Refestus was a Forsaken Warlock, although he wished not to be acknowledged with the Forsaken as a people and generally preferred to be called a Demonologist. He was a Totem of the clan Dagger and Totem.
Name[]
The nickname 'Refestus' was given to him during his incarceration in the Apothecarium, thanks to his decomposing and emaciated form.
The peasant name 'Tomas' dates back to when he was alive and human, living in the Tirisfal Glades of Lordaeron. It was a name given to him by his Step-Father shortly after finding him in the Hillsbrad Foothills.
It was later discovered that the 'blanket' he had been abandoned in was actually a specially tailored cloak with the Family name 'Macabee' embroidered in gold thread on the inside and had belonged to a wealthy citizen of an unknown kingdom, presumed to have been his Father and only known blood relative. However, the origins of this name were never discovered.
Physical traits[]
Evident[]
Refestus during the war against the Lich King
Refestus was a pale-skinned Forsaken who seemed to be somewhat of a rotting monstrosity. He was deprived of most of the multitude of features a living body harbours, with no hair, a missing lower jaw and greenish, rubbery flesh barely clinging on to his bones.
A hat was frequently seen squeezed upon his cranium, apparently to hide his baldness - this, unfortunately, did not detract from his skull-like visage. As with most Forsaken, dim yellow eyeshine glowed from within his eye-sockets.
His robes, in contrast with his body, were usually kempt, excluding burn marks around the sleeves of his garments, the result of constant fel-fire spell-casting in the field. In the latter part of his undeath, he would frequently be seen wearing garb adorned with an impressive host of Horde iconography.
Non-evident[]
Refestus, displaying his scars
Beneath Refestus' robes were multiple scars. On his left breast, a cross-shaped Apothecary torture device clasped deep into his skin. The technology had long since been deactivated, although sometimes the odd spark would fly from its yellow-gemmed centre when a certain amount of pressure was applied.
On his right breast, the numbers '0691' had been cattle-branded onto his flesh. Although this was his original reference number when he was incarcerated, the origin of the scar is not from the apothecaries, rather a long time persecutor named 'Alexander Eisenhardt' as a means of mockery and sadistic torture.
A question that was frequently directed to the Forsaken was 'How can you talk with no lower jaw?', which he soon took to ignoring. The reason for his extraordinary vocal capabilities could be found at the back of his throat. There was a small, unhealed incision where a yellow arcane-enchanted globe nestled. This feat of Forsaken arcane-engineering seemed unassuming on the outside, looking like a small polished gem. The device, however, was capable of reading Refestus' brainwave patterns and relay what would be attempts at speech into vocal translations.
Refestus also beared the mark of Dagger and Totem - two flametongue dagger scars on his hand in the shape of two forks of lightning, similar to those on the clan tabard.
Occupations and Hobbies[]
Military Service[]
Refestus, for a long time, never considered himself a true soldier, during neither his life as a civilian or undeath as a spellcaster. As he began to crumble to fatal decay however, he became exactly this, following orders without question and insisting that "I know my place.". He was also a versatile fighter, being dead and resistant to weather, common illnesses and lacking the need to sleep, eat or drink.
For the Dark Lady[]
Refestus spent most of his military career under the guidance of the Apothecarium. Moving from area to area in both the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, Refestus served in military camps as an envoy of Sylvanas and was not permitted full freedom of choice in his actions. However, he was soon granted a form of freedom by the Blood Elf, Aérandir, in return for his servitude in the organisation, Esoteric Illusion.
For the Warchief[]
Refestus in Agmar's Hammer
After Esoteric Illusion disbanded, Refestus was left without direction and it wasn't long before he travelled back to the Undercity for advice - unfortunately arriving during Varimathras' take-over of the city. He fled with the other Forsaken to Orgrimmar, where he stayed to wait until the conflict had been resolved. Refestus soon took to the Orcish culture, however, and decided to stay and serve Warchief Thrall, rather than go back to a life dominated by the Banshee Queen.
Under the Warchief, he served in Outland, Northrend, Vash'jir, Deepholm and Uldum.
Demonologist[]
Refestus begins a summoning ritual
After his release from imprisonment, Refestus was forcefully instructed into the art of Demonology - a decision made with intentions of bolstering Sylvanas' ranks of useful Warlocks.
Refestus was instructed on how to summon several demonic entities for aid in the field of battle. Due to his personal summoning method and like many other Summoners, his Demons had reccuring personalities. A full range of examples are as follows;
Refestus eventually became a Master of his art. While this fact disturbed him at first, he soon accepted that without his knowledge, he would be of little use to either Dagger and Totem or the Horde. Arguably, this acceptance may have corrupted him to some degree.
