Corgra & Duerla

Born under the original clan of Darkmine, the twin sisters Corgra and Duerla had a gift for magic, and quickly grew in both fame and power prior to the War of the Three Hammers. Corgra mastering fire, Duerla mastering frost.

## **Characteristics**

The Darkmine twins were both respected and feared in the magic community until the War of the Three Hammers, Corgra, was known as the hot headed one, the crueler of the two and the most willing to sacrifice for power. Duerla was the level headed one, the more understanding of the two and the one most capable of deception.

## Physical description

### Weight

She's a literal walking skeleton... I dunno, how much does a female dwarf skeleton weigh?

### **Corgra's Physical Appearance**

Her dark ashen skin is covered in wrinkles, her once black hair gray and white, and her frame withered and weakened by age. In fact, if not for her magic and her walking stick (which doubles as her staff, "Flames Convergence"), Corgra likely wouldn't be walking. However, despite her physical weakness, her eyes speak of a will unbent by time, and of great levels of ambition.

#### **Corgra's Personal Effects**

Her red **robes** are heavily enchanted against physical attacks, while slightly defended against magical ones, Corgra knows her greatest weakness is her frail form and lack of speed. Hence the focus on physical defense, but past that, the primary color is black with strips of red, gold, orange, and bit of yellow throughout the design, with designs akin to fire dancing along the bottom of her robes and along the cuffs of her robes. They are set in an old style favored by the Senators of Shadowforge, and are primary made out of embersilk with embroidery of imperial silk and runes stitched in from thread-like strands of truegold.

**Flames Convergence**, her walking staff, is a single rod forged out of pure truegold and emblazed with a variety of runes. Some of the runes, such as the ones for magical defense, are dwarvish in nature, but the mass majority of them are actually the elemental runes of the Firelands. Ignan, and has allowed Corgra to imbue her magic with a portion of the heat of the Firelands itself! The **crystal** atop her staff was once a polished hunk of elementium taken from the Firelands, but was replaced by a crystal chunk taken from an artifact created by the misuse of the Hammer of Khaz'Goroth. It was retrieved by the Ghosts of the Modan founders prior to the groups founding from Kalorr of the Thunderstaff Offensive, while he and Brigeda Stormbolt managed to retrieve the artifact, Corgra deceived them and made off with the crystal that adorns the staff now. Bolstering her powers even more!

Corgra wears a decent level of jewelry, such as a **truegold band** with a 'blood of the mountain' gem set within it, this ring was her wedding ring and has an inscription engraved on the inside of the band, 'Our Love is an Eternal Flame, Never Dimming, Always Raging ~Curiose'. During her trip to the Firelands, she enchanted the ring with all of her knowledge regarding fire elementals, controlling them, and influencing them. Granting her greater resilience to fire (and by extension, cold), and a potent foci to conjure, enslave, or banish elements of fire (Ring of Fire Elemental Control from D&D)!

She also wears a set of runed earrings, both are hoops forged out of dark iron, and adorned with dark iron runes that speak of mental protection. Granting Corgra a level of resilience against attacks against the mind, or abilities that read minds (Ring of Mind Shielding, just as earrings from D&D).

Finally, tucked inside her robes, is an ancient Kal'dorei medallion strung on an elementium wire. The wire is newer than the medallion, as Corgra found the silvery relic in a shipwreck prior to the War of the Three Hammers. While worn, the amulet grants Corgra a great deal of... adaptability to her surroundings, such as breathing poisonous air, surviving in an airless environment, or even underwater (Necklace of Adaptaion from D&D).

#### **Corgra's Personality**

Intelligent, driven, ambitious, and cruel. She's more then willing to force the hands of others with deception and insults while also capable of resorting to less than legal alternatives to get what she wants.

### **Duerla's Physical Appearance**

Without her illusions, Duerla is quite literally a walking skeleton. Her bones are smooth and have since frozen over, granting them a reflective, white-blue appearance as well as to boost their overall durability. Within her ribcage, and extending to all her limbs and up into her head, is the telltale sign of animation, the blue wispy flame known as Lichfire prevalent in most undead creatures. It is most observable in her eyes, where it manifests as two orbs of lichfire, granting her magical sight.

With her illusions however, Duerla appears like a twin of her sister Corgra, but unbent by the ravages of time and with uncaring blue eyes instead of your usual Dark Iron red.

#### **Duerla's Personal Effects**

Her **robes** serve a similar purpose to her sisters, being warded mostly against physical attacks, but different in the fact they are also enchanted against magical attacks focused against the Light. That being a recent addition, as prior they were enchanted against fire, but with holy magic being more deadly, Duerla has adapted accordingly. They are largely dim blue, with clear signs of decay and timeworn fading of the once vibrant blue colors. There are areas of white, dirtied slightly to a yellowish-white color but overall fine, and more then enough patches of frost and ice growing over the surface of the robes.

Her staff, **Deathchill**, renamed from Frostchill after her will was regained with Corgra's help. It's a rod of truesilver with crystals of pure ice taken from Icecrown (well before the Lich King was around) adorning the top with plenty of runes all across the staff focusing on her frost magic, and in her recent travels, a few new ones in the language of Death.

The few **rings** remaining on her skeletal fingers are the ones of fire resistance and spell storing, but her signet, what was once her ring of frost elemental command, was taken prior to her burial and has since been lost.

#### **Duerla's Personality**

In life, she was the level headed sister, the wise one, the one people turn to for guidance and the one who could always bring a sense of control to her sisters chaotic personality, and while she was prone to deception, she had a softer heart then most Dark Iron's. This changed in death, what kindness she held was removed and replaced with coldness. She lives by facts, unflinching and uncaring about the state of things around her as she moves forward. Past that, her level of cruelty has risen to nearly that of her sister, as has her willingness to deceive others!

