This is an idea I had…part of developing a consistent, lore-compliant character is knowing their past. This is especially true for the time period for the primary games in the Warcraft fandom since the events therein often have the strongest influence on a character’s experiences and, thus, motivations (barring demon hunters, of course, who were locked up for a long time). By thinking about what their character was doing at a given period of time, a player can better know who the character has met, what they’ve seen, and why they may react in certain ways.
My idea is to collapse each year/expansion/time period so that other readers can easily navigate the biographies and perhaps even match up experiences. This way, people can both network with others as well as solicit feedback on consistency and compliance. I’ll post mine below to see if others would be interested in something like this.
As for players of dwarves, draenei, or elves…good luck, lol. I don’t envy the task for long-lived characters.
Notes to keep in mind when reading this:
- I base this on Wowpedia’s unofficial timeline. Since Ral’rush was born in the same year that the Dark Portal opened, his age is the same as the ADP calendar year (per the unofficial timeline).
- Canon characters are mentioned, but not in a way that bends lore or turns my character into “the chosen one” or “the commander.” If anything here implies that, then feel free to comment as such; I want to avoid Mary Sue-ism and won’t take offense.
- Any time I refer to “adventurers,” I’m basically leaving this open for other players to imagine that as referring to themselves. It’s up to you (yes, you, the one reading this) to decide whether or not your character(s) recognize mine from your past or not.
Year 0 (Warcraft - Orc & Humans begins)
Summary
Rush is born on mainland Stranglethorn Vale, though he doesn’t know the exact date. He’s the fourth of seven children born to pure, unmixed Darkspear parents who don’t know the history of their own family beyond two generations back. They’re illiterate, simple-minded, and relatively unaggressive for trolls, making them easy targets.
Years 1 - 8 (Warcraft I ends, Warcraft II both begins and ends)
Summary
His childhood is normal for a jungle troll, which means it’s filled with ignorance, loss, poverty, and violence. His family roams between multiple campsites with a few neighboring Darkspear families, scavenging for food and avoiding other tribes.
Two of Rush’s siblings die of natural causes in infancy. Three of his numerous cousins die of natural causes; three more are killed in raids by the Bloodscalp tribe, as are two uncles, one aunt, and multiple neighbors.
Year 9
Summary
After the Skullsplitter tribe desecrates a campsite his family had planned on using, his parents evacuate the extended family to Darkspear Isle, where other members of the tribe had already been moving for a few years. He develops an irrational hatred toward all other trolls due to the oppression his tribe experienced.
Year 10
Summary
Most of the remaining Darkspear members flood Darkspear Isle, pressuring the environment and starting conflict with the murlocs over resources. Rush’s life is still filled with violence, but not switching campsites every few months or so. The settled lifestyle brings much desired consistency to his life.
Years 11 - 19
Summary
Rush’s parents begin gardening on one section of the island. They aren’t good at it, but they grow enough food for the family. He helps the best he can, but unlike his siblings, his family finds that he isn’t good at much. He’s healthy and reasonably intelligent, but has no talent for any trade skills, has no aptitude for any kind of magic, and mostly just hangs out with other kids.
When Rush shows bullying tendencies toward other Darkspear children, Sen’jin gives him a stick and a rock, then sends him to a murloc den. He not only survives the trial with non-fatal injuries, but also returns with a bucket full of severed murloc heads. He discovers that bullying his peers doesn’t make him as happy as being cheered by his peers for bullying outsiders.
Having found his calling, he begins training as a guardian of the tribe from an early age. He spends the second decade of his life defending Darkspear settlements from murlocs and - later on - humans. He develops an unjustified racism toward the latter due to the actions of Kul Tiran marines.
Year 20 (Warcraft III - Reign Of Chaos begins)
Summary
Strange ships arrive carrying green aliens from another planet. The orcs prove to be helpful, and Rush is as happy as many other members of the tribe just to find another people not trying to kill his. When Darkspear Isle begins to sink, he and his family take it as a sign from the loa and sail with the New Horde to Kalimdor.
He spends the rest of the year helping to clear Durotar of centaurs and harpies and even works as a laborer to help build fortifications on the Durotar side of the Southfury River. He doesn’t receive word of disturbances in Ashenvale and what would become Felwood until the Third War is already underway.