Scribe[]
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Previous signature
Current signature
After a long period of studying Demonology in the Magic Quarter of Undercity - where he learned how to read and write - Refestus acquired an interest in Inscription.
Since the days of Undercity of writing in a childish scrawl and signing his name with a bracketed '0691' below, Refestus' writing skills improved and he soon gained the ability to write confidently in a flowing, apparently unhandicapped script. Learning from various Master Scribes, Refestus possesed the knowledge to write a multitude of glyphs, tomes and inscriptions with which he enhanced his own magical capabilites and on request, those of others.
Background[]
Life[]
The Orphan[]
Tomas Macabee as a boy
Around a decade before the start of the First War, the Human child who would become Refestus Tomas Macabee was born around the Tarren Mill region of the Hillsbrad Foothills. His mother - a poor Hillsbrad peasant - died in childbirth and his young father, Jonas Macabee had abandoned him as a mere mistake. Macabee's only known blood relative had wrapped him in his cloak shortly after his umbilical cord had been cut and left him for dead in a ditch a few metres away from the town of Tarren Mill.
However, hope for the child was not all lost. On a cart trading route from the Tirisfal Glades, his saviour and later Step-Father, 'Daw' (or David) found him on a break from trading with the people of Tarren Mill. After finding no owners of the child in the town, he took the babe to his home village in Tirisfal, where he named him 'Tomas' and soon after discovered that the cloak he had been found in had been embroidered with the name 'Macabee'. Daw raised him through his childhood, living a simple peasant villager's life.
The Woodgatherer[]
Tomas Macabee in life, resting off a day's work and boredom, all but oblivious to what awaits him
Tomas Macabee led an uneventful, oblivious life under the occupation of the village woodgatherer. In and around the farms and fields of Tirisfal, he grew a reputation for being lazy, selfish and arrogant and for this reason, was avoided by many and liked by few.
Occasionally however, he would partake in trade with other towns and villages with his step-father and visit royal occasions at Capital City, only once or twice seeing King Terenas Menethil and, later, his son, Prince Arthas. Being an uncategorised and faceless peasant, Macabee was never called to arms during either the First or Second Wars.
Death[]
A year before Prince Arthas' culling of the plagued city of Stratholme, Tomas Macabee was somehow killed while collecting firewood in what was presumed to be an accident. He was found rain-soaked and dead the next morning by locals, was later identified by his step-father and buried.
Undeath[]
The Ghoul[]
Tomas Macabee is awoken from his slumber
A year later, the newly dubbed Death Knight Arthas returned from his trek to the Frozen North. With his sanity shattered and the whispers of the Lich King commanding the conquest of his former Kingdom, Arthas ordered his Death Knights of the Scourge to ransack the towns and villages of Lordaeron, kill the civilians and raise them from death in the name of the Lich King. Risen directly from his own grave by one of Arthas' agents, Macabee joined the ranks of the Scourge as a mindless ghoul.
Marching with the ever-growing army of Undead, Macabee felt nothing but an animal lust for bloodshed and the willingness to serve Arthas and his Death Knight masters. Making his way through the hastily-made defences of the rest of Lordaeron, he murdered defenders and civilians alike and was soon ushered to attack the Elven Kingdom of Quel'thalas.
Macabee as a Ghoul in Quel'Thalas
In the heat of battle, the former Macabee fought with tooth and claw, barely surviving the elve's graceful culling of his fellow Undead. As the Scourge pushed further into the Eversong Woods, Macabee had weathered the Elven defence with little damage. During one of the intermittent pauses between attacks for the raising of more troops and the revitalisation of the surviving Undead, Macabee unconciously participated in the cannibalisation of his fellow humanoids. However, due to the sparse distribution of corpses to be cannibalised, animosity and fights regularly broke out.
In a particularly vicious fight, what was left of Macabee's lower jaw had been torn off, exposing his decomposed facial muscles. In the confusion, the Ghoul Macabee was left behind as the rest of the Scourge army ploughed through Silvermoon City and towards the Sunwell of Quel'Danas isle.
The Wanderer[]
A year later, left to wander with the other Undead stragglers on the Dead Scar, Macabee would have been an easy candidate for a surviving elf to take out their enraged vengeance upon. However, the Elves were now few and far between and had yet to be reunited.
It was only when Illidan the Betrayer used the Eye of Sargeras to attempt to cast a destructive spell against the Frozen Throne, that Macabee gained a hint of his former conciousness. Many other Undead had been affected by the waning of power in the Lich King that day and some had regained their full memories, personalities and spirits. They would later rally under the former High Elf, Sylvanas Windrunner and reclaim the ruins of Capital City.
