Help me write my char lore!

Howdy!

I’ve enjoyed writing ever since I was a little kid, and somehow I never thought to combine my writing with WoW RP. Thing is, though, that I’m not entirely sure where to go with my character arc, so I’d like to hear any suggestions you might have!
For context, my char is a Dwarf Hunter called Rajaniemi (for some reason I couldn’t find him in the “Change Character” section. Also say hi if you see me in-game :smiley: ) born and raised in Theramore, and this is his story so far:

I never saw myself fit to rule the seas; born on the front lines of the war against the Horde, I was taught to hate those who betrayed Azeroth with their presence, and yet in such close quarters, ironically enough, the Horde’s influence grew larger on me.

To laugh at the face of death, to fight for honor, and to stand united. I couldn’t blame them for what they did, even as much as it hurt.
They broke me, and so many others, and yet somehow I thank them. They helped rebuild a soul once lost between two worlds.

Once the bomb dropped, few managed to survive. I was one of those who hadn’t been on the island on the day of the attack. Those of us who survived, didn’t have a way back, and eventually we got caught. I expected a swift death, but they took us away.

They rode five days through desert and mountains and through dusty pueblos, where the populace turned to see us. The escorts in battle armor made by the finest blacksmiths, and the prisoners in rags.

We’d been given blankets and squatted by the desert fires at night. Sun-blackened and bony, and wrapped in these serapes, we looked like God’s profoundest peons. The soldiers never spoke our language, and they directed their charges with grunts and gestures. In these dire times, life for most felt fleeting. The end nears. But being there, by the fire, in silence, listening to the night, the thoughts wandered elsewhere.

Once we entered Orgrimmar, we were greeted by a phalanx of discarded corpses. Driven like cattle through the cobbled streets with shouts going up behind.

We were made to dismount and were driven afoot through the crowds down some old stone steps, through an iron gate into a cool stone cellar long a prison, to take our place among the ghosts of old martyrs and patriots while the gate clanked shut behind us.

When the eyes lost their blindness, they could make out figures crouched along the wall. Stirring in beds of hay like nesting mice disturbed.

In this tomb, sealed away from the rest of the world, where air could barely exist, hope was fleeting away.

Memories of the days to come fell short, as trying to remember the cold, dark days felt futile.

Hello and good morning to you.

The first thing that popped up to me is chronology. Theramore was founded at earliest in year 21 after opening of Dark Portal (ADP). It was destroyed in year 30 ADP, meaning people born in Theramore were still children when it was destroyed. IIRC all those children were sent from the city by ship and were not intercepted by the Horde. One solution would be that your dwarf was a child brought with his parents as part of Jaina´s expedition, meaning most of his formative years would have been spent in Theramore and he´d be adult by the time it was destroyed.

For the rest, could you please elaborate more on what you want us to help with? What you wrote is in general a backstory that took place 10 years ago in the lore (as the prisoners of war from Theramore would have been rescued during Siege of Orgrimmar the year after Theramore´s fall).

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Some were, sadly. They are being held captive by the Kor’kron in the Siege of Orgrimmar raid and their parents are forced to fight the invading forces or else they will be killed. Pretty grim stuff.

Not sure any of that got resolved in game.

I´m just going to guess that since Alliance army was literally within Orgrimmar, all the surviving prisoners got freed since I just can´t imagine some Horde member stopping Alliance soldiers from freeing them and the Alliance guys just going: “Oh, OK, I guess we´ll just leave the kids here.”

Well, I’m not entirely sure where to go from here, obviously the Alliance allegedly saved anyone who was held prisoner. But… then what? Thought some people with more involved RP backgrounds could maybe give some sort of direction as to how the character story could possibly progress.
Also, even though I didn’t mention it, I did decide the character would be in his late 20s or early 30s beforehand, so I guess that checks out in terms of chronology?

Well, thing is, RP is much more about exploring the story through RP than making detailed backstory. While some people will create long and elaborate backstories, at least my personal experience is that those RPers tend to be at a disadvantage compared to those that only covered the basics (where am I from, what do I do, what am I trying to achieve?) and let the flow of RP determine where the story of their character will go.

Because, at the end of the day, what´s going to happen in RP is going to be much more important than what happens in the backstory and building up huge arc for your character spanning more than a decade before the start of their RP life can have the unfortunate result of either stopping you from joining the RP you might want to join (because there´s no way your character would take part in it) or going against the character to join it.

I´d suggest something simple for the life after his imprisonment. Maybe he had to spend time to recover, and maybe when BfA started, he joined the military to fight the Horde. After that, there could be many ways to go, he could be relieved that the war is over, travelling, exploring, or just chilling until wanderlust took over again, which could prompt his current adventures.

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