Oran Locke

==Oran Locke==
Race: Human (currently possessing the blood elf Eldanis Lightbinder) 
Age: Presumably 23 before death 
Birthplace: Tarren Mill 
Class: Death Knight (Under the name Lockehart) 
Professions: Miner, Blacksmith
Affiliations: The Scourge 
Appearance: Oran Locke, in life, was a six foot tall man of strong build and rugged features. He grew up mostly alone, wandering from settlement to settlement and learned the way of the highway brigand, thus his skin was tanned and his hands calloused. In life his eyes were an intense blue and his hair was a vibrant honey-tinged blond. Oran favored simple clothes that were dirty from his life of wandering, rarely changing out of his cloth breeches, muddy boots, and beige tunic.
After his death, Oran's body was ripped apart by ravenous Scourge and hastily stitched together by necromancers for reanimation. It became the creature known as Orloc.
As a Death Knight, Oran's body is that of the blood elf Eldanis Lightbinder. A handsome and strong paladin, Eldanis was once chiseled and beautiful, but the corruption of the dark presence within tainted his blonde hair, ruined his skin, and drew in his features, empowering him with darkness clad in massive, black plate mail armor.
==Personality==
Before his mind became deranged, Oran was an insecure young man who knew only struggle. As a child he was spiteful and arrogant. Never knowing discipline, he bullied others and stole without care. His mother was heartsick from the loss of her husband and could not bring herself to punish her child for his misdeeds. Others in the town attempted to remedy him, but schoolteachers quickly became aware of his unrepentant ways. It was not until his mother died and left him an orphan did the boy first realize life's hardships. Instead of being placed in foster care, he ran away from home. There he learned necessity, becoming a survivor, and slowly emerged as a man who knew only desperation. He yearned for acceptance and an end to starvation and fear in the night.
After Oran's already-fragile psyche cracked, he decided that life was far from beautiful, and that by nature it was empty of meaning. Society, civilization itself, was a thin veil to attempt to hide its uselessness from similarly weak and insecure peasants. He resolved himself to grant that meaning and, considering himself an agent of fate who would illustrate to others a truth that only he seemed to adhere to.
Upon his death Oran was swayed by the Lich King's will to accept the Scourge as a kind of family, a sense of belonging that his own broken life had never known. His plan to remain in wait inside of an innocuous sword left much time for brooding, during which he knew only his own company, but his desire to serve Arthas was unshakable. Released and restored, he revels in bloodshed and pain and bringing others into the fold of the Scourge, believing that his "gift" of family should be spread far and wide to eliminate the cruel suffering of life.
==History==
===Childhood and the Early Years===
Oran Locke was born in Tarren Mill roughly the time of the First War. His family was rooted in a long-standing tradition of fishing. Both his father and mother were simple folk who enjoyed a calm life and felt blessed by the arrival of their first and only child. A quiet baby, he was marveled at by the townsfolk for his neat behavior and tendency to entertain himself with toys rather than get into trouble. As he grew the boy was jovial and enjoyed roughhousing with others, playing simple games, and going out on his father's boat. When he was five he began an education with a local tutor who took in a few local children to help their reading, writing, and arithmetic. Oran's favorite subject was the alphabet.
Sadly, the Locke family was separated with the beginning of the Second War. Oran's father was conscripted into the military to defend against the invading orc Horde, and reports of their activities swiftly approaching Tarren Mill was cause for alarm. He and his mother took what little they had and moved north, accompanying a caravan on its way to Stratholme. There they waited, his mother applying her skills as a seamstress to aid in the war effort. Oran resumed his schooling but became upset and agitated by the separation from his father. Stories of the war only frustrated him, as his frequent tantrums would attest, and he accused his mother of splitting up the family when they could have stayed in Tarren Mill to be with his father. Word of the war coming northward was disconcerting, and Oran's mother seemed to lose hope that her husband would even return. One day a soldier stopped by the small home they were occupying and relayed the account of a tragic loss; the father Locke had been slain in battle by the orcs. Devastated, the widowed mother took her son and decided to move once again, this time to nearby Andorhal. The war swept northward to devastate Stratholme's supply lines and things were indeed grim.
