User:Joshmaul/Zherron Shadowhowl

"'So, this is what Hell looks like. To think it fits all the descriptions.'"
 * - Packleader Zherron Shadowhowl, entering the Firelands for the first time

Eidan Zherron, known also as Zherron Shadowhowl, was the packleader of the Shadowhowl pack and archdruid of the Lordaeron Deathsworn. Though he had left his leadership of the pack for a time to fight in the Firelands, he returned at the behest of his hand-picked lieutenant and adoptive daughter, Amendera Kynes.

Originally trained as a warrior as generations of his family had, Zherron embraced the old ways of Gilnean druidism shortly before the end of the Gilnean Civil War. While fighting the feral worgen, Zherron was bitten by one who had once been his loyal lieutenant and became cursed, before having his humanity restored to him just in time to fight against the Forsaken. With the aid of the night elves, he learned how to control his form and the bestial rage, and fled with them to Kalimdor, where he continued to learn more about his powers under the tutelage of the druids of the Moonglade.

As nature warred against itself, Zherron offered his powers to the Alliance in its time of need, and tried to aid his patron, the Farseer Jaeden'laek, in restoring the Balance in nature and the elements.

Biography
Eidan Zherron was born in Stormglen Village in southern Gilneas, to a family that had served the House of Greymane for nearly eight generations. His father, Daril, was a respected warrior in the Alliance who remained in their service after Gilneas seceded. His mother, Alma, was a "harvest witch", using druidic magic to help ensure the Gilnean harvests were fruitful, especially in the period after Gilneas was sealed off from the rest of the world. Daril Zherron loved her deeply, and despite his warrior training (and typical Gilnean superstition about magic users) grew to respect the powers of nature wielded by such people.

Like his father, and his father before him, Zherron joined the ranks of the Gilnean Army, easily the strongest force in southern Lordaeron. When the Second War broke out, Gilneas fought alongside the Alliance of Lordaeron. Zherron was present during the final conflicts against the Horde at Blackrock Spire, nearly losing an eye in the process. After the Second War, Genn Greymane ordered the sealing of the Greymane Wall between Gilneas and Silverpine Forest. This was to be a fateful mistake that would cost both Greymane and his people dearly...

Daril, who had become a general, had taken a small force beyond the Greymane Wall before its completion, under the pretext of reinforcing Pyrewood Village - a Gilnean enclave that would be cut off from the rest of Gilneas. In fact, Daril and his men had offered their services to King Terenas of Lordaeron; another group, known as the Gilneas Brigade, would follow suit and join Jaina Proudmoore in Kalimdor. Daril was killed by Prince Arthas and his Scourge forces, while serving in the Champions of Light army under the paladin Gavinrad the Dire and Stormwind General Vorian Tanis.

Rebel with a Cause
Following his father's departure, Major Zherron and his battalion - all like-minded people who had served under him and his father during the war - offered their services to Lord Darius Crowley in his effort to raise arms against King Greymane. Crowley, though he was the King's closest friend, was bitterly opposed to his decision to separate from the Alliance, believing it would eventually have repercussions against all Gilneas. It was at that time that Zherron resigned his commission as an officer of the Gilnean army, and went to his mother asking her to teach him further in the old ways; he had learned the lore as a child, but this time, he took to learning more about using the powers of nature. He particularly expressed an interest in the great balance between sun and moon that gave the ancient druids their powers.

Zherron and his battalion engaged in guerrilla warfare against men he had once called comrades, and when Crowley was captured and placed into Stoneward Prison, the former major and his men took to the hills...that was, until the day all hell broke loose.

Howl of the Worgen
There are two conflicting stories of how the worgen entered Gilneas. Some say that they were the ferals that lived in Silverpine, which found the Greymane Wall to be little obstacle at all. Some say that King Greymane himself was responsible for their summoning. Whatever the means, the wolf-men ran rampant throughout Gilneas, and those who were not killed became worgen themselves.

The former rebels who had followed Lord Crowley were granted clemency by the King, who believed that with this new threat, all Gilneas had to unite to stop them. Among his first acts was to free Crowley from Stoneward Prison; the rebel nobleman offered his hidden artillery caches, hidden all over Gilneas City, to offer them for use to the Gilnean defenders. During the capture of one such cache, Zherron was bitten by a feral worgen that had once been Lieutenant Jeremiah August, his second-in-command. Lashing out with nature's wrath - the first spell taught to him by Sister Celestine, a friend of his mother - Zherron killed the man on the spot, but the wound he had suffered began to fester as he continued on...and he noticed hair growing out of it before the end.

Joining Crowley at Light's Dawn Cathedral to make the last stand so that Greymane could lead the civilians to safety, Zherron and the other defenders were overwhelmed, and thanks to the worgen bite, he would eventually become one. In his madness, he killed everything that came into his path...which would include his mother, his wife and their three daughters, killings he would have no recollection of later. Only when he "awoke" in the stocks in Duskhaven did he realize the full extent of his curse...

