” in those places as she had before. She passed through the Exodar but once, and only to satisfy a curiosity. She discovered that Clan Exodus had dissolved, its members scattered to the winds. She was at first relieved, for in many ways life in the Clan had been difficult and trying. But then the panic began to set in as it dawned on her that all those she knew as familiar here on Azeroth were now beyond her reach as well.
Swallowing the lump of fear in her throat, she set out on her own for a quiet place to begin again. She stumbled on Westfall in the Eastern Kingdoms of Azeroth, and was stunned to find how the Alliance, embattled as they were with all manner of horrors here and in Outland, had completely abandoned the outlying hamlet to thieves, brigands and worse.
Not knowing where to begin, she took room and board with the Saldeans, a couple who owned one of the few operating farms remaining in Westfall. They were somewhat unsettled by her appearance and broken common, but soon became more comfortable as they realized her helpful nature. She worked there at first as a farmhand, earning her keep honestly, helping to milk the cows, till the fields and harvest the crops. She knew she wanted to do more, and when the Defias brigands began harassing the Saldeans, she found her opportunity.
She helped keep the Saldean farm safe while honing her skills on the wastrels that intimidated and held the people of Westfall hostage. And she learned more yet while there. Sharael learned much of the handling of livestock, including herding and roping cows from Mr. Saldean himself. It was also here that Sharael finished her mastery of the strange clipped “common” tongue that the Humans of the Alliance used.
===Into the Mouth of Madness===
Eventually, Sharael felt the Call again, and set out for Menethil Harbor, having done much to make Westfall safer for the Saldeans and still others who would abide there. Once at the jointly-held town of Dwarves and Men, she boarded the Maiden’s Virtue and sailed for Stranglethorn Vale and the Goblin port of Booty Bay. Part way through the journey she lapsed once again into one of her fugues, her first in some time. When she awoke, she was naked, bruised, and lying in the ruin of a shack not far from the Stranglethorn coastline. From the bodies that lay all around her she surmised the structure had once been used by the Bloodsail Buccaneers. And once again, she could remember none of how she had come to be there, or why.
Knowing she could not stay there long without risking the wrath of any returning pirates, Sharael resolved to make her way to Booty Bay on foot through the jungle. She clothed herself in an old drapery, and using a staff to hold her weight, she set out into the jungle. After days of slinking about, avoiding Bloodsail patrols, wild animals and all the myriad dangers of the Vale, Sharael at last came upon Booty Bay in twilight.
Still feeling an inexplicable pull, she entered that smuggler’s den and descended to its depths- the infamous “Underdocks” where barroom brawls, getting mugged or knifed were the least of your worries. All the worst elements of the Bay made this place their home. And Sharael’s vulnerable state did not go unnoticed by the denizens of that darkened place. Sharael was forced to break a man’s toes before reaching the place where she felt the pull most profoundly.
“The Blowhole” was what the sign over the door read, but it’s more veteran patrons often simply referred to it as “The Hole”. It was a “gentleman’s club” where anything but gentlemen gathered, and women danced in various states of dress and undress for what tips they could earn on the virtues of flesh and chiaroscuro.
It was here that Sharael ran into someone from her past- short as it was. Aelevere, the younger sister of Orsolya was up on the stage at the Hole. She was modestly dressed compared to many of the dancers that night being still on “probation” from the club’s owner, and it was for this that a short, thoroughly rum-soaked dwarf was heckling her. Sharael intervened, engaging the Dwarf’s interest instead with a more enticing offer, a bet to be performed in the format of a drinking contest between herself and the Dwarf.
The stakes were her drape- still her only clothing since waking up in the ruined Bloodsail shack- against the Dwarf’s Brewfest regalia. Already inebriated with much more than merely rum and the promise of further lechery to come, the Dwarf couldn’t refuse on the grounds that no “blue cow-girl” was going to beat him at perhaps the one and only thing he was best at- it was an easy win.
When the dwarf woke up from a drunken stupor several hours later, and it was made apparent to him that the blue blintz he was sure to beat had in fact gotten the best of him, he became a rather poor sport about it all. And not without good reason, for through the haze he perceived that the stakes had been raised several times during the course of the game, and that in losing he now owed the woman not only his clothes, but also his riding ram. The ram he parted with, but his dignity was harder to divest himself of. In the end he lost the ram, his clothes, and found that neither he, nor his money were welcome any longer in the Hole. He was shamed in front of everyone and sent running naked from the club into the wee hours of the morning to nurse another bottle and a heaping helping of wounded pride.
((WIP))
==Associates==
===Friends/Acquaintances===
* Aelevere -
* Orsolya -
((UNDER CONSTRUCTION))
===Enemies/Rivals===
((UNDER CONSTRUCTION))
=Supplemental/OOC=
A space for related, but arguably out-of-character information regarding Sharael.
==Name==
Sharael SHAR-ay-el - A fairly common Hebrew name, apparently, with the rough meaning of "princess" or some such as I understand it. It's also, by the language structure, and Angelic name, as the suffix "-el" effectively means "of God". consequently that suffix is also known to be found in Demonic names as well...
==Conception==
Honestly, I hadn't really warmed up to the idea of creating or playing a Draenei when all the pre-hype for the expansion was circulating, and then I sort of had an epiphany- an old character I had once played in City of Heroes by the same name. She was, like the Draenei, blue-skinned, horned, and had some features in both character and appearance of both angels and demons. In City of Heroes, that character had been a Storm/Electricity Defender (a support class, basically) and with the expansion allowing us to create Shaman on Alliance, this seemed a good time to try out the class and create a character that seemed sensible to me.
==Language==
I've often liked to use either accents or whole languages to help add flavor to the characters I create. For Sharael- a character whose history was inspired by actual historical figures such as John Dee- mathemetician, philosopher and occult advisor to Queen Elizabeth I- it seemed appropriate to use the Enochian Key that was devised by Sir Dee and which he believed to be "angelic language" as a basis for a language I created for Sharael using the Addon Lore (with a note that, due to the disuse and poor maintenance of Lore of Late I have begun using a very similar addon called Tongues for these purposes). I retitled this "Anu'kian" which not too coincidentally is phonetically similar to it's origin.
Category:Alliance
Category:Draenei
Category:Shaman
Category:SkunkWerks
Category:Sharael
Category:Masque