World of Warcraft - Interbellum (IC Thread)

[MrAbdiel]

THERAMORE

Prelude

“Each man lives for himself, uses his freedom to achieve his personal goals, and feels with his whole being that right now he can or cannot do such-and-such an action; but as soon as he does it, this action, committed at a certain moment in time, becomes irreversible, and makes itself the property of history, in which is has not a free but a predestined significance. ” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

It has been a little over four years since the end of the Third War; and that was four more years than any who saw the battle expected the world to last.

Azeroth has always been a land tormented by the convulsions of kingdoms and powers, invaders and defenders; and for most races, their generations are defined by the manner of the catastrophe whose pall hangs over their youth. For the long lived races, the choice is between falling into a jaded indifference to the sequence of cataclysms and thereby choosing to feel nothing for the world at large, or else to experience the latest great suffering as the most severe because, unlike wars and calamities in the ancient past, the suffering in the present can still do you harm. For most, this choice is no choice at all.

Sansha MacVince was a knight's daughter. She had hoped to become a knight herself, but found the rigor of lugging lance and shield too much for her, so she taught riding to young alliance cavaliers. She sat at a table at 'Janene's', Theramore's premier dockside inn, holding a half-emptied flagon of ale against the plane of her stomach while she slouched back. Across from her, with a similarly appalling posture, was Ysuria Sunstriker. Ysuria taught the fledgling mages of Theramore portalcraft, when they were capable of grasping it. Before that, she was a mage in the alliance magical auxillia; and before that, an academic in Silvermoon's College of the Sixth Spire. The additional before that's scroll backwards in time for a total of two thousand three hundred years, and change. By contrast, Sansha was twenty nine years old. And yet when Sansha looked out the window at the afternoon sky, sighed quietly, and looked back to Ysuria, the elf interpreted the sigh precisely, and raised her half-full wineglass to clink Sansha's flagon. Both grunted a little with the extension of their arms, neither willing to unslouch for the tradition; and the bare skimming of vessels served the point well enough. The thousands of years old elf and the almost-thirty human knew each other's mind precisely, at that moment. Both were thinking: There is no cannon fire. There is no pall of engine smoke. There is no hail of green comets, flooding the land with horrors from the Twisting Nether. Life is good.

And life was good, in Theramore. With the fall of the Burning Legion four years ago, the remnants of Jaina Proudmoore's expedition and their doughty support staff looked back across the ocean to the Eastern Kingdoms, and knew the devastation that waited there. The choice was to build anew, or rebuild; and most chose the later. Lady Proudmoore's positive relations with the Horde meant Theramore, despite being technically an Alliance outpost, had little to fear from their neighbours, even accounting for the one or two grievous incidents in the last few years where blood was shed. But it was safe and it was peaceful and it was... admittedly, surrounded by swamp; but there was plenty of fish and enough arable land on the island itself to grow a little produce. Life was good. But not everyone has such a permissive destiny to long enjoy the comforts of abundant fish, and a warm bed, and an empty sky unmarred by smoke and shell and spellfire. Taverns, inns, and roadstations were lousy with them; and Janene's, quiet as it was at this hour, was no exception.

And just as well. Without such people - adventurers, freebooters, troubleshooters - how would one get all the crap done, that need be done, if life is to remain good?

Spoiler: OOC: Introductions

Show

Welcome to Theramore, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Go ahead and make an introductory paragraph for your character. Janene's is a pretty classic fantasy inn with a lazy minstrel who will play tunes for coin (A gnome, Durley), a bartender (Human, Lillian), a cook (Human, Craig), and whatever smattering of games, furniture, and NPCs you care to manifest as background flavour for your character. You can be heading into the inn to book a room for the night, hanging around enjoying the lazy atmosphere, or whatever excuse you feel best fits why your character would be there. Importantly, you are all low on funds - you have enough to live lean for a couple more days, but if an offer came up for paying work, it'd be hard to turn down. You don't have to know each other at this point - but outsiders and adventurers are often drawn together, so do what seems most natural. Once everyone is situated in the world, I'll get to transpiring some events.

OOC Thread is Here.