Escape From Gilneas
As he came to terms with his curse, and - upon meeting Crowley at Tal'doren - learning how to shift between his human form and his worgen form ("pack form", as it was known to the Druids of the Scythe), Zherron aided in any way he could in the battle against the invading Forsaken, who had been sent south by Garrosh Hellscream, Warchief of the Horde, to conquer Gilneas. The Forsaken staked a claim to the entire continent, and with Quel'Thalas and the heartlands of Lordaeron under their dominion, Dalaran removed to Northrend and Alterac and Stromgarde in ruins, only Gilneas remained untouched. But as the war against the Forsaken continued, the earth began to quake and the town of Duskhaven - evacuated thanks to the efforts of men like Zherron - was consumed by the sea. The night elves soon arrived, telling them about the first worgen, how they had been night elf druids once...and offering their aid, and that of the Alliance, to fight the Forsaken and their orcish allies.

Zherron's only desire now was to escape Gilneas alive, and he knew Greymane thought the same. Though this was their land, the Horde had numerical superiority on their side. Once again Lord Crowley would remain behind to lead a resistance force, the Gilneas Liberation Front, to fight the Forsaken armies coming from the north, while Greymane led his people out of Gilneas. At the end, Zherron joined with his people - both those afflicted by the worgen curse, and those who had not been - to assault the Horde command vessel, a massive flying battleship, and crash it into the Forsaken forward command post along the Greymane Wall. Escaping using one of the gunship's wyverns, Zherron and the other Gilnean refugees made their way to Keel Harbor, where the night elves waited for them, with ships that would take them across the Great Sea to their capital city of Darnassus.

There, King Greymane and his lieutenant, Gwen Armstead - the former mayor of Duskhaven - were greeted by Archdruid Malfurion Stormrage and High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind, the husband-wife rulers of the night elves, who offered the Gilneans sanctuary within Darnassus. Greymane travelled on to the city of Stormwind, where he would stand at the side of King Varian. Not wanting to be so far from home with the battle for Gilneas still ongoing, Zherron also journeyed to Stormwind, where he met the Farseer Jaeden'laek, who had appeared to him in a vision shortly before Gilneas was overwhelmed by the worgen.

After overcoming initial awkwardness (caused by the draenei's hesitation in speaking to a worgen, as all he knew of them were the mindless, feral beasts he had fought in Northrend), Jaeden'laek brought the druid to Field Marshal Oren Tanis, commander of the Lordaeron Deathsworn. Zherron was surprised to discover that the Deathsworn had been established by Saavedro of Stratholme, who had been a priest visiting in Gilneas when Greymane severed ties to the Alliance; he learned that Saavedro had become a very powerful and respected paladin, and had been killed three years earlier at the climax of the war against the Lich King. Since Gilneas was part of the continent of Lordaeron, and the Deathsworn were committed to liberating all of Lordaeron from the undead - Forsaken or otherwise - Zherron agreed to be the general of the worgen who would join the ranks of the Deathsworn.

Appearance and Personality
Before he succumbed to the worgen curse, and in his normal form afterwards, Zherron was a lean but powerfully built man, his skin bronzed from the many years he had served outside his homeland. His hair and goatee was raven black, and his eyes pale blue, both traits of his father's side of the family. As a worgen, he had dark blue-gray fur, with a tuft of beard on his chin and piercing golden eyes. The scar on his shoulder from when Lieutenant August bit him has completely healed in his human form, but he still feels an occasional phantom pain, one that would remain for the rest of his life. Zherron is also a perennial pipe-smoker; his preferred tobacco is moonleaf, which grows only in the Blackwald in his native Gilneas, and is highly difficult to get after the Forsaken conquest.

Zherron is fiercely loyal to Gilneas and its people, though he has questioned his allegiance to its King in the past. His father, Daril, was so incensed by Greymane's severing of ties to Lordaeron and the Alliance that he left Gilneas shortly before the Greymane Wall sealed - accompanied by a younger Saavedro, then a priest from Stratholme - and rejoined the Alliance army as part of the Gilneas Brigade. Angered by this necessary rash action, Zherron took one of his own: He joined the Northgate rebels, and decided to help bring down Greymane or at least force him to open the Wall. Zherron still maintains an antipathy towards Greymane, but was quick to join with him and Lord Crowley to stand united against the worgen threat, and again when the enemy changed from the worgen to the Forsaken. Nowadays, Zherron condemns Crowley as a coward for surrendering to Sylvanas just to save his daughter, and believes Gilneas would be better off without him as well.

Despite the primal instincts that have now taken hold, both from his curse and from his druidic abilities, Zherron is extremely considerate of the fears of the people in the towns he visits. In Darkshire, which had been plagued by worgen for years, Zherron always conducted his business in town in his human form, only taking his true form when outside the town or when absolutely necessary, as was the case when he helped battle the Embalmer's attack on the town.