===Running Away===
Though the Second War ended favorably for the kingdom of Lordaeron and their disheveled allies, Oran's broken family was a casualty. He became troubled in school and at home, often refusing to obey teachers, beating up other children, and on many occasions stealing from vendors, grocers, and homes. Oran became a bully and thief. His mother was ineffective in disciplining him, as her health was declining steadily in the years following the loss of her husband. Not long after Oran had turned 12, she died of unknown causes in her bed. Officials arranged for Oran to be placed under foster care until any extended relatives could be located, but the very same night of his mother's funeral he disappeared. The boy decided that his home was in Tarren Mill, and that if he was to be anywhere it would be in his childhood home where his father had raised him and taught him to fish. With only the clothing on his back he struck out to find his way there.
Oran made it as far as Brill on his own when he decided to resupply himself and acquire a good weapon with which to fend off the dangers of the wild. Confident from his long journey and a bit too sure in his own abilities, the boy broke into a smithy and was caught. The old smith beat him senseless. Despite all his attempts at maturity, Oran was terrified of the old man. He hastily agreed to go to work in the smithy to pay for his attempted thievery. The smith took him on as an "apprentice," but in reality he mistreated the boy and applied him to menial labor. Oran was forced to sleep locked inside the shop, was fed meager supplies of watery soup and bread, and often had to cart around loads of iron, tools, and weapons. His time spent in Brill was miserable and he hated the blacksmith who had caught him, but his constant fear of being turned over to the guards as a thief, as well as further beatings, kept him cowed. For nearly two years he plotted revenge, desiring any kind of opportunity to pay the old man back. The window came when he discovered where the family kept their earnings and savings. In the night Oran broke out of the smithy with the family's entire fortune in a box under one arm. The taste of society was bitter and remained such as he picked his way along the trails and roadways south.
On one otherwise uneventful day, the rogue teenage was following one of the major paths through Silverpine Forest. He was ambushed suddenly by a group of brigands who quickly surrounded them and took the money he had stolen from the blacksmith. Though he protested, they laughed, jeering and taunting him to go back home and stay away from the dangerous outdoors. Enraged, he attacked one of them, savagely beating the man fist-over-fist before two others managed to pull him away. Their leader was impressed by the tenacity of such a scrawny young man. The one-eyed bandit asked him his name, his origins, about why he was traveling alone. Oran explained he was making his own way home and cared nothing for people who got in his way. With a knowing smirk, the brigand leader offered him a place in their gang, provided he could work.
The choice was never clearer.
===Highwayman===
Over the next several years, Oran lived only off the spoils of robbery, deceit, and fear. The bandits who took him in explained the life of the man on the road, something Oran took an immediate shine to. They worked in small groups, meeting up only to split loot, taking care to always be somewhere else when the crimes they committed were reported. Though they were far from murderers, they roughed-up, threatened, lied, stole, and sabotaged to make a living. It was a life of necessity, something that Oran knew very well. While he was not alone, he was isolated, as the bandits were far from a family or circle of companionship. For the most part Oran was left to his own devices. He slept in stables, or on the forest floor. He pilfered apples and bread and drank the occasional flagon of mead lifted from an unwitting bar. Farmers and peasantry were poor; stealing from them yielded poorly as well. From time to time the gangs would come together on word of rich merchant caravans coming through the area, and a few times in the six years Oran spent struggling to survive, he knew the feeling of gold between his fingers. The money could never last, however. It was simply a bridge between one meal and the next.
Eventually he did make it to Tarren Mill. The town was just as it had been, but its residents had moved on. In his childhood home lived an elderly couple with grown children. Men still farmed and fished, women weaved baskets and sewed nets and baked pies. Nothing there was familiar, and no one remembered his father. The home he recalled and so desired was gone, crushed beneath the heel of time. He returned to the wilderness that he had raised him a dejected man, uncertain of his future now that he knew he truly had none.
Turmoil began in the bandit circle. Those who prowled the area were being confronted by larger, more assertive groups of outlaws who made veiled threats and suggested that those who knew best would join these roaming collectives. These dens of thievery and murder were lead by hardened individuals who had years of practice as assassins and mercenary thugs. Oran's few acquaintances, including the man who had originally taught him the way of the road, inevitably joined under the banner of a harsh leader who planned to put pressure on the local communities and organize a syndicated criminal circuit the likes of which Lordaeron had never seen before. Though he cared little for the high profile of this new gang, Oran knew there was no choice. The bandits were becoming an entity all their own. It sang of authority, a kind of counter-kingdom to the one that lived by the laws of the king, but he knew that a group of outcasts would be no match for Lordaeron's guard, or their military, or even the militias that could be stirred in times of need. In the end, he decided that it would be better to slink off on his own.
