Gahareet

Name
Gahareet Abellio Bellinus



Physical Traits
An elderly monk, his grey hair wild and tangled, dressed in the plain brown robes of his order. His face and body tell of a life of action rather than cloistered study.

Race and Class
Human Priest

Occupation
Abbot of The Order of Taleweavers

Previously - Captain in the Gilnean Navy.

Family
He no longer knows, when he left Gilneas he had a wife (Eoforhild) who was carrying their second child, and a young son (Ghillie) but since he is unable to return to his homeland he has long since accepted the fact he will never see them again.

Background
Born in Gilneas in the year -42, Gahareet grew up following the traditional path of a Gilnean male of his standing, joining the navy as an ensign when he came of age. He rose through the ranks and, at the age of 48, was an officer with a reputation for fairness to his men and shrewd cunning in battle. In the year 6 Gilneas joined the alliance of human nations and became embroiled in the bloody conflict that was the second war. During the closing stages of the campaign, while serving as captain of a Gilnean frigate of the line, Gahareet found himself at the centre of one of the final great sea battles of the war. As night fell and the battle raged on, his ship was sunk by the fire cannons of an orcish destroyer and he was left floating in the water, drifting away from the rest of the fleet, unseen in the darkness and cannon smoke. Managing to drag himself onto a piece of wreckage, Gahareet finally succumbed to his injuries and exhaustion and blacked out.

When he came to it was late morning judging by the sun and he was alone on the rocking surface of the mighty ocean, out of sight of ship and land. Gahareet knew he must choose a direction and start paddling for land and that if he chose wrong it would surely mean his end. Though he had, of course, attended church back in Gilneas he had never held much faith in the promises of priests but here at his most desperate hour, for the first time in his life Gahareet truly prayed to the Holy Light, he prayed for forgiveness and he prayed for guidance, he spent hours in meditative silence, calming his mind, clearing the panic and despair and then he opened his eyes and, as if held in a trance, began to paddle. The Light smiled on him and, after a day and a night of relentless paddling,he made land on the west coast of what is now the Ghostlands, although it took Gahareet some time to establish this fact for himself. He staggered up the beach in a daze and flung himself to his knees, praising the powers that had heard his prayers and spared his life.

By this stage in the war the Horde's initial onslaught, that had carried them through these lands and to the borders of the elven realms to the north, had been repelled by the alliance and the final battles of the war were raging far to the south. So it was through a beleaguered, war torn landscape that Gahareet journeyed, spotted with burnt out villages and farmsteads, a brutal testiment to what we now know to be the demonic blood lust that consumed the orcish race at that time.

Gahareet saw horrors enough for a lifetime on his desolate pilgrimage back to his homeland of Gilneas. Of course he was used to conflict and carnage but until now it had been the corpses of soldiers and sailors, those that had accepted their fate and knew their duty, that he had hardened himself to not the sights he now beheld. He saw homesteads razed to the ground, the rotting cadavers of men, women, children, ageds and infants, and the survivors - straggling lines of starving refugees, struggling their way to the next village to seek shelter only to find it too in ruins. It was at one such devestated hamlet that Gahareet met Brother Eadberht, an elderly dwarven monk wrapped in a brown robe and cowl, praying over the dead and tending to the wounded with paternal care. Gahareet discovered that the dwarf was also travelling south and, mindful of the answer to his prayers that had spared him from a lonely death at sea, he pledged his aid to the old friar as far as the road took them together.

As they travelled together Gahareet revealed to Brother Eadberht the story of what he had come to think of as the miracle of divine inspiration that had guided him to safety. The old monk laughed grimly and told him not to be so silly. Was he really so big-headed to presume that the Holy Light shone on him alone, the friar asked? Perhaps he should take a look at the festering corpses of the countless innocents piled at the side of the road. If he had been saved, 'by the Gods' was it not then inferred that these poor miserables had in some way been deemed unworthy? Eadberht smiled, his eyes sparkling with kindly mischief, and went on to explain that the world was a big place, before one even began to consider the possibilities raised by these other realms that had spawned the ravages of the horde upon Azeroth. The notion of a being as ancient and mighty as a God, or any other divine power for that matter, looking down and taking pity on poor Gahareet, "floating alone on the rocking surface of the mighty ocean" was absurd, surely more plausible was the idea that Gahareet had randomly settled on one of the perhaps ninety or so degrees out of the available three hundred and sixty that would end in dry land before starvation. Did he not agree?

