Frostbrand: Mok'gar Vanguard

[Rosencrat]

OOC Note

Spoiler:

The Mok’gar Vanguard is The Horde Detachment of The Frostbrand Expedition. If you are a Frostbrand member and loyal to the Horde, you are a member of Mok’gar Vanguard. It is not an official guild, merely an In Character one.

For more Out-Of-Character Information go to the guild post here.

You can either simply post reading a poster or, if you'd like, post below stepping up to Moriok and chatting with her. The role-play will be brief, but will give you the IC introduction you need for the guild.

Cheap, press-printed posters have been distributed around the major Horde settlements and capital cities. Despite the occasional stains and footprints, the posters are new and –for the most part- legible.



At the bottom of each poster, partially hidden by the rolled-up edge, are instructions on where to find a Horde recruitment officer. Officers can be found in Orgrimmar and Dalaran to provide information and teleportations to the ship.

Moriok had been insistent that the Horde’s recruiting station was in Sunreaver’s Sanctuary’s The Filthy Animal. And, though she did submit to her benefactor’s request for a specialized staff, the burly orc would not relent on the location.

Despite all evidancy to the contrary, Moriok was not a fool. Though the Filthy Animal tavern had a rank name it was one of the cleaner Horde inns this side of Silvermoon. Yes, the inn had over two dozen skinned animals spread across the floor. And yes, the stink of fresh meat and caustic alcohol swelled the air. But it was clean. It had clean plates. Clean cups. Clean patrons. Not even the brutal influence of the mag’hari innkeeper and her conquests-turned-rugs could scum the shine off the place.

Moriok wanted the mix between Horde atmosphere and clean civilization. The orc wanted, with the very first step, for her applicants to know what type of organization she was setting up.

“Alr’ght,” the orc started, leaning forward in her seat and over the paper-cluttered desk. “Impr’ss me.”

The recruitment station was situated at the far end of the tavern’s banquet table. It was between the roasted boar and platter of fish that the orc sat, shuffling through a stack of forms.

The woman was a slab of chopped-up meat, a hunk of muscles with scars and chunks taken out of every exposed inch of green flesh. Every few minutes she reached up to adjust the metal lug-nut stuck through her nostril, one of multiple piercings she wore when she wanted to make a good first impression.

“I…Impress you?”

“Impr’ss me,” the woman repeated, glancing up from her papers. She wore a set of cracked speckles on the end of her nose. “Did I st’tter?”

Across from the orc sat a male blood elf, a wisp of a thing wrapped up in a heavy suit of paladin’s armor. He shot nervous glances at the woman, particularly at the weapons upon her hip. He looked out of place in the tavern.

Wisely the elf didn’t answer the question

“Well, Miss Mori-”

“Warbr’nger,” the orc corrects, not looking up from her work.

“Ah. Well…Um…Miss Warbringer…”

The orc finally looked up. She said nothing, however, and allowed the elf to continue.

“I am Jenras Hawkrunner,” he said, straightening slightly in his seat. “I have served the Blood Knights loyally since its first inception. I wish to continue my service to my people and to the Horde upon your vessel, The Frostbrand.”

Moriok was silent. Carefully she sorted her paper, letting the seconds drag on. After the pause she turned her gaze upon the elf. There was not a trace of a smile upon her scratched-up face.

“I do n’t tr’st elv’s, elf,” she said, finally breaking the silence. “Beca’se of yo’r past. Beca’se how yo’ dealt wit’ your add’ction. Beca’se yo’, at one tim’, sw’re to kill my pe’ple.”

Moriok rose from her seat and moved around the table. The elf turned to follow the woman’s gaze, his jaw clenching as she drew close it. It was only when the orc was standing close enough to see the sweat on his brow that she spoke.

“But m’stly beca’se yo’ are wearin’ tin arm’r an’ I can sm’ll the fe’r sweat on yo’r balls. Yo' are a l'ar.”

The elf was silent. Slowly, carefully he moved to stand up. The orc stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. The tin armor dented as she squeezed him back down to the bench.

“I will give a sec’nd ch’nces to an elf. Ev'n sec'nd ch'nces to Fors'ken. Beca’se I beli’ve in sec’nd ch’nces,” she whispered, leaning in until the spit from her lower lip flecked against the elf’s ear. “But yo’ just us’d that up. An’ I do not g’ve th’rd ch’nces.”

After a moment the elf left the tavern, massaging his sprained shoulder and nursing his broken pride. Back in the tavern the orc settled back into her seat and returned to shuffling her papers, her face neutral.

What she wouldn't do for a good orc or troll.