===An Outlawed Outlaw===
Times became rough after the wayward thugs started to band together in larger and larger groups. Robberies and attacks were more frequent, often taking as much as each man could carry, but each man seemed to be getting less and less of the spoils. Loud, well-armed, and well-guarded men lorded over scum and ate well while their underlings picked at half-rotten cheese and foul water. The only way to succeed was to be ruthless, more ruthless than the man sitting next to you. Oran could feel the tension building like a palpable fog, though it was hot and drunk with debauchery and greed. Even as he pilfered what he needed to get by he grew suspicious of those around him. There had once been a kind of honor amongst thieves, but these men were in it for the slaughter, the acquisition, and the adrenaline. This was not survival.
Eventually, Oran encountered a group of his former gang while lurking about Lordaeron. Intending to rob a small store, he had cased the establishment several nights in a row, but on the night of his intended move the shopkeeper was accosted by several figures and dragged back into the building after leaving. There was no question to their purpose here; they were going to steal his prize. Oran entered the shop. He found the shopkeeper brutally beaten and the bandits ransacking his supplies. While he was not so inclined to be a hero, Oran was mocked by the other bandits. Rage built within him as they chided him, called him a coward, and shoved him. They were scum, worse than dirt, and he knew it, but there was little he could do against their numbers - or so he thought. When the first brigand set upon him at last he struck out and buried his knife between the man's ribs. As the body fell at his feet the other four sprang into action, but something came over Oran that he could neither comprehend nor restrain. Five were left bleeding on the shop floor while he was only bruised and battered. When he finally returned to his senses he was dripping with the blood of other men, more than he had ever drawn in a lifetime of crime. There was a throbbing in his head and a dizziness that caused him to miss the crack of wood and snapping hinges.
Lordaeron guardsmen burst into the establishment to find a man covered in blood standing over six bodies.
Oran fled the scene with the authorities in hot pursuit. He managed to find refuge in the wilderness and was able to hide away for a time. Still reeling from the day's horrors, he found that there was not so much dread or fear of the law but a feral desire to exert himself that kept him awake. He wanted more, he desired the rush and the adrenaline that had begun to seep out of him like a cup leaking from a crack in its surface.
When the guards caught up with him, Oran was waiting. Like a hunter in the jungle he stalked them, first felling one, then the other, then their bloodhound. More came, but he slipped back ino the shadows with a purse of gold, a new sword, and a strange calmness despite the fire in his veins that cried out for more. He left no signs and eventually let the guardsmen exhaust themselves by looking for him in the woods while he walked to a nearby township to spend his fresh earnings on something stiff to drink.
===Darrowshire===
It took several weeks to reach the relative safety of eastern Lordaeron. Along the way, Oran began stealing what he felt was rightfully his, starting with a change of clothes. His attack on a small farm in the intent of robbing the place left three dead, including a husband and wife, though in truth they were only killed to hide evidence of his passing - the malice that he felt toward the Lordaeron officials was gone, leaving only a hollow pit in his stomach that refused to wash down no matter how much he drank. His anger grew into more a despondent detachment that he struggled to fill by preying on those he perceived as threats to himself, no matter how small - a surly bouncer, a gruff farmer, even a rude patron in the market were later found and killed, but they proved to be no sport.
Oran stopped at Darrowshire after his long trek, hearing rumors begin to flare about sickness and disease and strange figures in the night. It was interesting to listen as if unawares, but secretly knowing that the grisly murders that were circulating were his doing - or so he would think. In the end, he found himself growing bold, stopping by town confident that none recognized him.
An uneventful first trip to the market left Oran feeling empowered and a bit secure. It had been nice to slip into the bustle of other bodies and not consider having to kill them. His purchased bread was delicious, but his mind was on other things. A woman he had seen in the market had attracted his attention. She was a lovely young thing with a caring smile, and she worked at a nearby orphanage. It was enough to tug the heartstrings of the most well-to-do man, and Oran was not so lofty as that. For several days he browsed casually about town while catching the off glimpse of the girl, whose name he discovered was Jeanne Wainwright. It took effort to build the confidence, but when he finally did speak to her she seemed none the wiser of his past and all the more eager to get to know him.
