[hider=Moordekrai, the Wailing Doom][indent]
[b]Name:[/b] [color=f26522][b]Moordekrai[/b][/color], the Wailing Doom of Gash-Alsur. 
[b]Age:[/b] 34.
[b]Sex:[/b] Female.
[b]Breed:[/b] Orc (with Elvish blood).

[b]Appearance:[/b]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/MMNO85R.jpg[/img]

Tall, fierce and supremely physical, there is no doubt that Moordekrai is not your average female tribal Orc. She moves with the supple grace of a feline predator on long, formidable legs, supporting a body that is both curvaceous and muscular. She would be very attractive to any Orc if she wasn't so frightening (or perhaps that only makes it better), but her feminine wiles are probably wasted on the other races. She is possessed of an intense, piercing stare that feels like it peers effortlessly through every deception -- and indeed, it is useless to try to lie to her. Her dark hair is swept back and usually braided, which she gathers up and wears in a long ponytail for convenience. Unlike most of the orcs of the company, Moordekrai goes through daily life and into battle scarcely dressed, relying on her speed and powerful magic to slay her enemies. Her skin is the same shade of mottled green that most Orcs have, but her frequent bloodletting has resulted in an intricate network of scars that spiderweb across her otherwise unblemished form, especially on her arms, palms and legs.

[b]Skills/Abilities:[/b][indent]- [i][color=f26522][b]The Demon Inside:[/b][/color][/i] Using her indomitable will and powers of necromancy, Moordekrai has bound the incorporeal form of a demon of Hell to herself, sealed away with various invisible arcane runes (once drawn with blood) on her skin. She is at the apex of her power when she unleashes the demon; a raging, screaming monster that calls itself Ghrokesh, which takes over her body in a symbiotic half-possession that sets her form ablaze with supernatural hellfire, turns her gaze into a blinding, baleful glare that inspires terror in mortal souls (especially humans) and propels her body forward with superhuman strength and speed. When Ghrokesh is set loose, Moordekrai truly becomes the Wailing Doom, leaving only ashes in her wake. It is an extremely painful process, however, and puts Moordekrai at risk of becoming entirely possessed and consumed by Ghrokesh's power. As such, she uses it very sparingly.
- [i][color=f26522][b]Sanguine Power:[/b][/color][/i] Instead, Moordekrai mostly uses blood magic in battle, a technique forbidden in most civilized societies... but Orcs have no qualms about working with someone who engages in such dark practices, entirely different from the elemental magic of the human mages or the psychokinetics and nature magic of the elves, even if it does scare the superstitious Orcs (which is almost all of them).  By spilling her own blood, she can inflict horrendous wounds on her enemies, resurrect fallen corpses to fight for her and even heal the injuries of her allies. Outside of mortal combat, she can use blood (not necessarily her own) to draw runes and diagrams with various supernatural powers; traps that turn the victim inside-out when triggered, hexes and curses that cast ill-fortune on her enemies in the battle to come and profane rituals that allow her to commune with the dead. Blood is power, and Moordekrai can revitalize herself by drinking the blood of slain enemies to sustain her use of blood magic in an extended engagement -- draining your own veins leads to fatigue, after all.
- [i][color=f26522][b]Quick Edge:[/b] [/color][/i]She is still an Orc, and Orcs are dangerous in close combat. Moordekrai does not wear heavy plate, nor does she carry a huge axe or a heavy blade into battle, but she is blessed with catlike reflexes (probably a result of the Elvish blood in her lineage) and is very handy with her twin daggers, used both for blood magic and simply to stab people in the face. 
- [color=f26522][i][b]The Sight:[/b] [/i][/color]As a hobby, she dabbles in fortune-telling with a set of small bones she carries with her wherever she goes. The accuracy of her predictions are up for debate.[/indent]

[b]Equipment:[/b][indent]- [i][b][color=f26522]Tribal Garb: [/color][/b][/i] Moordekrai does not wear chainmail or plate armor, disliking how it restricts her movement, and she needs easy access to her skin at all times to perform blood magic in combat. As such, she is quite scantily dressed, usually wearing nothing more than a pair of boots, a fur-and-fabric top, underwear and an improvised belt of sorts around her waist. You can imagine she does not like cold weather.
- [i][b][color=f26522]Twin Daggers:[/color][/b][/i] Unlike human mages who carry thick spellbooks with them wherever they go, Moordekrai only needs something with a sharp edge to perform her particular brand of magic. Her instruments of choice are a pair of long daggers, not as thick as the average Orc blade but easily as long as a human shortsword, sporting supremely sharp edges that can easily draw blood at the slightest touch. Moordekrai also uses these blades to slice her foes to death when there's no time for magic. She's skilled but outmatched against talented and experienced warriors. 
- [color=f26522][b][i]Miscellaneous: [/i][/b][/color] A pouch with a set of bones used in fortune-telling, a bag with some coins, a necklace with (what she believes to be) a protective charm made from bones and feathers, and whetting stones used to sharpen her daggers. [/indent]
 
[b]History:[/b][indent] Moordekrai is last of a long line of Orc witches that lived with the Gash-Alsur tribe in the temperate southern human kingdoms. They were isolated, hiding away deep inside the wild forests and plains, and preferred to mind their own business. Moordekrai began learning her craft from her mother at a very young age, just like her grandmother had taught her mother before her, and so on, while her father ruled their tribe and remained distant. Moordekrai was gifted and took to her training immediately, despite its gruesome nature. Most Orcs are wary of magic and its practitioners but Moordekrai and her ancestors had played an important role in the tribe's history, helping defend them against human extermination campaigns and occasional skirmishes with neighboring elven conclaves. As a result, Moordekrai was raised to distrust humans and elves completely. 