Year 21 (Warcraft III - Reign of Chaos ends)
Summary
Rush participates in the Battle of Mount Hyjal with the rest of the Horde army, holding out at the second base camp along the summit and helping to slow the waves of demons and undead. He’s placed on the front lines despite his lack of experience in proper battle; the fact that he survives along with only a handful of other adventurers is taken by his family to be a minor miracle.
His racism against humans due to the actions of a few, as well as his racism against elves due to old campfire stories, is sincerely ended for good during the victory celebrations after the battle. He returns to Durotar and spends the better part of the year building new homes with his friends and family in the Echo Isles.
Year 22 (Warcraft III - The Frozen Throne begins and ends)
Summary
Rush’s family evacuates the Echo Isles and flees to Dustwallow Marsh with the rest of the tribe when Admiral Daelin Proudmoore leads a bombardment of the whole archipelago; meanwhile, he returns to Durotar with the Horde army, as well as Jaina Proudemoore’s Alliance, to defeat the Admiral’s fleet.
Later, Zalazane expels the rest of the tribe from the Echo Isles. His family, who’d been in Dustwallow the entire time, tire of constant migration and refuse to return to Durotar. Giving up when he can’t change their minds, he leaves for Dustwallow Marsh and helps his family to begin a small community of Darkspear trolls who decide to try their hands at swamp farming.
Years 23 - 24
Summary
He remains at the budding village in Dustwallow Marsh, working as a town guard while his family gradually becomes a little bit better at farming. During this time, the village becomes self-sufficient, and Rush and his girlfriend Fon’kei build a house next to his parents.(1)
Year 25 (Vanilla)
Summary
He joins the Might of Kalimdor to participate in the Ahn’Qiraj War, seeing the qiraji as a legitimate threat to his new continent. He storms the gates with other adventurers on the front lines, again surviving due more to luck than skill.
He vocally supports the blood elves’ membership in the Horde despite never having met one. Defending his opinion spurs him to learn to read and write, and he engages in a long flame war about the issue in a local gazette.
Year 26 (Burning Crusade)
Summary
Rush enlists in the Horde army when the Dark Portal reopens. After helping to secure the Stair of Destiny, he’s sent to Swamprat Post in Zangarmarsh. He spends a few boring months as a town guard until he participates in the assault on the Black Temple, holding back demonic minions while adventurers defeated Illidan.
His girlfriend is poisoned in the fight with the Illidari Council, however, to the point where she accepts amputation of all four limbs by the healers in Cenarion Refuge to prevent fel poisoning. Rush requests a leave of absence to care for her; when his commanding officer refuses, he beats up his CO in public. Nazgrel is contacted by mail in Thrallmar and offers Rush an alternative to jail time: relinquish his rank and all commendations earned, accept a dishonorable discharge, and receive a ban from all Horde military outposts. He accepts and trades all his gear for a mage portal back to his village on Azeroth.
Their village witch doctor finds a way for Fon to grow all four of her limbs back as they were before, but the regeneration process would take a year and a half, and the reagents would cost them every penny they had. They accept the plan, becoming financially dependent on Rush’s parents even for food and clothes.
Years 27 - 28 (Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm begins)
Summary
Rush cares for his girlfriend during the long recovery process. She becomes the main focus of his life for that year and a half, but when her regeneration is complete, she becomes so able-bodied that she gets a job hunting in the marshes. With her well again and his siblings managing the family farm, Rush finds himself without responsibility. The world continues moving on without him, and he learns that he missed much: the Fall of the Lich King, the Shattering, the Rise of the Zandalari, and the Rage in the Firelands. Without anybody to depend on him anymore, he slips into depression.
Year 29 (Cataclysm ends)
Summary
Rush follows news on the Hour of Twilight closely, wishing he could help the world again but not finding the motivation to get started. During a trip to Mudsprocket to buy newspapers, a Steamwheedle fight promoter whom Rush saves from bandits offers to take him to the Brawler’s Guild in Orgrimmar.
Rush does phenomenally well in the new guild and becomes financially independent again. With a new calling in life, he begins to enjoy Orgrimmar, the biggest city he’s ever seen, and he wins enough prize fighting money to even pay for his relatives to take turns visiting him for extended periods.
In a moment of idiocy, he ends the year by actually saying out loud: “Everything be wonderful now! What could possibly go wrong?”
Year 30 (Mists of Pandaria)
Summary
Rush is in Razor Hill with friends when the Escalation begins. During an argument about politics, a Kor’kron area commander burns Rush’s ID, the lease agreement for his burrow, and the only copy of his fight record in the Brawler’s Guild. Robbed of his athletic career, Rush experiences a nervous breakdown, drags the commander into Razor Hill’s main road, and publicly eats the commander’s heart Bloodscalp-style. The Kor’kron guards shoot Rush, ram him with a war kodo, and hang him in a cage while he awaits trial.