Now well into his flow, old Brother Eadberht continued. From the point of view of any diety, he siad, the history of Azeroth was only part of a story of literally cosmic proportions that was continually unfolding and he and Gahareet barely registered as threads in the tapestry. Ebb and flow, loss and gain were all part of life's rich pageant and so was coincidence, In many ways this held no less import, the dwarf insisted, but Gahareet should not attribute his good fortune to the Gods, otherwise all the ills in the world must also be laid at their feet, he pointed out, and this seemed a little unfair! The interconnectedness of all things was the core of Eadberht's faith and it was the duty of every brother of the Tale-weavers, the order of mendicant friars to which he belonged, to seek out coincidences and parallels for there lay clues to the great truths of the bigger picture, the whole story as it were. Sensing that Gahareet might be getting a trifle lost, the old monk patted him kindly on the shoulder and told him not to worry, just to know that all things were born of the same energy and so were interconnected and whether one chose to view the governing force as one all-encompassing holy light or saw fit to sub-divide its different aspects and assign them to the pantheon of mighty beings that crafted the world mattered not, it is all one.

The man and dwarf travelled together, healing and comforting those they came across, inching their way further south. They celebrated the end of the war together in an exposed village high in the Alterac mountains and, a week later, came to a parting of ways in the ruins of Southshore, where the surviving townsfolk were embarking on a reconstruction project. Brother Eadberht would be continuing south to visit a fellow friar of the Tale-weavers in Ironforge while Gahareet would be making the final leg of his journey back to Gilneas, his friends and his family. They drank mead and told tales into the night and,next morning, bade each other fare well and went their seperate ways.

After days of trudging, missing the easy company of the gruff old dwarven monk, Gahareet finally reached his homeland, and stopped dead. A towering wall of grey stone had been thrown up along the entire border of the Gilnean peninsular, barring his path. He worked his way along the wall until he came to its towering central gate where deep cut lettering on an imposing plaque named this barrier as the Greymane Wall and decreed in the name of Genn Greymane, ruler of these lands, that Gilneas had closed its borders, that none shall enter, none shall leave. For days Gahareet screamed himself hoarse calling for attention beyond the wall, he flung himself again and again against the gates, tried to scale the stones of the barricade, all in vain. In a daze Gahareet turned his back on the great wall and walked away. He had been cut off from his homeland and his family, he would never hold his wife again or see his son grow to manhood. He was an exile.

For the next two years Gahareet sank into a black, drink fuelled, depression. He wandered aimlessly from town to town through a landscape being rebuilt following the war, taking on farm labour and odd jobs for cash which he spent on booze, getting into fights and other trouble with watchmen wherever he went. He eventually found himself in the majestic city of Stormwind, and with his self-destructive knack for finding the most dangerous place to get drunk, was soon slumped in a stupor over a dirty, wine stained table in the dingy interior of The Slaughtered Lamb. He had not noticed the dwarf watching him sadly from a corner of the bar and did not stir as he was hoisted gently onto the broad shoulders and carried from the increasingly predatory eyes of the tavern's regulars to the cool safety of a guest room within the cathedral complex. By chance, Brother Eadberht had been meeting a warlock in The Lamb that had an important story to tell and had been about to leave as Gahareet staggered in, already reeking of drink. The old dwarf recognised his one-time comrade immediately but was dismayed at the sight of this miserable drunk, muttering into his cheap wine and snarling at anyone who looked at him.