[Rosencrat]

Ship’s Current Location: Dragonblight

OOC Overview

Spoiler:

For those too lazy to read this all:

In the last event, the Frostbrand's Mok'Gar Vanguard received a request from their benefactor, Lady Mendvia, to investigate a murder. The murder took them to Murder Hollow, a new Forsaken outpost in the Howling Fjord. There they found the body of an elven Magister. The Magister was in the town to collect samples from the nearby Apothecary Society's laboratory.

After following a trail of clues, the group finally detained a Forsaken Engineer. The Engineer, under torture, admitted that he had killed the Magister and stolen his samples at the request of an unknown woman. After under duress the Forsaken admitted that he was a member of the Twilight Cult before he was beheded.

Moriok moved in behind the desk and settled her frame down in her chair. The warrior removed her helmet and set it down on the wood, right by an open box.

"Sm'ke?" she asked, opening the box and turning it towards the two elves across from her. Within were a stack of cigars, all wrapped neatly and placed in neat rows.

It had been an uneventful first week aboard the newly christened ship. The group’s morale was at an all time high thanks to Chief Chef Anklin and his stock of booze and rocket fuel. Fighting had remained, thanks to her efforts, mostly to the arena. It was calm. It was a booze and blood-fueled calm, but a calm nonetheless.

The two elves shared a glance before looking at the box. Xindra, a small elf with a hard tongue, waved the cigars away. The other, Singe, took one with a nod.

Both elves, like the rest of the crew nursing drinks at the bar outside, looked threadbare. It had been a rough day for everyone: The Vanguard’s benefactor, Lady Mendvia, had sent for Moriok and her group just a few hours before. Together they had traveled to a Forsaken encampment and rooted out a cultist assassin.

A hollow, raspy scream drifted up through the floorboards. Moriok settled in comforted in the knowledge that Corlmitz and Voragh were giving the cultist the proper treatment.

"F'rst,” she started, turning to the female elf. Quietly she took one for herself before closing the box and tucking it away. “Wh't yo' say your n'me was, elf'e?"

“Xindra.”

"W'll X'ndra. Aft'r seein' wh't we do t'day, do yo' st'll w'nt in?"

The elf lapsed momentarily into silence. Her gaze moved to her lap, then slowly to Singe. Finally she comes to rest on Moriok. She nods.

The Warbringer grunts., satisfied. It was hard to take an elf onto the crew. Hard on her. Hard on her conscious. Commanding a group meant trusting each member with her life. And it was hard to place trust on race whose people had, at one time, tried to obliterate every orc upon the face of this earth.

The orc turned to Singe. "An' can yo' swe'r to her ch'racter?"

“By the Sunwell, no, boss,” he admitted, smiling. “But I can swear to gut her if she's trouble.”

Again the Captain grunts her satisfaction. She trusted Singe. Trusted him, that is, as much as she could trust an elf. He had put in his time and paid with his sweat. She’d only trust an elf after fighting with them.

"Alr'ght," she said, pulling a form from her desk and passing it over. "Th's is yo'r st'ndard f'rm. Yo' sign th's an' you are an airm'n for the Mok'gar V'nguard."

"Yo' follow my r'les an' yo' don't misb'have an' we won't have a pr'blem," she continued, standing up from her seat. From a pocket she drew a match and lit her cigar, drawing on the end till smoke coiled through the cracks and breaks in her lips. “Und’rstand?”

The new recruit points. The quill resting on Moriok's desk rises, drifts over, and carves an "X" onto the line - Xindra's initial.

The orc scowls. Magic. Great. Silently she takes the form back and passes her a rolled-up scrool. "Th'se are th' ships r'les an' a copy of yo'r contr'ct," the orc explained before leaning over the table and offering the woman her hand. "W'lcome to th' V’nguard."

A scream echoes from down below the main deck. It had the flavor of a Forsaken getting pins shoved under his fingernails.

The elf hesitates briefly before extending her own hand and shaking as firmly as she's able.

"An', in l'ght of your s'rvices t'day, I w'll be pr'moting yo' to f'll m'mber. M'st elv's do not g't that k'ndness."

The little elf was silent.

“Yo' are und'r my sup'rvision, so if yo' have any qu'stions ask me," she explained, her gaze already drifting away from her. “Unt’l th’n, p’ss off.”

The orc turned her smile on Singe. “N’w…” she said, pulling some officer’s pins from her pocket. “Let’s t’lk ab’ut pr’motions…”

In due time both elves left the captain’s office, one with her airman’s contract and the other with new officer’s pips on his lapel.

