Desmond Hodges

The Former 17th Most Powerful Person In Lordaeron
Desmond Hodges is a Forsaken warrior and a Sergeant of Dagger and Totem, originally sent to the clan in the guise of a Corporal, as a means of cooling relations between Orgrimmar and Undercity after the events of the Wrath Gate, and the subsequent Orcish occupation of the Forsaken capital. As the months passed, Hodges began to connect to the clan, becoming unbendingly loyal, and an integral part of Dagger and Totem's operations. A former sergeant in both life and undeath, Hodges has around thirty years of combat experience, and specialises chiefly in fighting the undead. Having had a thorough military education, Hodges is an intelligent fellow, competent at languages, maths, and the sciences. He is a strong advocate of the old ways of Lordaeron; of the anthems, the customs, the respect to the monarch, and the necessity of good presentation. In that regard. Hodges is extremely organised, often harrying grunts to send him detailed written reports about the missions and assignments they have been part of, and this trait has earned him the role of clan librarian, an undertaking he faces within his office in the Undercity.
==Appearance==
Desmond Hodges looks out at you through beady eyes, golden and globe-like. He is a thin man, and perhaps the perfect recipient of the phrase "all skin and bone", although it has to be said that he has precious skin left.
He is, of course, dead, and there's no getting away from that. If it isn't his armour or his weapons, it's decayed. His bones are yellow with rot and prolonged exposure to the outside world. What flesh he still boasts is made up of a sickly, weak purple hue. His hair is a mockey of what hair should be; it's solid and dry, as if it isn't made out of individual strands but rather just exists as one hard lump.
Despite all this, humanity remains. His face, for all it is scarred and embedded with stitches, is highly expressive, and his voice performs exactly as he wants it to: he doesn't seem to find Orcish a different language to use at all. He carries a Lordaeron accent, but a very particular one: it's familiar to anyone who has experience with the Lordaeron military.
Yes, the military. Most of the time, you will see Hodges buried beneath his armour. He has a lot of suits of armour, and they're all impeccably maintained. They shine as a result of the meticulous, tireless care he treats them with.
He walks with a slouch, but there's still something of a military stride in how his legs move. Often while on official business, he'll stand up with his back straight and what's left of his chest puffed out. Again, like his accent, these traits are recognisable as Lordaeron codes of conduct.
If you were to look extremely closely at Hodges (and this would no doubt attract his ire...) you would see globs of green goo caking his joints - his elbows and shoulders, knees and waist, and occasionally his fingers and toes, too. Perhaps he's gradually turning himself into an orc...
==Background==
Hodges was a proud, capable soldier of Lordaeron in life. He was born in the Capital City itself, to a working-class, close-knit, Light-fearing family. As a boy he worked in both agriculture and industry, and attended masses regularly and dutifully, accepting the truths and wisdoms while not actually paying much attention to the sermons and the messages they exposed. At the age of 16 he signed up to the Lordaeron army, which was at the time engaged in a furious war with the Orcs of Draenor. Conflict became Hodges: He performed with distinction and bravery, wishing to protect everyone he held dear, from his King and Country to his parents back at home. His younger days spent on farms and quarries paid off, and he quickly became proficient with the sword and shield, using these skills on as many orcs as he could. The times he was offered leave were met with flat refusal, such was his determination to prove himself. This selfessness was rewarded, as he was quickly made a Corporal after half a regiment was wiped out in an ambush by wolf-mounted raiders on an outpost. When the orcs launched a similar attack on the same fortifcation, Hodges slew as many as he could, and joined soldiers twice his age and bulk at the front gates to repel the assault.