Eadberht nursed him back first to sobriety and then to health, listening to his woes and offering what little advice he could given the hopless nature of Gahareet's situation, there was little one could say, he was cut off from Gilneas and there was nothing either of them could do to change that. After a few days of wholesome food and abstainence from drink the man was in a far better frame of mind although Eadberht had noted that the last two years had taken their toll on him, he seemed much older than his fifty one years, his frame was now stooped, his face lined with worry and the once dancing hazel eyes were now dull and listless. The monk was worried for his friend, he feared that, left to himself, he would slip back into the dark mood in which Eadberht had discovered him. Also the dwarf was convinced that their meeting again was an important coincidence and perhaps something of minor import in the grander scheme of things.

At the end of a week Gahareet was almost returned to his old self and Eadberht felt the time right to make his play. After a good supper at the cathedral refectory the two were walking in the gardens taking the evening air; the old dwarf announced his intention to leave Stormwind the next day to begin a pilgrimage to learn some of the history of the trolls of stranglethorn vale, far to the south and he suggested Gahareet accompany him. After much persuading and cajoling Gahareet agreed and the two set off south together once more. Picking up where they left off years before on that grim trek through war torn Lordaeron, Brother Eadberht continued the story of the Tale-weavers, the history of the order and their rites and duties. He told the old tales of the history of the world, tales from the lands of men and dwarves and elves and gnomes. One evening in the glow of the campfire, the monk woave all these tales into a tapestry of images, all interconnected, sharing characters, themes, symbology and philosophy he drew the links between the tales and therefore the races and cultures. In this way he demonstrated to Gahareet how, no matter how different we think we are it is in the very rituals and customs that we believe make us different that our similarities become most apparent. As the truth of this settled upon Gahareet, the old dwarf sat back and smiled, he could see in the human's eyes the life that had been there when they first met and a look on his face that reminded Eadberht of when he himself had first heard this tale.

The Dwarf awoke the following morning to find Gahareet sitting as he had been the previous night, cross-legged, staring into the embers of the fire. Gahareet looked up finally and explained that he had sat throught the night in meditation and was now certain that he wished to join the order, if they would have him. He wanted to learn the old stories and walk the land and preach the faith of Tale-weavers. Since being seperated from his loved ones and his homeland his life had become meaningles and without purpose, he said, but in the words of brother Eadberht he had heard a calling and knew that he had found what he was meant to be doing with the rest of his life. Eadberht grinned and clapped the man on the arm, then turned and drew a brown robe from a bag. As Gahareet pulled the cassock on Brother Eadberht explained that he had sensed this would happen, that the coincidence of their meeting again had been significant and so had had these robes cut by a tailor in Stormwind. The two continued their journey as brother Tale-weavers and together they gathered stories of the Gods of the jungle trolls in southernmost Azeroth and then walked the land sharing their tales with any who wished to hear.

Over the years that followed Gahareet became a key member of the order, tirelessly commiting himself to the work of harvesting new legends, then painstakingly picking out the individual story threads, examining them, comparing them to the existing tales and judging their place in the great tapestry. He was instrumental in gathering the orc lore from the concentration camps the remants of the horde were held in after the war. As the corrupting power of the pit lord Mannoroth's blood that flowed through the orcish veins began to ebb, Gahareet gradually earned the trust of an old shaman and eventually there began an exchange of lore and legends between the two.

Three years ago the old abbot passed away and the Tale-weavers gathered at Northshire abbey to mourn his passing, celebrate his life and elect a new head of the order from among their ranks. To his suprise it was Brother Gahareet who the friars decided upon almost unanimously.

Family Background
Gahareet was born into a reasonably wealthy family in Gilneas, by no means ruling class but high enough up the social ladder to secure their son a place at the naval officers college. Gahareet was married late in his twenties to a girl of similar standing, called Eoforhild. It was not only a marriage of convenience, the two did truly love each other but it was not until Gahareet was 38, only a couple of years before the outbreak of the first war, that his son was born. He and his wife named the boy Ghillgethen, but always called him Ghillie. It was when the boy was 8 that Gahareet set sail from Gilneas, never to see his wife or son again, never to meet the unborn child his wife carried.

Criminal Record
Some minor charges for disturbances of the peace during the dark period in his life but clean since entering the order.