User:Joshmaul/Randarel Vendross

"'There will be no glorious summers for us anymore.'"
 * - Lord Randarel Vendross

Lord Randarel Vendross was an arcanist of Suramar who aligned with the Horde following the successful conclusion of the Nightfallen rebellion. A vocal and vehement critic of Grand Magistrix Elisande, Randarel was exiled into the wilderness, his hunger for magic transforming him into a Nightfallen - and very nearly into a mindless Withered. Rescued by his guard captain, Valya Tiren, and restored by the fruit of the arcan'dor, Randarel took as vehement a stance against the regime of Warchief Sylvanas Windrunner as he had against Elisande, refusing any aid to what he called "pointless murder" committed by the Forsaken and their loyalists, regardless of the risk to himself.

After Sylvanas was deposed, Randarel took a hard line against the Knights of the Ebon Blade, which had begun "recruiting" around the same time as the campaign against the Black Empire - only to find himself subjected to fate's cruel sense of humor...

Biography
House Vendross is a Highborne family with two major branches - one in the ancient city of Eldre'Thalas in the jungles of Feralas, and one in Suramar, one of the shining jewels of the ancient kaldorei empire. The Eldre'Thalas branch, descended from Lord Tara'thel Vendross, is extinct, having largely been wiped out by Prince Tortheldrin and the Shen'dralar, as well as by the Gordok ogres who claimed the ruined city as their own, renaming it "Dire Maul". The brothers Caro'thel and Tara'thel II, the last of the Eldre'Thalas line, served as part of the Alliance and were killed in the years following the Cataclysm.

Randarel belongs to the Suramar branch, born in the family estate along Astravar Harbor in Suramar City some eleven hundred years prior to the War of the Ancients. His father, Taldarel, was an arcanist in Elisande's service when the Legion invaded, was killed during the effort to seal the demonic portal within the Temple of Elune (today the Tomb of Sargeras). During the long millennia of isolation under the barrier erected by Elisande and her entourage, during which the Nightwell transformed the people of Suramar into the shal'dorei, Randarel married Elerina Moonwatcher, a priestess of Elune, and had two children - a son, Erdanel, and a daughter, Telisa.

When the barrier came down after ten thousand years, the world had changed; it had not fallen to the demons, but it was no longer the world they had left behind. And the reason the barrier had fallen was a shock to Randarel and other like-minded folk. Elisande - who had styled herself "Grand Magistrix", essentially queen in all but name - had brought down the barrier at the behest of the orc warlock Gul'dan, who served the very demons that Elisande had once opposed. Randarel, despite the risks to himself and his house, spoke out publicly and without hesitation, opposing making any kind of bargain with the Legion. He supported the coup attempt by First Arcanist Thalyssra to topple Elisande and prevent the Nightwell from falling into the hands of the Legion; after it failed, Randarel and Elerina were arrested by Elisande's forces. Aware that he would probably be exiled or executed, Randarel instructed his loyal guard captain, Valya Tiren, to denounce him to Elisande in order to save herself, and to hide his children among what few friends might remain in Suramar, so that his line could continue without him. Reluctantly, Tiren agreed.

As her control over Suramar tightened, Elisande had become both cruel and vindictive, and no more was this emphasized than in the sentence she imposed on Randarel. She forced the rebel arcanist to watch as one of her executioners, Spellfencer Relsyn, decapitated Elerina in front of him, spattering Randarel with her blood. "Live with that as you wither away," Elisande coldly told him, as she sentenced him to the slow, painful death of exile.

Despair, Followed by Hope
Randarel was banished into the wilds outside Suramar, torn by horror at his wife's murder, anger at Elisande and her loyalists, and the increasing pangs of magical withdrawal after being cut off from the Nightwell. Even as his body (and, increasingly, his mind) began to deteriorate, he clung onto the idea that Suramar would be free of Elisande and her Legion puppet-masters, and that he would have vengeance for his wife's death. In time, as all exiles did, Randarel became a Nightfallen, and his waking existence became less and less his grief and rage and more and more his unending hunger. With that hunger came despair - despair that, sometime soon, his body would be nothing but a shell for a ravenous monster, and everything that made him who he was would be dead. Then, one day, everything changed again - and this time, it seemed, for the better...

The magical city of Dalaran, which had been based in Northrend during the war against the Lich King, moved above the "Broken Isles" of which Suramar had become a part after the Sundering. Their intention was to prevent the Legion from gaining a permanent foothold, seal the portal within the Tomb of Sargeras, and - somehow - bring the war right to their doorstep. The champions who had come to fight the Legion would aid Thalyssra in inciting a revolution that would topple Elisande, free Suramar and its people, and deny the Legion the power of the Nightwell. Within the city itself, Captain Tiren was among those who aided the insurrectionists, with the intention of saving Randarel from the cruel fate that Elisande had sentenced him to. It was then that the champions, guided by Valewalker Farodin, began cultivating the arcan'dor in Shal'Aran, the great tree with fruit that could restore the Nightfallen to their former selves and break their addiction to the Nightwell - a pure, non-addictive alternative.