Macabee, in contrast, remained mostly mindless and under the influence of the Scourge. The weakened power of the Lich King did affect him, however, giving him an odd sense of purpose.
Over the next four years, the ghoul would cease wandering the Dead Scar and stumble his way slowly towards his childhood birthplace, the Tirisfal Glades. Drawn by a subconcious connection or memory involving the area, the thrall barely knew why he was traversing Lordaeron, but nonetheless marched onwards through the Plaguelands. Throughout this time, his slowed decaying process continued, losing what little was left of his hair, making his skin paler and more rubbery and losing some of it to rot, especially around his elbows, knees, fingers, toes, upper lip and eye-sockets.
Having been lucky enough to remain undismembered despite the onslaught of the Scarlet Crusade and the fiercely aggressive defence of the Forsaken from the Scourge, Macabee couldn't have been less fortunate when he entered the Glades themselves and passed an ethereal essence looking for a physical form to control.
The Captive[]
Fleeing from the advance of its counterparts at the Battle of Mount Hyjal, a flawed Wisp spirit had spent years travelling across the very face of the planet. Although in life it had been the peaceful Night Elf tree-tender, Nurrien Evendusk, the Wisp now sought to abuse and manipulate the forces of nature and bend it to its own will, rather than that of its Night Elven masters. First, however, it desired some form of physical presence.
When Nurrien found Tomas Macabee, he seemed mindless and directionless - a perfect subject for posesession. Once the Wisp spirit had made its decision, it attempted to wrest control of Macabee's mind. Unpredicted by Nurrien, however, its attempts were weak and only seemed to succeed in enraging the Ghoul.
Through the intervention of Nurrien, Tomas Macabee's dormant, yet present conciousness was beginning to awaken. No longer under the grasp of the Lich King, but having to be reborn fighting for control of his mind, Macabee began to scream and flail uncontrollably.
This commotion attracted the attention of a two-man patrol of Forsaken Deathguards, who rushed to the scene. In the throes of mid-possession, Macabee unintentionally killed one of the Deathguards and injured the other. The remaining Forsaken managed to restrain what seemed like a murderous racial kinsman and was soon aided by his comrades. Tired of the mental battle, Nurrien disembarked the Undead's mind and left.
The Deathguards were thereby led to believe that Tomas Macabee had been a Forsaken under the influence of a mere temporary and uninvited loss of control, but still charged him with the murder of one of their fellow Deathguards. Newly-reborn and without the slightest clue of what was happening to him, he was powerless to object to any of these accusations.
The Apothecarium
Macabee spent the first year of his concious undeath as Prisoner-0691 inside a bone-cage cell in the Apothecarium. During this time, he slowly amounted knowledge of Azeroth's current situation and began to learn both Orcish and Gutterspeak. It was also here that he began to nurture a sense of bitterness towards Forsaken Undead, in particular, the Apothecaries.
After a year of confinement, mindless chores and being a test subject for the Apothecarium, Refestus was released on good behaviour. He did not, however, leave without the 'guidance' of the Apothecarium and certain scars and marks upon his body and the former Human 'Refestus' Tomas Macabee found it difficult to integrate within what seemed to him a shadow of the Azeroth he once knew.
The Servant[]
After his release, Refestus was unwillingly sent around Azeroth to serve in the military as a Warlock envoy of Sylvanas and The Apothecarium's grip on Refestus grew ever-tighter as he became a more powerful spell-caster.
It was only until a couple of years later that the Blood Elf leader of the Organisation 'Esoteric Illusion', Aérandir, somehow succeeded in negotiating with the Apothecaries to let go of its hold on Refestus and cease orchaestrating his life in return for the Forsaken's servitude towards the Esoteric Illusion. Details on the exact terms of these negotiations are generally sparse and kept secret, however.
After the disbanding of the Esoteric Illusion, Refestus occasionally served under Orgrimmar and interacted more than he had done previously with the races of Kalimdor, fighting alongside them in both Outland and Northrend and widening the gap between him and other Forsaken.
The Totem[]
It was soon, however, that Refestus began to buckle under poverty. Remembering a chance, yet unfortunate encounter with Gremkarc of Orgrimmar, Refestus set about searching for him and his clan, Dagger and Totem. Recieving information of a War of Loas in Stranglethorn Vale, in which Dagger and Totem were playing a lynchpin role, Refestus travelled to Grom'gol base camp.
