Tulklas
16-07-2008, 02:46
The Blizzard D3 website and the lore that the Barbarian in D3 is the same as the one in D2 inspired me to write this. It is my version of the barbarians personal history of the twenty years between D2 and D3. I hope you like it:
Wearily I take up my pen to record my history, in the hope it may be of some value when I am gone. It has been twenty long years since I and the other warriors vanquished Baal within the very heart of Mount Arreat. Well do I remember the joy of battle! The thrill of victory! when Baal breathed his last under the very shadow of the sacred world stone. Alas, alas, it seems such elation is not meant to last. Tyrael, the great arch-angel of light and our ally, was forced to destroy the world-stone, Baals corruption had seeped to its very core. I thought I had seen destruction battling the Three; but nothing could have prepared me for the destruction that was the shattering of the world-stone. Our beloved Mount Arreat was shorn asunder, half the entire mountain blown away! I thought it would consume my beloved home Harrogath, but it survived, though ash rained down for days. I say survived, but that is not entirely true. Mount Arreat, and protecting its secrets, had been my people’s purpose, their religion. What should have been a hero’s welcome for me and my comrades was turned to fear and trepidation. Though Harrogath was spared the physical destruction of Mount Arreat, it was spiritually shattered just the same. My people became hopeless, listless, Harrogath fell in decline and was deserted. Many of our warriors, the young ones in particular, became increasingly violent and began seeking violence and conflict to the point of attacking the innocent. Within a few years of Mount Arreat’s destruction my people were on the very brink of despair.
As my people’s greatest warrior I formed a school to help our warriors master their despair, a school of martial discipline that would preserve the honorable and noble traditions of our fathers. Early success gave me hopes that my people could be saved. I had particular hopes for about a score of students; they were disciplined, aggressive, and fearless. However, despite the early success of the school, about five years ago now many of my students began to lapse back into their former despair and violence. Despite all my efforts many of the students rebelled and, I am horrified still to think it, fighting erupted within the halls of the school. It was as if some ethereal force I couldn’t see or touch to combat was countermanding all my efforts. Some of the students seemed to lose all sense of reason; they became feral, their previously good-natured faces twisted in rage and anger. I began to fear some demonic influence was inflaming the despair and rage they felt at losing our sacred Mount Arreat.
After the fighting the school was broken, only a few remained, but those few were the ones I was most proud of. I still had hopes that together we could overcome whatever malevolent influence was destroying our people and salvage our future as a nation. After all, was I not commissioned by Tyrael himself, the arch-angel of justice, to hunt down and defeat the legions of hell? Was I not the heir and champion of my sacred ancestors the Naphalem? Had I not vanquished the Three Prime Evils in combat? What could I not accomplish that I set my heart to? How could I fail in so noble a cause? Together my most beloved students and I began efforts to bring back those rebellious and feral students. And again we had some early success, but it seems success only exists to heighten the sense of ultimate failure. Nightmares began walking again, things I, even I the champion of the Naphalem, had tried to forget lest it drive me mad. These nightmares began appearing among my most lost students. My worst fears were confirmed.
It became all we could do for those of us left to protect our women and children. Yet we refused to abandon our ancestral homeland. In defense of our lives and the lives of the innocent I watched my few faithful students, my friends, forsooth I would call them my sons, killed one by one. Oh! Why am I left while the young perish! I begin to fear my own hope is dying at last. I begin to think my peerless strength a curse. What good is it to persist while all that I love around me perishes!
One thing begins to drive me above all else, ancestors have mercy upon me! Revenge! Revenge drives me to do whatever damage I can to my enemy before I’m through. I begin to think my victory on Mount Arreat was not a victory at all. I begin even to see Tyrael himself as an enemy, he who has been silent all these years of struggle and defeat.
Alone, alone I go to seek the last of the Horadrim, Cain who aided me in years past. Perhaps he has answers. My people are scattered and only few remain. I pick up my weapons and don my armor like I did twenty long years ago, though where there was once youth there is age, where there was hope, there is despair, where there was nobility, there is rage.
