User:Joshmaul/Kegren Dawntotem

"'The world beyond Mulgore is a dangerous place, this is true. But you will find many wonders as well, young Kegren - the destination of life would be quite boring without the journey, after all.'"
 * - Master Taeril'hane Ketiron

Kegren Dawntotem was a member of the Grimtotem tribe in the years leading up to the arrival of the Horde in Kalimdor. The son of fanatical loyalists to the tribal matriarch Magatha Grimtotem, Kegren experienced a vision in the Barrens that led him to join the Sunwalkers, the tauren order of paladins.

Biography
When Magatha Grimtotem orchestrated the murder of Cairne Bloodhoof and seized Thunder Bluff, Kegren's father, Takin Grimtotem, remained loyal to his Elder Crone and her vision of the future. The Grimtotems were defeated by Cairne's son and heir, Baine, and the mighty shaman Jevan Grimtotem, or "Stormsong" as he was also known. After retaking Thunder Bluff, Baine banished Magatha from Mulgore; with Stormsong's support, he offered amnesty to any Grimtotem who acknowledged him as High Chieftain, with those who refused going into exile with Magatha. Takin remained loyal to his Elder Crone; Kegren, however, sided with Stormsong. Takin spat at his son's hooves, calling him a traitor and disinheriting him before leaving for the Stonetalon Mountains. Kegren has not seen him since, and is not sure whether he is alive or dead.

His spirit troubled by the division of his tribe, Kegren went into the Barrens, the land he had called home. Standing on a hill near the Crossroads, he was enveloped by brilliant sunlight, within which he heard a voice: "Child of darkness, walk within my Light." Returning to Thunder Bluff, Kegren was convinced he had heard the voice of An'she, the sun itself, and thus went before Aponi Brightmane to train as a Sunwalker. As part of his "new awakening", he renounced his ties to his old tribe, and took the name "Dawntotem". Not long afterward, he joined the army sent to fight the Iron Horde on Draenor, working as a blacksmith to forge weapons and armor for the troops.

With the Legion invading on the Broken Isles, Kegren journeyed to see for himself the ancestral lands of the legendary Huln Highmountain, and became just as fervent a defender of his moose-antlered kin as he was for his people in Mulgore. He watched with pride as Highmountain formally joined with the Horde following the campaign on Argus, and believed that the tauren people as a whole had a bright future ahead of them - if they can avoid being sacrificed in the meat grinder of war by Warchief Sylvanas Windrunner.

Anguished by the horrors unleashed by Sylvanas and her loyalists in Darkshore and Teldrassil, Kegren retreated to Thunder Totem, feeling that An'she had abandoned him because he had not stood against the murder of innocents. He spent many weeks meditating in the crags of Highmountain, hoping and praying for a sign. He would eventually get one, and it was not a hopeful one, at least not at first. Word came that Baine had been arrested by Sylvanas for treason, because he had opposed Sylvanas' increasing descent into depravity. However, it was not Baine's imprisonment but his opposition to Sylvanas, now brought out into the open, that was the sign that Kegren had been waiting for. Just as it had been with Vol'jin opposing Garrosh Hellscream, Baine would likely be the leader - or the foremost martyr - of a revolution to overthrow the mad banshee.

Shamed by what he now realized was his own cowardice, Kegren saw that he would not find what he sought hiding in the mountains. He would find it in the middle of the fray - both in the ongoing conflict with the Alliance, as well as what appears to be the Horde's inevitable slide into civil war. He returned to being among the "general population", deciding that if he was to be killed, either by the Alliance or by his own supposed allies, then at least he would die with honor.