As Corporal at such a young age, he was held in rather dubious regard when it came to discussing tactics with other officers. His initial input was basic at best, and needless at worst. More tedious than that were his curious questions as to his sergeants and knights were doing things in a particular way. Often, these queries were seen as challenges and were dismissed as ignorant, juvenile cheek. But one particular knight paid him more attention. Sir Owen was a Knight of the Silver Hand, and from him Hodges learnt the "art" of flanking, manoeuvring, shield walls, and rallies. The two travelled south together with the rest of the army, pursuing the retreating Orcs. Owen was a particularly pious Knight, and separate from lessons on battle he lectured Hodges on the Light. The young Corporal, however, did not show much interest on this front, until a night before the Battle of Alterac, where Owen finally lost his patience with Hodges' indifference towards the Light. Subtle hints hadn't worked, and so Hodges was directly informed that he could be a fitting member of the Silver Hand, and thus a Paladin. Rather stunned by this, Hodges agreed to take up the training, after Alterac had been put in its place.
(It should be noted here that the Battle of Alterac was a conflict between Lordaeron and the combined forces of the Horde and Alterac. As described on WoWwiki... "Lord Perenolde - sovereign ruler of Alterac - has been working with the Horde since the beginning of the war. It was Perenolde who provided the Orcs with the routes of the Elven strikeforce passing through Tarren Mill. The rebellion at Tyr's Hand was also started by Alterac spies in hopes of concealing the Orcish mining facility located there. The High Command has decreed that the nation of Alterac has committed treason against the Alliance and their union with the Orcish Hordes must be broken. You must free those unjustly held by Perenolde and enlist their aid in launching an attack against Alterac's capital.")
When battle came, so did disaster: Owen was struck down from his horse, by another human no less. This fiend of Alterac capitalised on the Paladin's vulnerable state, and repeatedly kicked him in the head until Owen could take no more. His killer, however, did not get to celebrate long, and was dispatched by a furious Hodges, seeking to bloodily avenge his mentor. But the damage had already been done - Owen was dead, and Hodges' interest in the Light shattered. Someone blessed by the Light had been killed in a cowardly attack, and he had seen it all. He had seen the head being reduced to something so purple with bruises it resembled a ravaged plum. It was a reprehensible act, and an act by a human done to a human.
The battle still raged, and Hodges did not allow himself any respite beyond closing his fallen mentor's eyes. He dove back into the battle with a new, personal resolve, slaying human and orc without any perception of difference been the two. When the siege ended with Lordaeron's victory, he had spilled a lot of blood, and it was this blood that earned him another promotion, this time to Sergeant. Afterwards, he made sure that Sir Owen received a hero's burial, and even loudly demanded another Paladin to bless the body to secure its safe passage into the afterlife. Such brashness towards a cleric of the Holy Light was a rarely seen sight from Hodges, and his superiors put it down to grief, still confident that he would make a good Sergeant.
The Second War continued, with the Alliance of Lordaeron clearly winning; the orcs were continuously beaten back, every mile of ground they'd claimed since arriving upon Azeroth was being rightfully snatched away from them. Hodges called upon everything that Sir Owen had taught him in order to survive all the battles he was chosen to take part in. His former naive behaviour had almost completely dissolved. He took the tactics that Owen had taught him, and he developed them, ordering the twenty or so men under his command to exploit all the weaknesses the orcs showed. At Blackrock, his unit was instrumental in clearing out an entire barracks a few miles south of the mountain. At the Battle For the Dark Portal, Hodges and his men, now reinforced to be thirty in number, engaged in a furious, hateful melee against the Forest Trolls, so that the orcs would be cut off from their savage allies. In these battles, Hodges showed professionalism conduct, kept his emotions to himself, and was set upon keeping all his troops alive. As it happened, that was impossible; against such horrors, both indigenous and alien, there would be deaths. When they were, Hodges made sure that the men were buried in Lordaeron itself, and that he wrote the solemn letters to the families of the deceased.