When the arcan'dor bloomed and began producing its fruit, Captain Tiren brought one to her lord, who often stood in the ruins of Elune'eth above Shal'Aran, looking towards Suramar City - wanting it to be the last thing he saw before he withered. For the first time in what had felt like an eternity, Randarel was himself again, though weak and slightly disoriented. Yet he would have no time to rest...for now the revolution was to begin at last. Under the banner of the Dusk Lily, the elves of Azeroth - the night elves of Darnassus, the high elves of the Silver Covenant, and the blood elves of Silvermoon - united to bring down Elisande and free Suramar. Despite his weakness, Randarel eagerly joined Thalyssra's forces, hoping to not only liberate his homeland but also exact vengeance for the death of his wife. Captain Tiren and the survivors of the House Guard showed solidarity with their lord, having recovered the head and body of Lady Elerina for proper burial when the war was over, and fashioning pendants using the white diamonds from her broken tiara, which Randarel had given to her when Erdanel was born. They made sure that Randarel would also have a pendant; whenever his thoughts turned to his "immortal beloved" in the months and years after, he would always rest a hand on the pendant, as if to invoke her spirit.

Accompanied by his loyalists, Randarel joined the army in the march on Suramar, even while it was frozen in time by Elisande's magic. After the champions of Azeroth freed them, Randarel engaged in a personal duel with Relsyn in the courtyard of the Nighthold. Despite the spellfencer being both at full strength and far quicker on her feet than he, Randarel was able to disarm her, before impaling her through the heart with her own weapon. He had her body burned in a bonfire in the wilds of Suramar, believing that fel-tainted traitors did not deserve a proper burial. Shortly afterwards, Elisande herself would fall to Thalyssra and her escorts, followed shortly after by Gul'dan. The Eye of Aman'thul, the power source of the Nightwell, was taken to the city of Dalaran, allowing the Nightwell to die a natural death as the people of Suramar were liberated - both from Elisande and her Legion masters, and from the grasp of the Nightwell itself.

With the war over, Randarel, his children, and his surviving guard brought Elerina's body to Tel'anor, the city of the dead in the hills northwest of Suramar City, and laid her to rest there in a tomb not far from that of Randarel's parents.

Distant Kin on a Distant Shore


Upon taking charge of the Nighthold, Thalyssra opened a dialogue with the other elven factions. The night elves, particularly Tyrande Whisperwind, were concerned that Thalyssra would be no better than Elisande, and had treated the Nightborne with distrust throughout the campaign. The blood elves, however, had proven to be enthusiastic allies, understanding well the pains of magical addiction and betrayal by their trusted leaders, and embraced their distant kin-folk - which meant that Suramar would side with the Horde in any forthcoming conflict. Randarel travelled to Silvermoon to see for himself both the triumph and tragedy of the sin'dorei. Upon his arrival, he was greeted by Menarian Talashar, one of the Magisters of Silvermoon. Despite dramatic differences in both age and magical knowledge, Randarel and Menarian struck up a friendship relatively quickly, discussing a variety of topics from history to their preferred forms of conjured food. Sealing their bond, Menarian gave Randarel an enchanted ring often used by mages of the Kirin Tor, which would allow him to speak and understand languages - particularly Orcish, the main language of the Horde - without harming his vocal cords. In return, Randarel would give Menarian one of the white diamond pendants.

It was from Menarian that Randarel also learned the price of Suramar's new allegiance. The Horde was under the direction of Warchief Sylvanas Windrunner, the ruler of the undead Forsaken, and styled as the "Banshee Queen" and the "Dark Lady". Events not long after led him to question whether the Nightborne had made a mistake in choosing to follow such a leader; seeking to gain a foothold on the continent of Kalimdor, Sylvanas deployed her forces to claim the night elf hearthlands of Ashenvale and Darkshore. After the successful conclusion of the latter campaign, Sylvanas spitefully ordered her forces to set fire to the World Tree Teldrassil, and to the night elf capital of Darnassus that grew within its boughs. While some Nightborne, including Captain Tiren, believed the action justified for Tyrande's "betrayal" of Suramar during the War of the Ancients and for her insults to the Nightborne, Randarel was horrified. He saw no good in genocide, and it was increasingly obvious to him that this was the path that Sylvanas sought to take. He felt the fall of the Undercity, her capital in the haunted ruins of Lordaeron, was retribution for her crime, and feared that the killing would go out of control from thereon out.

The insanity began to spiral as Sylvanas - and those who followed her without question - began punishing any who dared maintain ties to the Alliance or speak out against the continued murder of innocents on a number of battlefields, including Kul Tiras and Darkshore. Despite the risk to himself and his family, Randarel gave shelter to Menarian after he was sentenced to death by Sylvanas' loyalists in Orgrimmar, with both men fearing that the path the Horde was on would inevitably lead to civil war. It was at this time that he discovered that Captain Tiren had disobeyed his orders to stay away from the fighting in Darkshore, and was reported to have slaughtered night elves alongside the Forsaken with sickening gusto. Randarel only kept from executing her due to her long service to him and to his House, hoping that she would in time realize the path she was on and find a way to get away from it. Nonetheless, he sorrowfully banished her from Suramar under pain of death.