A group of adventurers free Rush as a quest objective during the Battle of Razor Hill; he provides critical help needed to take over the city and then joins the Darkspear Rebellion. He later participates in the Siege of Orgrimmar, fighting into the Underhold and beating back Kor’kron minions while adventurers defeat Garrosh.
With Rush’s ID and fight record destroyed, he’s left with his prize money but no purpose. Instead of rejoining the Brawler’s Guild, he rejoins the Horde army. Because all of his legal documents were burned, records of his dishonorable discharge no longer exist, and he restarts at the bottom rank.
Year 31 (Warlords of Draenor)
Summary
Rush is assigned to the front lines when the forces of Azeroth storm the Dark Portal into Alternate Draenor; this time, he survives due to skill rather than luck. He fights his way to a group of adventurers led by Azeroth’s heroes, helping them to destroy Alternate Draenor’s Dark Portal and escape on a hijacked warship. During the voyage, Thrall looks at him and asks “weren’t you at the Battle of Mount Hyjal?” Rush spends the next three days grinning like a moron due to that three-second exchange.
At Frostfire Ridge, Rush helps to build and guard Frostwall Garrison until the Battle of Thunder Pass. Recognized for his success in the thick of horrific melee, Rush is assigned to the front lines at the Battle of Shattrath, the Siege of Grommashar, and the Invasion of Tanaan Jungle. By the end of the year, he reaches Hellfire Citadel and helps adventurers put down Archimonde for a second time.
Year 32 (Legion)
Summary
Rush is teleported with other Tanaan veterans to the Horde fleet on Azeroth and participates in the Battle for the Broken Shore. Rush stupidly refuses to retreat from the disastrous mission and is severely injured; a group of Alliance adventurers, ironically, find his unconscious body and evacuate him in a munitions wheelbarrow. Embittered by the defeat, he re-enlists after regenerating and returns to the Broken Isles.
His initial deployment is in Stormheim, where he participates in faction conflict which he finds to be wasteful and unfulfilling.(2) He spends the rest of his time assisting the Nightfallen Rebellion, seeing the spirit of the Darkspear Rebellion in them. After the raid on the Nighthold, he joins the Armies of Legionfall, providing support for adventurers to stop Kil’jaeden. He ends his service on Argus with the defeat of the planet’s titan world-soul, helping end of the third Legion invasion. He participates in little else thereafter, aside from a disastrous leave of absence in Val’sharah.(3)
He spends what little remains of the year at his village in Dustwallow Marsh, resting at home with his family for the first time in nearly two years.
Year 33 (Battle for Azeroth)
Summary
Rush joins the War of the Thorns but is shocked by the loss of civilian lives at the Burning of Teldrassil, losing faith in what he was fighting for.(4) His opposition to colonizing night elf lands grows when he’s forced into the Battle for Darkshore.(5) Due to his anti-war complaints, he’s demoted from sergeant to grunt and sent for guard duty in Orgrimmar. His vocal opposition to the Zandalari trolls joining the Horde also hurts his position, and he’s demoted again to a scout and assigned boring patrol duty in the Underhold containing a high-profile prisoner whose name is withheld from him.
When Thrall, Lor’themar, and a group of adventurers sneak in and tell Rush that the prisoner is Baine, he gives them his keys to the Underhold and creates a diversion for other guards. When the commotion starts further inside, he abandons his post, escaping south of Orgrimmar and waiting for the joint Horde-Alliance force to reach the Dranosh’ar Blockade.
He witnesses Sylvanas’ abandonment of the Horde and attends Saurfang’s funeral.
(1) My wife only plays console games, but I include Fon’kei as a way of including her in spirit. No erotic roleplay or non-comedic attempts at romance, please; my character will give yours an unkind IC rejection.
(2) An example of this can be found in the fanfic “Ending Greywatch,” chapters 5 and 6.
(3) His awful vacation is the subject of the fanfic “I went to Val’sharah and all I got were these lousy underpants.”
(4) This is revealed in the final chapter of “War of Thorns and Shattered Spears.”
(5) His participation in the battle is seen in detail, and his opposition to it is lightly touched on, in “Dirty Deeds Done in Darkshore (For Dirt Cheap).”