In a very unexpected turn of events the pair became close over the course of the next several days. Jeanne and Oran spent much of their free time together, discussing their interests and Oran's adventures. He fabricated most of them to hide the fact he was a wanted murderer, but Jeanne seemed not to care so much as where or what he had been, but rather how it affected him in the present. She herself was a kind soul that recalled a young mother, though she had no children or husband herself. Both suspected they were in love, but neither could really follow through.
Oran was revealed to Jeanne by a patrolling Lordaeron guard who were seeking the killer of guardsment and innocents. She agreed to lead him into a trap to capture him, but it did not go as well as could be expected. After seeing Jeanne betray him so, Oran was apprehended and taken away in a cart, but his intense depression was rapidly overtaken by murderous rampage. He broke himself free of the cart and killed his captors, taking up another Lordaeron sword to supplement his own the he reclaimed from the guards.
Upon his return to Darrowshire Oran trapped the orphanage's occupants, including a distraught Jeanne, inside. It burned to the ground before the authorities could free those within.
===In the Aftermath===
Oran resolved to become an enlightening presence in the lives of others. He knew that, deep down, everyone was a chaotic and wild beast with the illusion of society to give them purpose. Their lives were mere copies, shells even, and without something to contrast their pathetically bland existence the people would never know the difference. With twin Lordaeron swords strapped to his waist and a dagger tucked neatly into his belt, the murderer moved through the countryside, looking for his first great work.
Later Oran learned of the local Barov family and their great riches. They would make prime targets to alert the populace to a new kind of living. The family was so secure, so wealthy, and so widely-known that their murders would make the entirety of Lordaeron take a trembling breath and be afraid to release it. With that satisfaction in mind Oran struck out to Caer Darrow, where he would infiltrate the island and kill everyone within.
The planned assault on the Isle was interrupted when Oran encountered the Cult of the Damned. The cultists were attempting to smuggle grain into the Scholomance beneath Caer Darrow to poison and distribute. He had no idea of their plans, but when their leader, Kel'Thuzad, emerged from the manor he made Oran an offer to join their numbers after demonstrating the necromantic gifts bestowed upon him by the Lich King. Shocked and appalled by the presence, even the existence, of undead, Oran refused and was attacked by one of the necromancer's minions. He survived the attack and was able to swim to shore, even though his encounter with the cult left him broken, bloody, and beaten.
===Rise of the Scourge===
Oran's resolve was shattered and his nerves were drawn thin. After washing up on the shore of Darrowmere Lake, he was found by an elderly man who dragged him home, assuming him some lost traveler or victim of highway robbery. The irony would later be lost on Oran as he lay in agonizing nightmares for several weeks. As he slept the terror of death found him, prowling through his unconscious mind to grip him like no mortal fear ever could. This cult and their work were both horrendous abominations to the natural way, and even a hardened criminal would be appalled by their depravity. Through his fevered delusions Oran knew that there was great meaning to his discovery, but what?
The old man who had brought him ashore was a humble farmer and his elderly wife was a proud grandmother. They nurtured the broken criminal back to health. His stolen Lordaeron swords hinted that he was a guard or militia man, much like their two eldest sons, and so they treated him well as he steadily came back into the waking world. By the time he was fit enough to walk about, his mad delusions had taken their toll. Oran killed the elderly couple on a stormy night with a woodcutter's ax, leaving their bodies mangled under the assumption that, if they were to rise as the undead, they would not be able to cause harm without limbs. It was the common man, the inconspicuous family, that harbored this evil; the old necromancer had said claimed it would soon be all of Lordaeron who shared in his master's dark blessing. Convinced he was the only one who knew the truth, he resolved to illustrate his point amongst a larger populace. After enjoying a more peaceful night of sleep without concern of the dead haunting him, Oran struck out toward Hearthglen.
