User:Joshmaul/Elodie Noirceur

"'So many souls, so little spirit...'"
 * - Elodie Noirceur

Elodie Noirceur, also known as the Shadowreaper of Suramar, is a warlock belonging to the Council of the Black Harvest.

Biography
The name Noirceur literally means "darkness" in Shalassian, signifying this noble family's decision to wield shadow magics in the long isolation following the War of the Ancients. Most of those who survived their training became shadow priests, including the current family patriarch, Lord Etienne. His eldest daughter and heir apparent, Elodie, trained in those arts herself, but when the Legion returned and forced Suramar into siding with them, she began to study the powers wielded by Gul'dan and the other warlocks who followed him. Lord Etienne was disturbed at first; while he publicly remained loyal to Elisande and her pact with the Legion, he wondered what the point of their isolation was when they chose to align with the very powers they had hidden away from ten millennia before. But he soon recognized that the tools of the enemy would be best used against them, when the time came, and encouraged his daughter's studies.

When First Arcanist Thalyssra, backed by elven allies from beyond Suramar, finally attacked and overthrew Elisande and Gul'dan, House Noirceur accepted the verdict of the battlefield - and Elodie, eager to suppliment her studies, was brought to Dreadscar Hold, the sanctum of the Council of the Black Harvest, a conclave of Azeroth's most powerful warlocks. Although she had wielded shadow powers for centuries before, the Council made it clear that the powers she chose to wield were very, very different. Elodie accepted the implicit challenge with regal grace, and proved to be a quick learner. Her mentor in the Council was a warlock recently returned from the soulstone where he had been contained since his death in Northrend years before - the orc demonologist Urgan. The Corruptor was impressed with her, and bade her accompany him for the final push against the Legion on Argus. Elodie proved more than capable of holding her own on those blasted battlefields.

While she was receiving her instruction from the Council, Suramar formally aligned with the Horde with the support of the blood elves - which meant that Elodie would be on the "same side" with her new mentor. She was surprised to learn, however, that Urgan had no real loyalty to the Horde - he considered his allegiance more by default than anything else, and that his actions were motivated mainly by however the wind blew, echoing the sentiments of Lord Etienne during the recent war in Suramar. It was in that spirit that she followed her mentor to Zandalar during the Fourth War, participating in the campaign to recruit the Zandalari (whom she considered just as much an "elder race" as her own, given that the Zandalari Empire predated virtually every existing nation on Azeroth) and battle against Kul Tiras and its Alliance supporters. She became reviled both by the Alliance and by the "traditionalist" anti-warlock elements among the Nightborne as the "Shadowreaper", a nod to the power she wielded and for the darkly-enchanted sickle she carried as her staff.

Just as in Suramar, she avoided committing to either side in the struggle for power between Sylvanas and Saurfang, which ended with Saurfang dead and Sylvanas repudiating the Horde she ostensibly led. Following this, Elodie simply accepted the aftermath, and echoed the Corruptor in taking a wait-and-see approach to the "reformation" of the Horde.