Wearily I take up my pen to record my history, in the hope it may be of some value when I am gone. It has been twenty long years since I and the other warriors vanquished Baal within the very heart of Mount Arreat. Well do I remember the joy of battle! The thrill of victory! when Baal breathed his last under the very shadow of the sacred world stone. Alas, alas, it seems such elation is not meant to last. Tyrael, the great arch-angel of light and our ally, was forced to destroy the world-stone, Baals corruption had seeped to its very core. I thought I had seen destruction battling the Three; but nothing could have prepared me for the destruction that was the shattering of the world-stone. Our beloved Mount Arreat was shorn asunder, half the entire mountain blown away! I thought it would consume my beloved home Harrogath, but it survived, though ash rained down for days. I say survived, but that is not entirely true. Mount Arreat, and protecting its secrets, had been my people’s purpose, their religion. What should have been a hero’s welcome for me and my comrades was turned to fear and trepidation. Though Harrogath was spared the physical destruction of Mount Arreat, it was spiritually shattered just the same. My people became hopeless, listless, Harrogath fell in decline and was deserted. Many of our warriors, the young ones in particular, became increasingly violent and began seeking violence and conflict to the point of attacking the innocent. Within a few years of Mount Arreat’s destruction my people were on the very brink of despair.
As my people’s greatest warrior I formed a school to help our warriors master their despair, a school of martial discipline that would preserve the honorable and noble traditions of our fathers. Early success gave me hopes that my people could be saved. I had particular hopes for about a score of students; they were disciplined, aggressive, and fearless. However, despite the early success of the school, about five years ago now many of my students began to lapse back into their former despair and violence. Despite all my efforts many of the students rebelled and, I am horrified still to think it, fighting erupted within the halls of the school. It was as if some ethereal force I couldn’t see or touch to combat was countermanding all my efforts. Some of the students seemed to lose all sense of reason; they became feral, their previously good-natured faces twisted in rage and anger. I began to fear some demonic influence was inflaming the despair and rage they felt at losing our sacred Mount Arreat.
After the fighting the school was broken, only a few remained, but those few were the ones I was most proud of. I still had hopes that together we could overcome whatever malevolent influence was destroying our people and salvage our future as a nation. After all, was I not commissioned by Tyrael himself, the arch-angel of justice, to hunt down and defeat the legions of hell? Was I not the heir and champion of my sacred ancestors the Naphalem? Had I not vanquished the Three Prime Evils in combat? What could I not accomplish that I set my heart to? How could I fail in so noble a cause? Together my most beloved students and I began efforts to bring back those rebellious and feral students. And again we had some early success, but it seems success only exists to heighten the sense of ultimate failure. Nightmares began walking again, things I, even I the champion of the Naphalem, had tried to forget lest it drive me mad. These nightmares began appearing among my most lost students. My worst fears were confirmed.
It became all we could do for those of us left to protect our women and children. Yet we refused to abandon our ancestral homeland. In defense of our lives and the lives of the innocent I watched my few faithful students, my friends, forsooth I would call them my sons, killed one by one. Oh! Why am I left while the young perish! I begin to fear my own hope is dying at last. I begin to think my peerless strength a curse. What good is it to persist while all that I love around me perishes!
One thing begins to drive me above all else, ancestors have mercy upon me! Revenge! Revenge drives me to do whatever damage I can to my enemy before I’m through. I begin to think my victory on Mount Arreat was not a victory at all. I begin even to see Tyrael himself as an enemy, he who has been silent all these years of struggle and defeat.
Alone, alone I go to seek the last of the Horadrim, Cain who aided me in years past. Perhaps he has answers. My people are scattered and only few remain. I pick up my weapons and don my armor like I did twenty long years ago, though where there was once youth there is age, where there was hope, there is despair, where there was nobility, there is rage.