The last few days before the mayhem of the Scourge broke out were spent out and about in the farmsteads and outlying villas. Oran moved quickly toward Hearthglen, taking the heads and limbs of several peasants that he believed to be "in league" with the dead. His self-appointed crusade left a trail of blood that he would later discover, upon reaching the township, was being attributed to the very thing he hated. Oran was enraged when he found the town guard preparing their defenses against these so-called undead, ignoring his effort to enlighten them to the real solution. Men and women and children were sheltered behind the swords of others. They were the very cause of it! He had seen it at Caer Darrow and had been told by the ringleader himself! The farmers, the peasants, the citizenry were a part of the undead legions and had to be eradicated to truly ensure the safety of Lordaeron.
Prince Arthas soon came to Hearthglen, prompting Oran to flee the city. He had no interest in encountering the Lordaeron army. Eventually he resigned himself to skirting southward, following pockets of human survivors as they were forced to leave their homes, fleeing the Scourge. Rumors were persisting of Arthas steadily going mad in his quest to halt the spread of the undead plague, and even that he had abandoned his defense of his people to pursue rumors in the arctic north. The months were cruel, but the emerging truth was even more so. At last mankind seemed to falter and crack as Arthas, returned from Northrend, murdered his father and plunged the kingdom into chaos. Lordaeron burned, blood ran red in the streets, and the dead savaged the countryside without mercy or pity.
==Death and Deals==
===The Scourge Win===
After months of crawling through the remnants of a shattered kingdom, Oran and several human survivors made contact with the Paladins of the Silver Hand, the last true defenders against the Scourge. Though he held no love for the mercy and blind preachings of these self-righteous warriors, Oran knew that flight was the only option. These last few good men were helping ragged bands of travelers escape through passes in the mountains to evade their tireless pursuers, hoping to flee into Stormwind and points beyond where the plague had not yet spread.
Oran had long since come to hate the Scourge. He agreed to join a small group that would make their way to the mountain pass as a strong arm and a capable sword. If the dead showed their rotting faces he would be all too eager to carve some of his stolen mission from their fleshy remains. They were everything he had ever dreamed of being, and in the pit of his stomach he knew that they were the future, but he could not swallow the bitterly-stinging pride that rose in his throat every time he heard beleaguered survivors talking in hushed whispers about their horror. Nothing could deny the march of the dead over the remnants of the living and his great work would soon be complete - by someone else. His name would be forgotten under the march of their rotting carcasses. He would be forgotten.
In the last desperate attempt to scatter through the mountains and escape the tireless hordes, the human survivors packed up what they could carry while the paladins gathered to defend the retreat. It was not long before they were overrun by the forces of Arthas himself, assisted by his trusted lich and the necromancer who had orchestrated the entire plot, Kel'thuzad. Oran's group had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting the lich's necromancers and cultists. With every man and woman that fell, their ranks swelled, packed with rotting flesh and slavering jaws. Oran could not keep up, his swords could not abate the tide of limbs and claws. As he fell, Oran was taken up by cultists and dragged to their master.
"Again, we meet," came the condescending tone, "and again, you find yourself broken before the might of the Scourge. I'll offer you one last chance at redemption - one last chance to join us, before the choice is no longer yours."
Oran's vision was darkening rapidly. There was no escape, no future, no destiny. This was the inexorable grip of death.
The choice was never clearer.
===The Pact Is Sealed===
Kel'thuzad's last words were cryptic. In his blood-deprived haze there was no deciphering their meaning. "You must prove you worth, little mortal. The Lich King does not bestow his blessings lightly. You have done great work, no doubt, but there is more yet to be done before you can return to the slaughter...as a master, or a puppet."
When Oran snapped back to consciousness, the world was dark and cold. The ground was encompassing, the sky was black and choked with noxious clouds. Nothing moved, nothing responded to his desperate attempts to lift himself from the ground. Had the lich betrayed him? Had the necromancers buried him, cast him aside to let useless body rot in the soil? There were footsteps nearby, approaching from somewhere Oran could not see. Their vibrations were clear as day but he could not turn his head to look at them. His awareness was suddenly forcibly intruded upon by a man's greasy fingers, wrapping about a part of him and lifting him effortlessly off the soil. This man was a thief, a common bandit, a desperate and feral example of what life had become after the Scourge.
The air sizzled with a dark energy. Oran seethed, and the man dropped him. The metallic clank of steel on stone was unmistaken in the dim haze that had fallen.
He was trapped within his sword.