Lombard

Name
Lombard Ferranon, also known as Duke Warpmind

Physical Traits
(written in the handwriting of a scholar of the Scarlet Crusade)

Lombard is a little udner 5' 11", but his bulky armour adds to his height, totalling at 6' exactly. His face is aged beyond his physical state, as he is still as agile and sturdy as someone a quarter of his age. His hair, which once was a lush black, is now graying with age, and his distinguishing moustache, that shares his hair colour, tanscends his cheeks to meet his sideburns, giving him an ironically benevolant look. Indeed, he can be generous, kind and loving to his friends, he can also be a cruel, devious and endlessly cruel enemy when provoked. He is usually seen encased from the enck down in an intimidating suit of black and brown armour. Deadly spikes jut out of the armour on his shoulderpaltes and lining the outside of his gauntlets, giving him a viscious punch when forced to abandon his foul runeblade, Doombringer, an ill-gotten gift from Ner'Zhul, which he wields with considerable force and skill, and can out-fence any of the Light's finest champions with relative ease.

However, his true power lies not in his physical might, but in his mind, as he has skills of telepathy, the likes of which have not been seen since Medivh was slain at Karazhan. He uses these frighteningly useful skills to maximum effect, crushing the minds and controling the wills of his enemies before they even unsheathe their blades. He can turn you against your own lover, and have you plant a blade in their chest before you even realize that your actions aren't your own. But all mental powers can be fought off, whether with magical aids, or with experience of severe mental drills. His daunting figure is usually accompanied by a blood-red apple, which he bites into as he smirks at you, worming his way into your mind, to force you to serve his indominatable will, and carry out his yet unknown agendas.

Guild
Only the drunkest of drunk patrons mouth it in the sleaziest bars, but word has it that Duke Warpmind has allied himself with the damnable forces of the Dark Embrace.We are all damned if this turns out to be not just alcohol-induced gossip.

Occupation
Some say that Lombard, as a Death Knight, serves the Lich King, Ner'Zhul. Other people say that Lomabrd broke away from the Lich King's will with Sylvanas and the Forsaken, and serves them now.

Others still, and most commonly the drunks and mad prophets, claim he has been freed from the Lich King's grasp, but has set out into the world to fulfill his own agendas...

Family
The Ferranon Family was probably an insignificant peasant family that lived somewhere near Darrowshire. Whatever the case, the Ferranon bloodline's survival almost certainly rests with the Duke, as all leads of Lombard's origin have ended in shambling corpses. As for children of the Duke himself, pray to the Light that he is infertile.

Background
(This is written in Lombard's own hand, contrary to the scribblings above)

I was once a young Darrowshire man, loyal to the Alliance, and eager to make my name known across Azeroth. I planned to move to Stormwind, the 'Big City of Opportunity', I called it. I was arrogant, impatient, not very ambitious. Everything that makes the weak. I had hoped that my family would accompany me, but my father, crippled and terminally ill as he was, claimed he had too many winters of loyalty to Lordaeron under his belt to leave. My younger sisters regularly imagined what the city held for them, and planned to follow me when they came of age. I left home, and headed west, and then south through Khaz Modan, arriving in Stormwind through the brand new Deeprun Tram the Gnomes had created.

I immediately hunted for work, when I heard of an opening as an apprentice tailor. I eagerly signed on, but left after a week because of the softness of the work. I then thought of finding a job as a tanner, and when I did, I gave up on that a few weeks later as well, since I hated the stench of the tanner's. Then I turned my sights to the hammer and anvil, and I became an apprentice under the legendary blacksmith, Master Deepforge. For three years I learnt under him, and turned out to be an adaquetely talented smithy, as me and my team of apprentices supplied a stream of weapons and armour for the armies of the Alliance, which, at the time, were fighting in the Second War, and making good progress, might I add. We were then conscripted, due to our skill and efficiency, to supply the army in the field.

When the Alliance armies, under Anduin Lothar, pursued the Horde to Blackrock Mountain, every man, including myself and my team of apprentices, were armed with basic equipment, and sent into the fight. For the better part of two hours, I just kept my head down. I was out of place here, and felt helpless. Unluckily for me, a grumpy-looking orc sliced through my gut with a cruel blade, leaving me incapacitated and vulnerable to someone finishing me. It was only a few hours, when the battle had passed on towards the mountain, that the priests were able to get to me, and bring me back to camp. The priest who specifically cared for me, Bishop Uldoon, I believe his name was, was a rather devout, but portly man, and I was awed by how he wielded his magic to save the doomed, instead of furthering his own status. 'Such selflessness must be that of a saint!' I thought, and begged the bishop to teach me of the Light and it's ways.

