Earen

== Description ==
Name: Earen Sunstrike
Race: Blood Elf
Age: 125
Birthplace: Quel'thalas
Class: Mage
Professions: Mining/Jewelcrafting
Affiliations: Former Magister of Silvermoon
Appearance: He is wiry and a bit too thin, but still manages to appear somewhat confident. His short-cropped light brown hair is a bit untidy and he looks drawn in the face, as if he hasn't gotten much sleep lately.
==Occupation and Personality==
Once a respected if eccentric magister in service of Silvermoon, Earen is now on the lam from Silvermoon law and doesn't have much in the way of a proper occupation. His personal mission is currently to aid his roommate and friend.
Earen is not nearly as confident of his abilities as he once was, though outwardly he will appear soft-spoken but very comfortable in his knowledge -- in public, anyway. He is polite to practically everyone he meets; personally, however, he looks down on the other Horde races as savages, with the exception of the undead and death knights, who he quietly hates.
==Background==
===Light of the Sunwell===
Earen had a privileged youth as one does when one's family has wealth and status. Coming from a line of mages, there was little doubt what he would do with his life. He was a dutiful student and delved into arcane studies with gusto. He had a friendly rivalry with a peer named Cirban Firestorm and normally came out on top, as his cool-headed approach triumphed over the other young man's impatience. Once an adult, he joined the ranks of Silvermoon's mages and began researching in earnest.
Earen became known for his fascination with magical mutations in the races; he studied all manner of cadavers and bones in seeking the links between night elves and harpies, trolls and night elves, and several other races reputed to have come from another in some magical way. He spent most of his researching years in Dalaran, though he did have time to do his duty and married a lovely, equally privileged woman named Almalea and had a daughter named Mina. He was very much an absentee father, however, rarely being home in Quel'thalas for birthdays or anniversaries. He was similarly absent when Almalea passed away due to an illness, and stayed only long enough to bury her and hire a nanny for his daughter.
He was still in Dalaran when the news came about the Sunwell being destroyed and Silvermoon being attacked. Dealing with a strange, gnawing withdrawal, he nonetheless followed Kael'thas back to the city. He found his manor in ruins, his possessions looted, and his daughter's crumpled, mauled body in the Dawning Lane park. Having absolutely nothing left and desperately needing to fill the multiple holes -- physically and emotionally -- in his life, he dutifully followed his lord Kael'thas as he left to join the New Alliance and find help for his people.
===Fall of the Sin'dorei===
Earen was among the many fighters who were imprisoned by the humans and broken out by the naga. He followed Kael'thas dutifully to Outland, where he joined the other magisters in seeking a cure for the hunger consuming their race. He worked in Tempest Keep among colleagues like Magister Lokasenna Vi'le and Astromancer Shaali Sin'dath. There he continued to pursue his research specialty, convinced that the way past the hunger was not in the fel magic he reluctantly used alongside his fellows but rather through magical mutation. He specifically began studying the Wretched, alive and dead, in his laboratory. He grew quite knowledgable about their condition and became more and more sure that it was a stunted version of the next evolution of the blood elves.
However, as Kael'thas became more and more obsessed with demonic dealings, Earen's work fell out of fashion and became more of a drain on resources. He was asked to focus on the proper research, but when he quietly continued his studies, he was determined to be too much of a bother and was promptly tossed off Tempest Keep into the Nether.
At least, that's how the story goes.
===Exile and Opportunity===
In truth it was a cadaver hurled off Tempest Keep. Earen was spirited away by the few magisters who felt Kael'thas was perhaps a bit overzealous and tossed through a Silvermoon portal. There, he spoke with Cirban, now a magister in the service of the regent. Cirban had heard of his research and through a great deal of pressure from others agreed to fund him under the table to continue his studies -- discreetly. Earen chopped off his hair, bleached it, took up ratty old robes, and began calling himself Atalante Spellsworn.
After setting up shop in some abandoned troll ruins and studying a few Wretched, he took to the streets of Silvermoon to seek out a volunteer for his proposal: that the sin'dorei could be pushed into the next natural evolution through use of arcane magic. Wretched were stalled because of the fel infusion; the trick was to keep one as pure as possible. A few leads fell flat, but soon he came across a naive paladin in the guard named Tanthos Lightwind who believed in his vision of helping their people free themselves of their crippling addiction.
He gave Tanthos a device he tinkered that slowly siphoned mana from the air. Tanthos quickly built up a resistance to it, however, and so Earen led him down the path of drawing more and more mana from various sources. It wasn't long before he started to show the telltale signs of becoming Wretched. Eventually Tanthos' condition began to affect his work enough to have his superior officer, Shaali, demand he cease all contact with Earen.
This was short-lived, however, as it was discovered that one of the Wretched Earen kept in captivity was that selfsame superior officer's lost brother, Asherion. He wasn't far along; Earen saw a moment of golden opportunity. He offered to exchange Asher's well-being for Tanthos' continued participation in his experiments. Shaali grudgingly submitted to this deal.
Earen held up his end, curing the insufferable young elf while leading Tanthos further down the path of arcane addiction. He introduced Tanthos to drawing directly from ley lines and as a result his condition deteriorated immensely. Around this time Cirban -- who had become the overseer of Tanthos' guard unit -- tired of Earen's research being a constant drag on resources and let slip his true name and that the King had wanted him dead. Shaali came with a warrant for his arrest, but instead ushered him away from Quel'thalas for a while.
Eventually Tanthos had deteriorated so much that he needed help, and so he and Earen took residence in Shaali's abode for a time. It quickly proved insufferable, however, and so they traveled first to Eldre'thalas for help from the Highborne, then to Stonetalon, and finally to Dalaran, where he called in a few favors with his old colleague Sondra.
===Magic Denied===
Shortly after Tanthos and Earen arrived in Dalaran, Earen was kidnapped by someone working for the Blue Dragonflight. He spent a month inside one of their boxes, devoid of light and sound, starving, parched, and barely kept alive while the Dragonflight sought to brainwash him into a proper mage-hunter. The box was cracked open prematurely, however -- Tanthos, Shaali, and Rilien having come to save him. The man who emerged from that box was a broken, shivering wreck, and he was brought back to Dalaran, where Tanthos began the slow process of nursing him back to health.
Sondra managed to get Tanthos a job in the Kirin Tor working on the tracking of ley line movement; as a result, he was given an apartment in the city, and he kept Earen there. Earen himself was largely lost in his own mind -- terrified of magic, of magic users, and feeling soul-crushing guilt for all he had done in the past. There they lived for years, with the Wretched Tanthos supporting and caring for Earen despite his condition. Through treatment he became marginally better, though he still couldn't begin to think of casting a spell, and his concentration on anything related to magic was utterly shot.
It became plain after a time that the magic-rich environment was hurting Tanthos' condition more than helping it. It was decided that it would be best to return to Silvermoon, and they did -- returning discreetly to Tanthos' old flat.
===Recent Times===
They're currently living in Tanthos' flat, planning on moving out to a place in the Quel'thalas forest soon. Tanthos has begun writing a cookbook, and Earen has taken up yet another persona to act as his agent, shop it around, and function in Silvermoon without being arrested -- a polite, well-meaning fellow called Aeldin Dawnheart. Wearing a wig and light leathers, he's made a few contacts and continues to care for Tanthos' varying condition. Tanthos, in turn, tries to tend to the problems from the Blue Dragonflight that plague him to this day.
Category:Horde
Category:Blood Elf
Category:Mage
Category:Miner (H)
Category:Jewelcrafter (H)