When she was fifteen years old she had mastered everything her mother could teach her about blood magic but she hungered for more. The power Moordekrai wielded was like an addiction, a testament to her dangerous personality, and she sought out her grandmother who had already retired as the tribe's shaman and now lived in solitude deep in the forest. From her, Moordekrai learned even more; forbidden techniques, even by the Orcish tribes, that Moordekrai's mother was never taught. Her grandmother, however, saw the hungry spark in her grandchild's eyes and knew that Moordekrai would not rest until she knew everything she could. Wary at first, but with growing enthusiasm, she taught Moordekrai how to commune with Hell's demons and how to use their power for herself, curious to see in the twilight of her life what her grandchild could do with such power. This was much more difficult material than blood magic, however, and it took Moordekrai almost a decade of secret training (in between her other duties to the tribe) to finally master the necessary spells.

Not one for caution, Moordekrai found a secluded spot in the woods and began the ritual of binding, determined to steal a demon's power. She does not remember much of what happened, but the end result is that she successfully captured a demon's spirit and bound it to herself, using so much of her own blood to draw the corrupt runes that it almost killed her. The next thing she knew was that the forest was on fire all around her and the ground beneath her feet was charred to coal, as if a violent explosion had taken place. The inferno raged for days, hungrily making its way westwards on the summer winds towards the lands occupied by one of the human kingdoms. They suffered for it; a significant portion of their harvest was lost and several villages destroyed, displacing thousands of people. The human king was quick to pin the blame on the Gash-Alsur tribe, who they had begrudgingly tolerated, and the kingdom's armies marched out to destroy them.

It was a massacre. The tribe was completely unprepared for the assault and the humans put every Orc to the sword that they could find. Moordekrai, recovered from the ritual, joined the desperate defense and used Ghrokesh's power for the first time that day. She was a terror on the field, ablaze from head to toe in incandescent hellfire, sending humans running for their lives with so much as a glance, but the unnatural rage of the demon was almost impossible to control and Moordekrai found herself chasing a battalion of fleeing humans deep into the woods while the rest of the king's armies slaughtered her tribe behind her. 

And so the tribe of Gash-Alsur came to an end. Stories of the horrifying, screaming demon-orc spread far and wide, and Moordekrai came to be known to the humans of the southern kingdoms as the Wailing Doom. By the time she had regained control and sealed the demon away again she was lost and far away from home... a home that didn't exist anymore. She made her meandering way back in confusion and exhaustion only to find nothing but death and destruction. A human in her position would have felt immeasurable grief and sorrow, but Moordekrai was an Orc, and Orcs get angry instead. She knew she could not wage a one-woman war against the human kingdom and instead traveled north with a band of Orcs from another tribe. The human king had gained a taste for slaughtering Orcs and all the southern tribes were in such great danger that many migrated away from ancestral lands they had occupied for centuries. The Orcs she traveled with told her of a newly found Orcish mercenary company that would definitely take her on, Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi, and Moordekrai decided to follow their advice.

She has been with the company ever since, becoming one of its most valuable members, advising Radush Eye-Drinker on all things magical and channeling her simmering, sulphuric wrath into keeping the soldiers in line -- if there's something scary at the front, put something scarier at the back, and few things scared the Tuskers more than Moordekrai and her lethal blood magic. "Don't wake the demon" became a common saying among Pikers... for obvious reasons. When the Chosen were first formed Moordekrai became a founding member and, like the rest of the Company, she is eager to dive into battle against bunnies and knife-ears alike to prove her worth.
[/indent]

[b]Personality and Psychological profile:[/b][indent]Moordekrai is a dangerous, fierce and unpredictable sorceress that commands fear and respect in all those she meets. Her anger at having her whole tribe slaughtered and her inborn lust for power have combined to make her a terrifying she-Orc who never backs down from a challenge and does not take shit from anyone. One of the first things the Pikers often learn about discipline is not to insult Moordekrai for being a female, as doing so could be a potentially lethal mistake. 

She has deliberately cultivated that imago and takes pleasure in inspiring fear among the other Tuskers -- not to dominate them, but to make them stronger in battle. Once they fear her, bunny knights in full plate don't seem so bad at all. On the other hand, she has no close friends or companions. The closest thing is her advisory role to Radush Eye-Drinker, but even he is wary of the blood witch. Now that she's getting on in age, Moordekrai might begin to finally crave companionship after all. Not that she'd ever admit it.[/indent]

[b]Relationships and Acquaintances:[/b][indent]Nothing yet.[/indent][/indent][/hider]