So Uldoon began to lecture me on the Light's ideals, and the ranking in it's Church. I took it in with great interest, and as the army headed south, now under the command of General Turalyon, I began to become ever more zealous for the Light. Uldoon worried about this, but the generals, including Turalyon himself, wanted to use their new faith-fuelled weapon against the orcs. So they gave me a hammer, Judgebringer, and a set of armour brandished all over with the insignia of the Light. When we arrived at the Dark Portal, I was sent headlong into the Horde, crashing into them with divine might, destroying swathes of them with every blow! I felt invincible, and my actions roused my comrades to greater acts of valour in the Light's name. It was only when the orc shaman, Ner'Zhul himself, made a break for the Portal, when I was struck down. It was when I saw the heretic fleeing, followed by his bodyguard, that I saw my chance of greatness. I immediately crashed into his bodyguards, slaying half a dozen of them, before I was again badly wounded by an axe from behind. Minutes later, the entire Horde trampled over the corpses and myself through the portal, breaking one of my legs and several of my fingers with their iron-clad boots. It was when the Alliance pursued them that two men pulled me back to the camp and tended to my wounds. When the casualty list came through, and the name of Bishop Uldoon appeared on the list, did I make my first sudden action since being wounded: a roar of grief. I then wept for nigh on an hour, and promised to avenge the holy man. I got up, in no small amount of pain, grabbed Judgebringer, and then the Portal imploded. I was blown backwards, along with most of the men and tents that remained. When the survivors realized that there was no way Turalyon's men could return, we headed back to Stormwind, and home.

We were greeted with epic applause when we returned to the city. Streamers flooded the streets from upstairs windows, flowers were given, soldiers were kissed. It was a glorious day. My actions at the front of the battle had been recognized, and I was sent to the Cathedral of Light to be trained as a mighty paladin under the famed Lord Greystroke. He continued Uldoon's teachings of the Light, and Turalyon's combat training of the drafted army suppliers. After six years of practise, prayer and piety, I left the Cathedral, a mighty paladin of the Holy Light! A true hero of the Alliance! News from the north spoke of how Prince Arthas Menethil and the Kirin Tor apprentice, Jaina Proudmoore, had uncovered a traitorous Kirin Tor member, Kel'Thuzad, trying to create a Plague of Undeath to unleash on Lordaeron. I immediately saddled my horse, Kresson, and set out to help fight this new evil.

Nothing would have prepare me for what I saw when I arrived in Andorhal. Fire, smoke, death was everywhere. Corpses slumped against the roadside rose up indiscriminately and attacked me as I passed, adding to my disgust. Bands of men in red roamed the streets, killing any undead they saw. I avoided these patrols, as I suspected they were looters, and I wanted to avoid killing my fellow humans when the real enemy was right here. When I left the city through it's north gate, I suddenly remembered my family, and immediately set Kresson into full gallop, and arrived at Darrowshire before sundown. I knelt in terrified grief at the state of the ruins, my mourning was as fierce as that of Uldoon's demise, but a thousand times over, if not more. I salvaged through the ruins, look for any trace of my family, to no avail. I immediately left, not wanting to linger in this sorrowful place. I mounted Kresson again, and set out on a genocide of rage against the Undead.

A few months after leaving Darrowshire, I came across a band of the men in red I'd seen patrolling Andorhal, surrounded and outnumbered by a superior Undead force. I immediately ran to their aid, felling two dozen of the Scourge before they shambled away, routed. The men in red immediately came up to me, congratulating and thanking me for rescuing them. They identified themselves as part of a new-found order called the Scarlet Crusade, to combat the undead threats appearing across the kingdom. They had been travelling the Stratholme to secure a forward base, when they were beset upon by the Undead. So I accompanied them to Stratholme, and they all turned out to be devout ex-peasants, all believers in the Light and it's teachings, and so were awed by my standing as a paladin. When we arrived at Stratholme, we found the city cordoned off and guarded by humans. When we questioned the men guarding the city gates, they told us that the city 'has been discovered to be infected with the Undead Plague, and is hereby under quarantine until further notice' as their supposed leader put it. We left in an irritated state, and the Scarlet Crusaders took me to their Order's capital of Tyr's Hand, where I was initiated into the Crusade. I quickly rose through the ranks over the next two years, as I returned piles upon piles of Undead heads to the feet of the Scarlet Council. A new chapter of my life had just begun.