When the time came to battle the orcs in their own homeworld, Hodges volunteered, desperate to finish what he had started: end the orc threat, and honour the memory of Sir Owen. But his application was rejected. Too young, they said, too inexperienced with combat. Lordaeron did not want to lose any more of her sons. He was, then, sent back to Lordaeron to serve in the homeland force, dealing with less otherworldly threats. He lost a great deal of his passionate momentum because of this, and saw no comfort in the numerous chapels that inhabited Lordaeron - the Light just gave him a bitter taste in his mouth. With the addition of his country losing its political influence with other nations (despite its valiant defence against the Orcs), Hodges felt that victory was empty.
Nevertheless, it was time to reunite with family, and catch up on what he had missed. His parents had opened a new family business, supplying something that post-war Lordaeron badly needed: roads. Many had been damaged in the war. Some had been robbed out by orcs, looking to use them for their own heinous masonry. Others had been shattered by catapult fire. It meant that his father, Anthony Hodges, was being paid by the bucketload, with the demand for repairs being sky-high. He had gathered enough wealth to pay for some extra hands, and soon Hodges Roads and Paths was carrying out multiple projects at any one time. Desmond's Mother Jill dealt with the finances, and everything back at home.
They were pleased to see their returning son, and immensely proud at his rank. He didn't tell them about Sir Owen, or what had been a fleeting opportunity to become a Paladin.
== Strategy ==
Hodges is a front line soldier, and one whom favours the sword-and-board method of combat. Whilst physically he always seems to keep his cool, vocally his wrathful undead tendencies take over. He'll taunt and swear at his beleaguered enemies and make sure that their final moments are terrified ones. He isn't shy, therefore, of living up to the image of his people, insulting and threatening as much as he can. His technique is largely by the book - the Lordaeron Military Book. He deploys the same techniques that he has done since he was first signed up to the Lordaeron Army, though now with his monstrous strength and nigh-on total immunity to pain, he is relentless. He is a slow fighter, and frequently uses devastating swipes and stabs which aim to shatter armour and bone alike. Most of the time, he is found behind his shield, waiting for opportunities to best his foe. He prefers to focus on one at a time, and is known to concuss or even knock out secondary adversaries in order to deal with his primary concern.
==Quotes==
"Oh, I'll expect you'll be the riff-raff. Don't stand on my account. Sit down, rest your legs, and feel inferior." Hodges unwittingly damning himself in the eyes of his new Den Mother.thumb|312px|Hodges obviously has SOME joy left in him, otherwise he wouldn't delight so much in his cherished "Cannon-onna-stick".
"I'll say one thing about Howling Fjord. It's a battlefield that makes for good eating." Just before snacking on a fallen Draenei.
"Sometimes I wonder... what it would have been like if I had gone through the Dark Portal, all those years ago. I'd still be there now, probably - in Hellfire, in Terokkar, or even with the dwarves in Shadowmoon. But mostly, I wonder this: when those folks from Honour Hold see Forsaken running about the Peninsula, who do they think got the better deal?"
"Suffer well. Or don't. You're alive." To any number of his fleshy companions.
"If you think we're getting a raw deal now, with all the Kor'kron in the city, I'd like to ask just what your alternative is? If you say severing our ties with the Horde, I'll scoff. In fact, don't answer, I'll save your ear-drums. But listen: in case you had forgotten, we're monsters, zombies, blights... whatever you want to name it. Your own mother would cower in terror at you. So stop getting weak-kneed just because a bunch of orcs show up to make sure we're not going to repeat any more atrocities."
"I like to think that when we fight with the Cult of the Damned, they realize what an awful, awful mistake they made when they decided the arcane just wasn't enough."
==Trivia==
Hodges used to be the Alliance character Temma Stonard; a story about her can be read here: Stonewrought Dam - The Perils thereof.
I miss her sometimes. :(
==Stories about Hodges==
Reports I Wish I Could Write
On Leadership
Zeppelin Rides
After the Uproar
Considering the Culling
Baring Teeth 
==External links==
* External link
Category:Characters
Category:Horde
Category:Forsaken
Category:Warrior
Category:Archive
Category:Male