The Warbringer watched the two go before turning her back to the door, staring off and through a window. Carefully she drew another puff from her cigar before blowing out, letting the grey tendrils twist through the air before slipping out through the window’s cracks.

It wore on her, this idea of torture. It sat in her gut, a churning heaviness that filled her with worry. But the needs outweigh the honor. The need for information. Answers. She wanted closure on this all, to root out this man's accomplices and drop them in her Benefactor's lap.

Then, maybe then, she could get down to some real fighting.

[Rosencrat]

Ship’s Current Location: Dragonblight

OOC Overview

Spoiler:

For those too lazy to read this all:

Following up on the information given to them by the Forsaken Cultist, Moriok dispatched a small investigatory group to look for the mysterious woman who employed the cultist.

The group traveled to Brill. After following a string of clues they managed to connect a mysterious, purple-wearing orc with the Forsaken cultist. After ransacking her room they traced her movements to the coast of Silverpine.

Using skeletal gryphons, the group scouted out the coast. While flying, they found a Twilight Hammer cult on a little spout of land hidden away in the mountains.

Moriok, securing consent from her benefactor, set the Frostbrand on a course to Silverpine.

With a grunt the orc stretched the muscles in her legs and pushed herself up from her seat. After another stretch she turned and moved over to the window behind her seat, fumbling with a metal case in her pocket.

For hours Moriok had been at the war table, pouring over atlases and reports. A map of the Silverpine coast was stretched out in the center of it all, the old velum dotted with colorful strands of string tied taut with pins. Battle plans, completed and abandoned or half-finished and forgotten, were crumpled up on the floor and across the table.

The Warbringer opened the window and, turning away for a moment to light her cigar, began to blow trails of smoke out behind the ship.

An elf was seated across from the table, flipping quietly through an expense ledger and making notes on a little scroll. While the orc had been busy with war the Lady Mendvia, the Horde benefactor for the expedition, had settled in to balance the books.

“How much gold do you need for this?” the elf asked, looking up from her figures. An abacus floated at her side, the beads sliding back and forth.

“E’ght,” the woman rumbled, trying for a smoke ring and managing only a smoke lump.

Mendvia paused at that. “Awfully cheap,” she said, raising an eyebrow at the orc.

“Not th’t che’p,” Moriok grunted, turning back to the woman. With the cigar stuck in a notch cut into her lower lip, she was free to hold up her hands and start counting down.

“One g’ld for amm’nition. F’ur g’ld for m’rcenaries. An’ one g’ld to pay for cle’n up.”

The elven mage leaned over and drew the map around, inspecting the jagged black line that represented the Silverpine coast. She traced the lines of string, following them all to the same point: A little jutty of land, deep within the mountainous regions of the southern coast.

“You want a dozen men to assault such a large camp?”

Moriok shook the ash off the end before tucking the cigar back in between her lips. “Ye’h,” she grunted, closing the window and returning to the table. “If we t’ke th’m by surpr’se, a d’zen men can cut th’m all d’wn.”

It had been a day since Moriok, Mendvia and members of the Frostbrand’s Vanguard had discovered the camp. The group had been initially dispatched to investigate the mysterious ‘Purple Woman’ who had hired the Forsaken to kill the magister a week earlier. The only lead had been a sighting in Brill. A thin lead, but they had taken it.

In Brill the group had traced gossip and rumors back and forth between the town and the graveyard before they finally found the mysterious woman’s room. More clues lead them to Silverpine and, after a brief flight, to the camp on the coast.

They knew it was a Twilight Cultist’s camp. Everything, from the purple tents to the dark runes and crystals, screamed of the corruptive cult’s influence. Such a thing so close to the Undercity and the Forsaken’s holdings was a blight.

The Frostbrand had been politely asked to set to work and they had provided.

“And why can’t we level the place?” the elf continued, easing back into her seat. “We have the guns. The magic. A good bombardment…”

“Wo’ld l’vel any inf’rmation,” the orc finished, taking her seat. “Th’y h’ve pl’ns. An’ if we c’n d’scover th’m we c’n cut th’s cult in h’lf.”

With a sigh the elf relented, offering the captain a thin smile. “Then we sail to Silverpine?”

“Fly to S’lverpine,” corrected Moriok, dragging her map back.

“An’ s’nd out s’me l’tters. I w’nt go’d m’rcenaries for th’s one,” she said, nodding to the bar just visible through the archway. There was drunken singing. “Not th’ sh’tty ones we h’ve here.”

With only the drunken singing of a crew sloshed on The Frostbrand cocktail, the two women returned to their work as the Frostbrand chugged across the ocean and towards the dark shore of Silverpine.