## **History**

The twin sisters of the Darkmine Clan, Corgra and Duerla, were born well before the War of the Three Hammers, the two gained prestige and power until using that might in the Civil War... But even their combined might was unable to swing the war to their kin's favor and were banished along with the rest of the Dark Irons. After Thaurissan City was built and the war continued, both of the sisters stayed back to look after their clans rebuilding efforts, Corgra, the new matriarch of the Darkmine Clan scouring the nearby mountains for viable ore deposits to rebuild their wealth with an eye out for leylines, Duerla doing much the same for the Gemhammer Clan. Both them found a place of magical significance near what would become Blackrock Mountain but before they could build anything, the war returned to their home and the land was shattered by their Emperor's final attempt to win the war, their new home was destroyed, their clans decimated, and their people enslaved. As Shadowforge City was being built, the sisters combined their clans wealth to build the Darkmine Compound at the place of magical significance they detected earlier. While named for their original clan, both the Darkmine's and the Gemhammer's lived there, and there they rebuilt!

### **The Arrival of Kalrum**

The change to the norm was heralded when Dueria, Duerla's daughter and Shadow Priestess, brought home the Bronzebeard scholar known as Kalrum Greatforge. While it was largely focused in the Gemhammer Compound, a small private sanctum of sorts for Dueria and Duerla to study and practice their magic in the Badlands away from prying eyes, Corgra was dragged into it later to help tutor Kalrum in the ways of magic. But Mari, Corgra's daughter-in-law, would seek to kill Kalrum and discredit Dueria into exile after Dueria's slight against her. A vendetta that became all consuming after repeated failures on Mari's part...

### **The Twin's Deaths**

After trying her best to teach Kalrum and leaving a few of her tomes with the Bronzebeard to study, she returned to her ongoing project. The creation of a gateway to the plane of fire, the Firelands... She worked in secret, knowing such magic would be frowned upon for the use she had in mind for it, and knowing if it was discovered the only life that lay ahead of her was as a personal slave to Ragnaros, destined to bring forth more of his elementals to enforce his will upon Azeroth. She did eventually succeed, but not without a price, the portal was not stable and the backlash incinerated her bedroom chambers where she opened the portal, but Corgra survived, and entered the Firelands. Her magic allowing her to survive and her ambition allowing her to take advantage of the turmoil the land felt in Ragnaros's absence... She would remain there until Ragnaros's defeat in the Molten Core, where she would feel his return and wisely leave the Firelands before his arrival.

The aftermath of her 'death' proved twofold, Mari murdered her husband to seize control of the Darkmine Clan by placing her son, Crurose, as Thane. Now in power, she would direct the clan against the Gemhammers, slaughtering the remnants of the clan and nearly killing Kalrum and Dueria, but Mari would be slain... However, before the Gemhammer slaughter, and before Mari's demise, Duerla would die.

Duerla's demise would not come from a poisoned blade, but of a broken heart. When she learned of Corgra's 'demise', she despaired, a hole formed in her heart where her bond to her sister had once been and nothing she tried seemed capable of finding her if she was actually alive. For how would Duerla know to check the elemental planes for her sister? Feeling the effects of age more profoundly, and without a drive to continue, she died in her sleep, but that was not the end, her soul would remain behind, haunting the space around her tomb...

#### **Corgra's Return**

After returning to Azeroth, Corgra would find a few things out, her sister was dead, her family was mostly decimated, her clans wealth was low, and one of her few remaining descendants, Crura Darkmine, was living in Ironforge and becoming more Bronzebeard with every passing day! She stayed in the shadows for awhile, building a private sanctum deep underground and manipulating the Darkmine Clan in secret, as Crura rarely returned home to manage the clan's affairs, letting them wither.

The time for secrecy would end, and Corgra would spread her hands into Ironforge, where she quickly gained a reputation as one willing to burn her allies if it means harming her foes, gaining the ire of Furgas Steelgrasp among most other dwarves and gnomes! Even acting against the Thunderstaff Offensive when she not only hired, but aided the robbery of a Titan Crystal created by the misuse of the Hammer of Khaz'Goroth by the Underking Dargrul. She has since laid low, but her schemes continue!

#### **Duerla's Return**

While Corgra laid low, she finally paid her twin sisters tomb a visit, but to her shock she found the air chilly, the stone slippery with snow, and the several tombs, passages, and other pillars encased in ice. After burning her way past it, Corgra came across the entrance to Duerla's section of the catacombs with the course carving of 'Beware the Chill of Shadowforge' on the ground near a frozen corpse. But Corgra pressed on, freeing her sisters tomb from ice and blasting the cover away, and the bones of Duerla greeted her, still wearing her favored robes, her staff in hand and rings still shining with magic, but as she reached down to relieve her sister of such artifacts, a ghostly hand shot up from the stone and grabbed her... As the ghost of Duerla rose up, tormented by her undeath and the whispers of the former Lich King still rattling in her mind. Arthas may be long defeated, but for a time he demanded her fealty like most of Azeroth's undead, but she was unable to leave her skeletal remains behind and felt an ever increasing demand until it was silenced... But his words still echoed until Corgra defeated Duerla in a battle of magic and after a short discussion Corgra managed to restore her older sister to sanity.

Now sane, Duerla listened to her sister speak of the new world and settled for exploration before she would end her own existence, her skeleton freed by Corgra's earlier efforts, she possessed her own remains and disguised her skeletal form under potent illusions before parting ways from her sister.