A Master of Potions
Fascinated by the alchemical skills of the Royal Chemist, Krennan Aranas, Zherron took up potion-making and herbalism after the flight from Gilneas. In addition to practicing the healing arts, Zherron put his skills to work in creating potions to restore health and mana for himself and his comrades, ultimately specializing in that skill upon recovering a tome from the Botanica in Outland. Though he is also skilled in transmutation and the creation of special flasks, he is a potion master first and foremost. His skill in alchemy has given him the ability to create new and exotic brews that grant the ability to find treasure, teleport to exotic realms, and even disguise the drinker.

Artifact Weapons
Zherron has obtained two artifacts from the past in his travels through Azeroth; both had belonged to his parents.


 * Ghoulsplitter: Daril Zherron was given this hammer, emblazoned with the lion's head of Stormwind, by his friend Vorian Tanis shortly before the march to Andorhal. Both men would die there at the hands of Arthas, and the weapon was lost for years until it was reclaimed by Ambassador Jaeden'laek during a routine purge of Sorrow Hill prior to the Shattering. It was ritually cleansed and kept in the Cathedral of Light until Zherron, informed by Jaeden'laek of the hammer's owner, came to claim it.
 * The Staff of Saavedro: This blessed staff, bearing a winged horse at its head, was given to Saavedro of Stratholme prior to his departure for Gilneas during the Second War. In thanks for her hospitality, Saavedro gave the staff to Alma Zherron, recognizing the power within her, and urging her to nurture it. Months after the fall of Gilneas, Zherron returned to his home in Gilneas City and found the staff near the dismembered skeleton of his mother. He took it as a reminder of the crime he had committed, and had Alma's remains - along with those of Zherron's wife Elmira and his three daughters, killed in the same rampage - brought to Stormwind, where they were buried in the city cemetery next to Vorian Tanis and his parents, Andrew and Helene.

The Forms of Shadowhowl
As a worgen and as a druid, Zherron possesses the ability to change into many shapes:


 * Human: Zherron's normal human form is often used when he conducts business in major cities and towns, especially in those towns with allegiance to Stormwind. Despite the Alliance's wary acceptance of the Gilneans, cursed or otherwise, into their ranks, Zherron knows that a worgen in the streets will cause unnecessary panic, even if - like Zherron himself - they are able to speak coherently and calmly even while in their true forms.
 * Worgen: Known as "pack form" to the Druids of the Scythe, progenitors of the worgen, this is Zherron's "true form", the manifestation of his curse. Under normal conditions, Zherron can assume his pack form and revert to human form at will, like other Gilnean worgen. In battle, however, the primal lust for battle becomes too powerful to ignore and the spirit of the wolf takes over. Other than combat, Zherron also maintains this form running either upright or on all fours.
 * Lion: The first druidic form Zherron learned, while fighting the Forsaken in Gilneas. While the cat forms of their night elf comrades resemble panthers and and the trolls resemble tigers, worgen cat forms resemble lions, much like those of the tauren. The lion form of the worgen druid, however, is much more feral in appearance, with a studded metal collar around its neck and similar metal bracers around the ankles of its paws. Zherron primarily uses this form when stealth is necessary, though he is also capable of defending himself in melee combat.
 * Bear: The one drawback to the worgen bear form, intended for the druid to hold the attention of powerful enemies, is that the form is less than conspicuous. The Gilneas Liberation Front learned this the hard way, when their druid spies were discovered near Ambermill by the Forsaken and subsequently slaughtered. Nonetheless, the worgen bear form (the "werebear", as Zherron calls it) is powerful and aggressive, with metal-sheathed claws, metal bands around the ankles, and a ragged mane.
 * Sealion: The sealion form is shared in appearance by all druids regardless of species or origin of their powers. It is intended for quick and easy travel through water, and also allows water breathing for long-term submersion, if so necessary. With a powerful glyph, Zherron makes this form even faster; only the seahorses of Vashj'ir (and those who ride them, if they're lucky enough to subdue one) could match his speed.
 * Cheetah: Another form with an appearance identical on all druids, the cheetah is a natural sprinter, allowing for quick movement over short distances.
 * Moonkin: As a druid who favors the Balance, Zherron has learned to assume the form of the moonkin. It appears almost identical - though possibly somewhat darker in color - to the similar form of the night elf druid. This form makes his offensive spells quicker and more powerful.
 * Gilnean Crow: While many either purchase gryphons or build flying machines, the druid assumes the form of a bird to fly, a form that has the benefits of being quick to assume and even quicker to move. As he grew in strength, Zherron's bird form became swifter and more distinctive, marked with the sigil of Gilneas.
 * Tree of Life: While Zherron is primarily trained in the power of the Balance, he has also learned the healing arts, and this is the culmination of that effort. While he cannot hold the form indefinately, as some druids of old did, the form bolsters the power of nature to preserve the life force of Zherron and his allies.

In-Game Accomplishments

 * Involvement in the Civil War Prior to the Shattering
 * Service to the Alliance After the Shattering