---

Ship's Current Location: Silverpine Forest

OOC Note

Spoiler:

For all those too lazy to read the In-Character post, I’ve included a short summary here:

After flying to Silverpine, Moriok assembled a group of ten men and women comprised of Mercenaries and Vanguard members. Equipping them with crossbows and parachutes, the assault squad jumped from the back of the ship and parachuted into the water.

Together the group swam up to the camp. There they stealthily dispatched the guards patrolling the waters and on the beach head before advancing up and into the camp. In the camp the group finds a slave driver forcing Dalaran slaves from nearby Alliance settlements to construct two mammoth pylons. The pylons are powering some dark, twisted portal.

Without being seen the group kills all the guards in the camp before subduing the dwarven Slave Driver.

Before they can destroy the pillars, however, a guard activates the portal, summoning the Avatar of an Old God. The portal, not fully completed, prevents the Avatar from fully entering Silverpine.

Together the group destroys the tentacles the Avatar is using to claw its way into the camp and shatter the portal, sending the beast back into the void.

Characters who participated: Solis (Saetik), Voragh (Sol), Jofwaz (Mathias), Singe (DaveM), Mokaku (Hawk), Madeline (Krilari), Corlmitz (Krent), Ithaliel (Diablatomzh), Jayani (Flammos200) and Direi (Loxmardin).

“M’rcenary!”

After a moment Corlmitz surfaced deck-side, running up the last few steps. “Yes, C’ppn?” he rumbled, turning to look at Moriok.

The Vanguard’s captain was standing alone on the deck, arms folded on her chest and wearing a hard scowl. One foot was planted on a severed tentacle.

The day before the group had carried out their assault on the Twilight Camp. Everything had gone without a hitch. The guards were dispatched. The slave driver captured. The slaves freed. All was accomplished without a single casualty or, for that matter, any significant injury.

But, with all well-laid plans, things turned sour quickly.

After the prisoner was wrapped up and the slaves freed, the portal that the cultists had been working on had been activated. Out from the magical gateway an abomination had tried to crawl out, a single-eyed beast composed of a thousand tentacles.

“Yo’ gonna help me wit’ this thin’?” she rumbled, nodding to the orc.

The Vanguard, with the help of mercenaries, had severed the tentacles the beast was using to crawl into the world and had destroyed the portal. After the dust had settled on bodies and severed tentacles remained.

After the Apothecaries had tested and cleared the tentacles and rubble Moiok had sent for them. Obliging reluctantly, the Forsaken had boxed up some rock samples and preserved one of the tentacles before sending them off to the orc and the Frostbrand.

The black thing now sat on the deck. It was a good six feet in length, about two feet across at its thickets end. It was covered in black spikes, the soft fleshy growths pressed into its side. It tapered off from the base before ending with a long, slender whip-like head capped by a wicked spike.

Unfazed Corlmitz stepped up and grabbed an end, lifting it up. “Yes C’ppn,” he rumbled, lifting it up and over her shoulder.

Despite how they had started off, Moriok had begun to warm up to the mercenary. Not friendship, no. The orc was far too untrustworthy to deserve that rare gift. But the free-lance mercenary with a scraggly beard and one eye covered in an Engineer’s monocle had demonstrated himself in combat and had some kindness to him. And that had won him his place as a begrudging acquaintance in Moriok’s heart.

A small place at the very bottom of the right Ventricle, but a place nonetheless.

Together the two dragged the graying Old God flesh down and into the heart of the ship. A place of honor had already been prepared for the pickled tentacle; lashed to the rafters, right beside the Horde flag.

“We d’serve s’me tr’phies,” Moriok rumbled, stepping up and over the railing. Slowly she helped the burly orc navigate the tentacle out and onto the beam.

Corlmitz grunted his agreement, still laboring with his end. Even in death the thing was a massive weight.

“An’,” she said, dropping the weight on the beam. “Th’nks ag-“

Someone started to holler from up on the top deck, bellowing for someone. It sounded like a Troll.

Shaking her head the orc nodded, bending down to grab the rope and begin to lash up the tentacle. “M’rcenary, go ch’ck on who that is.”

With a nod the man departed, lumbering off and back towards the steps. Alone the woman began to prepare the tentacle, lashing both ends to the beam with heavy rope.

“Yo’ are g’nna h’ve a bl’st wit’ us,” she chuckled, finishing off the last knot. With a grunt she planted her foot on the end and pushed it over the side. With a dull, wet slap it rolled over and smacked against the beam, holding fast.

“Yo’ are gonna by th’ gu’st of h’nor for th’ p’rty.”

With a smile on her face the captain turned to greet the two men moving towards her.