Lisbeth Dathrohan

Kasha Dathrohan (Sister, presumed dead)

Saoirse Dathrohan (Sister, presumed dead)

### Origin

Born in the year 599 of the King’s Calendar, Lisbeth is the third and youngest daughter of Saidan Dathrohan, one of the five founding paladins of the Silver Hand. She was eighteen years old when her home of Lordaeron fell to the scourge, but the knights of the Silver Hand evacuated much of the populace before the advance war party of the scourge arrived. Lisbeth requested to fight with the Silver hand, with her older sisters, but Saidan denied her this, and bade her travel south. It hurt Lisbeth to do so, but she respected her father’s wishes, and went to the farmlands of Westfall to live with a distant cousin.

She heard little of the war, only what her father would share with her in his all too infrequent letters. One day a letter came, telling her that Saidan was to lead a military operation against the corrupted city of Stratholme, and he did not know when he would be able to write her next, but not to worry, everything would be fine. Then the letters stopped coming. A month went by. Two. When it had been three months, Lisbeth packed a bag and left Westfall, due north, to look for her father.

She first thought to inquire after him in Stormwind, and met with an old friend of his at the Cathedral, Duthorian Rall. Rall said there had been rumors of defeat in Stratholme, but it was such a disorganized chaos in the Plaguelands that Stormwind had not yet received further details regarding the operation. He told her of a holdout of troops stationed in Southshore, to the north, and that she might have more luck there.

So it was onward to Southshore, a significant journey. She arrived, tougher and a great deal more road-weary, and wasted no time in finding the barracks. There she spoke with a man named Briggs, who said that yes, Saidan was alive and well, that although his forces had been defeated at Stratholme, he had formed a new order, the Scarlet Crusade, operating out of a place in the Plaguelands called Tyr’s Hand. Briggs cautioned her not to seek the Crusade, because the journey was dangerous, and not to be undertaken by anything less than an armed battalion. But Lisbeth was committed, so she traveled, alone, into the Plaguelands, and under cover of night, traversed the wilds to Tyr’s hand. Through the moaning darkness she walked, willing herself the courage to see the journey through.

When, at last, she walked through the palisade into the encampment of the Scarlet Crusade, she felt a chill tingle up her neck. There was something wrong about this place. She walked past the sallow faces of the soldiers, to the main barracks. These were soldiers who had seen hard combat. She pushed open the door, in search of someone to ask about her father, but as she walked into the darkened room with its vaulted ceiling, she saw him there, standing over a campaign table. “Father!” She ran to him, and threw her arms around his burly shoulders, but then drew away. There was something perceptibly cold about Saidan. Something frightening. “Father, what’s wrong?” When she looked into his eyes, there was a shadow of something she did not recognize. “What is it?” he said. Lisbeth’s mouth dropped open. “What do you mean? I’ve come to see you, since you did not write, and I feared you dead,” she said, “and what of my sisters? What of Saoirse and Kasha?” Saidan looked at her. A flash of irritation crossed his face. “We will talk later. Now is not a good time.” He pushed her roughly aside, and returned to the campaign table.

Lisbeth, stood there, silent, shocked. Something was truly wrong. This was not the father she knew.  What had happened? She wandered out onto the parade grounds, dazed. Something was not as it seemed. Lisbeth had always been intuitive, with a natural inclination towards reading people, and she could not shake the feeling that this was not her father. It almost felt as though there were something dark inside of him, she didn’t know how else to describe it, but it was almost as though something were wearing him like a *skin*. That night, she was awakened by two armed men. “What is the meaning of this?” she cried, but one of them clamped a gloved hand over her mouth. They stepped aside, and Saidan was there. He bent down and looking intently at her. “I do not recognize this one,” he said, “she is an imposter, perhaps an agent of the scourge. Lock her up.” “No, father!” she yelled, knowing the uselessness of the appeal, before it had even left her mouth. The guards picked her up and took her from the hut, away from Saidan, who stood, watching with disinterest as they dragged his daughter towards the brig.

Now they stood before the solid oaken door of the cells. One of the guards fumbled with the keys, cursing as they slipped from his fingers. When he went to pick them up, instinct kicked in and Lisbeth grabbed the opportunity, kneeing the guard in the face, and smashing the other in his man parts. Surprised by this attack, the men were temporarily stunned, and Lisbeth ran. She ran as fast as she had ever run in her life, followed by shouts, and then more shouts, loud at first, and then growing fainter as she gained distance. She ran into the naked darkness, terrified, alone, and without any of her possessions. She ran, crying, tripping, and falling, and picking herself up to run some more.

Before long, winded, she stumbled into a clearing. The moon was high, and bright, so it was not hard to see. And she knelt in that ghostly place to weep. She wept for her father, and her sisters, and for herself. But she forgot to be quiet. There was a rustling at the edge of the clearing, and Lisbeth winced away from it, scrambling to her feet. A figure limped into the clearing, caught sight of Lisbeth, snarled, and charged. It was the undead. Decaying flesh dripping off its face, sunken eyes blazing with primitive fury, heavy with the reek of putrefaction. Lisbeth screamed as it jumped on her, clawing at her throat, slavering with mindless lust for her living flesh. It opened its foul jaws and she was hit with a blast of rotting air so horrific she vomited explosively into its unholy face.  Though it was dead, it was terrible in its strength, and it drew ever closer to her throat, with a violent yearning. Suddenly, an electric cool surged through her body, filling her eyes with a bright white light, and for a moment, the thrashings of the creature felt far away. Then a white light arced from her hands into the beast and it was torn asunder instantly, leaving the moonlit clearing both quiet, and undisturbed once more. Lisbeth, now surging with adrenaline, lay on her back, breathless, and amazed. So, the light was within her, too.

In the following days, she walked through the woods, southward, living on berries and the odd squirrel, until she reached Hillsbrad once again. Intent on distancing herself from whatever evil lurked at Tyr’s hand, she did not stay long in Southshore before traveling to Stormwind. She had questions that needed answering, and if this light inside her was something that could be developed, she would need the guidance of someone wise.

At the cathedral, she related her troubling tale to Duthorian Rall, who, although sympathetic, told her that his hands were tied by the church, and that they could take no action based purely upon the story of one young girl. Feeling defeated, she left Stormwind and made it as far as Goldshire before finding work as a barmaid at the Lion’s Pride Inn.

It is here we find her, head down, desperately trying to distance herself from the wounds of the past.

It is here that our story begins.