About two years into my life as a crusader, word spread of a band of Crusaders preparing to head south to Stormwind to gather additional support there. This 'Scarlet Mission', as it was later called, was led by one Abbot Habeus DeMonfort. I remembered the city of Stormwind, and the praise I was greeted with when I last arrived there, and immediately joined the Abbot's men before they left.

Six months after losing sight of Silverpine Forest, the Scarlet Mission entered the city of Stormwind. We were greeted with the exact opposite of what I was greeted with eight years ago. The most notable cries were 'LoL F*CkInG nOoBs!!' and 'wTf Y u AlL dReSsEd In ReD?'. I'm damned if I knew what they meant. We set up an embassy in the undercroft of the Cathedral of Light, maintained by Brother Crowley. We didn't gain much of the support that the Abbot promised us. To most of the recruits who took the life-binding vows at DeMonfort's feet, it was just a phase to be cast off when it was boring. Most recruits didn't last two weeks before defecting out of the Mission. After a year in the Mission, I realized that whilst all the firstcomers who arrived with me and the Abbot from Tyr's Hand had risen to places of power within the Mission, I was still being kept as a penitent. I went and complained to the Abbot, who sighed and lectured me how 'The Light wants a vassal who is patient in all things.' Nevertheless, DeMonfort gave me the promotion to Ordinand. As I carried out my trials of Ordination, my faith started to waver, whilst I stood by and watched the Mission become more of a political party than a divine cause.

At one point I went as far as to leave the Mission altogether. But I repented my sins, and was re-embraced into the fold, after considerable disciplining. When the Abbot entered the Mission into the so-called 'Stormwind Assembly', an obviously corrupt city council, I snapped, and immediately cast off my tabard and returned to the Crusade in the Northern Lands. When I arrived, I saw the Crusade making a strong push agaisnt the Undead. They had regained Stratholme, the town of Hearthglen, as well as regions in the Tirisfal Glades. But when the Council refused to send the Tyr's Hand garrison of 10,000 men to the front line, instead keeping them back to act as their bodyguard, I left the Crusade as well, disgusted at the corruption of humanity, and set out to find my own way to defeat the Scourge. Three weeks after leaving the Crusade, I decided that to kill the weed, you must cut off the roots. So I stole a rowing boat from a Tirisfal shipyard, and enough provisions to last a crew of five a year's voyage, I set off for the lands of Northrend.

The last thing I remember before I found myself on the shore of Westfall, surrounded by dead murlocs a few months ago, is fighting a sea of Undead. But when I awoke on the sandy shore, I found myself staring at a dark-coloured blade that sent my mind racing. The blade spoke to me. It greeted me, as one old friend does to another, and although I had never seen or... met, this weapon before, I felt that I had known it for eternity. Am I going made, to love a sword? Or is there a darker truth behind this... gap in my memory? Throughout that gap, I feel as if I was grappling with some huge beast in the dark, as I cannot remember what I did or saw in the time that I was asleep. A few weeks ago, when I went to check how the Scarlet Crusade was holding out, I was attacked on sight by the sentries posted at the gates. Whether this is to do with what I did in the time I slumbered, or if they discovered some enemising truth about me, I do not know. All I know is that I am alive, I am my own man, and I am more powerful than I ever hoped of imagining.

I... am Duke Warpmind...

Family Background
(The writing returns to the formal scribbles of the scholar of the Scarlet Crusade)

All records of the Ferranon Family are now lost, destroyed in the Battle of Darrowshire

Personal Notes
Is usually seen eating a blood-red Braeburn that he seems to take out of nowhere. Another mystery of his awesome power.

Current Status
Lombard's current state of mind, health, or whereabouts are yet unknown. Some say that when his supposed Order, the Dark Embrace, went into hiding, so did he. And if this is so, he remains there still.

A lot of Lombard's files placed here are mostly made up of rumours and gossip, so it is not fully reliable.