Finding the Daggers and Totems in a short space of time, Refestus helped them during their campaign and later managed to secure a place within the clan, in light of his aid at Stranglethorn and the recent death of the clan's primary Demonologist.
Refestus looks out across the Valley of Strength during Thrall's rule
During the clan's initiation rites, 'The Stonetalon Trials', Refestus travelled with an Undead Tauren of the Ebon Blade, Vitanisus. After completing the trials in the space of two days, both members were given their clan marks and Grunt ranks. Participating in numerous fields of battle for the cause of the clan, such as Karazhan and Azshara, Refestus was able to start anew and as time went on, felt closer to them than perhaps any other establishment he had ever known.
He later joined the Rolling Hills Coalition and prepared for a peaceful new life within the Horde. However, it would later become known that Azeroth was on the brink of destruction and that peace was simply not to be.
The Warlock[]
It was after the Cataclysm that Refestus became bitter. To those around him, the reason for such bitterness could only be attributed to both his undeath in general and the effects of the Cataclysm. In truth, Refestus only saw the Cataclysm as change wrought upon a world that was already alien to him.
During his time in the clan, many had seen him as a questionable presence - perhaps a useful presence at times, but nonetheless a vile Forsaken Felweaver and Demon Summoner to the end. It was for these perceptions that Refestus found it hard to connect with his Kalimdor acquaintances in general, let alone those in Dagger and Totem. Tired of attempting to socialise and be friendly around those he had been told were nothing but child-eating monsters in his youth, Macabee resigned himself as a Forsaken Warlock of the Horde, dropping any induviduality he had tried hard to enforce upon those that would see him as questionable before.
He later served in Vash'jir, Deepholm and Uldum using increasingly reckless Fel methods to vanquish the enemies of the Horde. To Commanders and Centurions, he would say in an undoubtedly passive-aggressive tone "I know my place." and remained withdrawn as a person. Indeed, some grew concerned that he would eventually become corrupt and fall to the Fel whispers that had been failing to tempt him in the years since he was instructed in the arts.
The Victim[]
While it is still unsure to those who knew him as to whether Refestus would have fallen or not, he had discovered a thing that he chose to keep to himself and brood upon that would render such speculation irrelevant.
The undeath energies holding him together had clearly begun to fail - perhaps due in some way to the Cataclysm - and his aged corpse began to rot at a steadily accelerating pace. Sensing that his time was about to come, Refestus retreated from the frontlines of the Shattered World and resided in Orgrimmar for a few weeks.
Eventually, riding his Wyvern from Orgrimmar to Thunder Bluff, he became stricken and was forced to land. His legs almost lame from decay, he managed to stumble into a nearby cave there to lay and putrify for the coming weeks.
To this day, his clanmates of Dagger and Totem do not know where it might have been that Refestus had vanished, but they simply regard him as another victim of Deathwing's onslaught.
Criminal Record[]
Murder[]
Charge recieved from
- Undercity, represented by the Apothecarium
Reason for charge
- The unprovoked murder of a Deathguard during her patrol around the town of Brill
Punishment
- Sentenced to incarceration until further notice (Ended after a year of good appeals)
Trivia[]
In character[]
- Only on the direst of circumstances did Refestus reveal his 'other' form. Through years of Demonology studies, he secretly learnt how to 'Metamorphose' into a Humanoid-Demon form.
Out of character[]
- All three of Refestus Tomas Macabee's names originate from Warhammer 40,000.
- Refestus was my second RP character ever.
- Refestus scored -2 on the WoW Mary Sue Test. He scored -11 on the Universal Mary Sue Test.
- Refestus scored "Lawful Neutral" on the Character Alignment Test, as of November 2010;
"Lawful Neutral- A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs him. Order and organization are paramount to him. He may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or he may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government. Lawful neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot. However, lawful neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it seeks to eliminate all freedom, choice, and diversity in society."
Detailed Results:
Alignment:
Lawful Good ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (18)
Neutral Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (15)
Chaotic Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (15)
Lawful Neutral -- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (23)
True Neutral ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (20)
Chaotic Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (20)
Lawful Evil ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Neutral Evil ---- XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Chaotic Evil ---- XXXXXXXXXX (10)
- Rather than having a single theme, the following three songs can be used to capture the feel of Refestus' character development in each of the World of Warcraft expansions. They generally take the form of 70's and 80's Pop and Rock.
thumb|left|100px|Tears for Fears - Mad World (TBC)
thumb|left|100px|Pink Floyd - High Hopes (WOTLK)
thumb|100px|left|The Stranglers - No More Heroes (CATA)