if you dig under my feet

OUT OF CHARACTER:
Name/Handle: lyn
Contact: thornmallow at plurk
Reference: me

IN-CHARACTER:
Character name: Wrathion
Character journal: dragonflight
Series name: World of Warcraft
Canon notes: N/A

Species: Black dragon

History: Wrathion @ WoWpedia

Personality:

The first thing to understand about Wrathion is that he was not born
under the best circumstances. He is the product of extreme
experimentation, of the red dragonflight's last ditch effort to
produce a black dragon egg free from the corrupting influence that
tainted the rest of his race. Though the reds succeeded in their
efforts, they did not count on the fact that their experiments caused
Wrathion's consciousness to evolve much more rapidly than normal. He
was self-aware while even still in his egg, and he felt and heard
everything going on around him. He was therefore aware of the plan to
keep him locked up, away, controlled--and he definitely didn't like
it. As a result, his own freedom is one of his primary concerns.
He'll do anything to remain free of outside influences, and he
strongly dislikes the notion of being controlled. His destiny will be
his own--at any cost.

Of course, 'at any cost' is how he views most things. Wrathion
realizes that he has a lot to make up for: his father tried to break
the whole world apart, after all. The rest of his race are (were)
insane, cultish psychopaths. He wants to do better. He wants to be
better. But his sensibilities really don't stray very far from his
roots: he appreciates feats of strength, acts of dominance. When
referring to an incident in which a war-leader utterly annihilated a
city through the use of something like a nuclear bomb, Wrathion called
it an 'achievement', rather than the tragedy it actually was. While
he recognizes that the destructive war between the Horde and the
Alliance is a bad thing--the worst thing for Azeroth, in fact--he's
also playing both sides against each other in a bid to determine who
is the most 'worthy' to win. The thing is that Wrathion calculates
worth primarily in terms of brute strength and the willingness to take
extreme measures. This is most clearly underscored in his reactions
to Prince Anduin Wrynn, whom he believes is soft and naive. He tells
Anduin that benevolence is the privilege of the strong, and that
kingdoms are not built on kindness, which suggests that he feels
ruthlessness is necessary to achieve the best results for the greater
good.

In conversation, Wrathion is sly and eloquent. He's quick to flatter
anyone who impresses him (and, again, that's best achieved through
shows of strength), but there's a definite arrogance to him as well.
He thinks he knows what's best for Azeroth--for everyone around
him--and he's not patient with disagreements. This impatience is also
likely tied to his age. Even though Wrathion is capable of complex
thinking and scheming, he's still only been ALIVE for about two years.
It's not surprising, then, that he can be more than a bit of a
spoiled brat. He gets excited over things that interest him, and he
becomes petulant when matters don't go his way. Conversations with
Anduin again underscore this: he tries to lecture Anduin in a
patronizing way, and when Anduin calls him out on his youth, he snaps
back that he's only two in *dragon* years. There's no doubt that he's
enormously intelligent, but there's also no getting around the fact
that he's hugely lacking in experience.

It's been categorically stated by the developers that Wrathion wants
to do good. He wants to be a 'good guy' and he wants to act in
Azeroth's best interests. The problem is that his idea of 'best
interests' may not dovetail with the average person's view of the
term. He has few reservations about using violence to make a point,
as evidenced by the fact that he had literally every other black
dragon killed--and by the fact that, when he captured a red dragon
trying to seek him out, he had the guy's legs broken before setting
him free again. Notice, though, that he rarely does this dirty work
himself. Obviously that might change in a place where he doesn't have
a small army of underlings around him, but the point remains that he
prefers to delegate the messier tasks rather than do them himself, if
at all possible. But he also has no qualms about either assigning or
carrying out morally questionable plans, provided he thinks they are
serving a greater, beneficial purpose.


Abilities:

THIS IS SOMEWHAT NEBULOUS. He has powerful
magic, as demonstrated by his ability to put a full-grown black dragon
in stasis, create illusions and visions, and he's capable of augmenting items and armor far beyond their
original capabilities. His spells otherwise are mostly elemental-based, specifically earth / fire / molten lava related (you don't want to get into a 'the floor is lava' game with him).

He carries a dagger, but he's not shown using
it (except to cut his own hand); I'm comfortable assuming that his abilities are probably more
magically than physically based.

He is also, like all dragons,
capable of shapeshifting between dragon and humanoid form.

His dragon form is, sadly, no more than a little black whelp. Because he is babby.


Augment Skillset: Engineering
Sample:

From his time in Exsilium.