| Benoit Vauquelin | |
|---|---|
 | |
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Race |
|
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Year of Birth |
Undocumented; about fifteen years before the First War |
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Place of Birth |
Montfaucon, Former Kingdom of Alterac |
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Former Occupation(s) |
Yeoman, Trapper, Chasseur |
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Current Occupation(s) |
Highwayman of the Eastern Kingdoms, Thondroril River Freebooter, Yeggman |
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Positions |
Old Hand - The Assassin's League |
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Affiliation(s) |
Former Kingdom of Alterac, Yeomanry of Alterac, Alterac Royal Calvary, Ravenholdt Manor |
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Family |
Claude Vauquelin (Father), Florine Reinhardt (Mother) |
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Alignment |
Chaotic Neutral |
|
Status |
Alive, Operating in the Eastern Kingdoms |
Summary[]
Benoit Vauquelin is a highwayman operating in the lawless northern territories of the Eastern Kingdoms. Once a chasseur of Alterac’s Royal Calvary, Vauquelin was involved in the attempted assassination of Uther the Lightbringer, later to turn caitiff and criminal in the years following Alterac’s collapse. An enemy of the House of Perenolde, of the Syndicate, and of Arathor's Trollbane Dynasty, Vauquelin is an Alteraci revanchist, a castellan of Ravenholdt Manor, an old hand of The Assassin's League, a liaison to the Hidden Circle, and a yeggman of some repute.
History[]
Benoit was born roughly fifteen years prior to the First War (his exact year of birth undocumented) in Montfaucon, a small town in the Northern Mountains perched above Dandred’s Fold, in what was then the Kingdom of Alterac. Benoit’s father, Claude, served as a chasseur at the Old Garrison — a small calvary outpost just outside Montfaucon; his mother, Florine, a farrier by trade, was born to a nomadic troupe with ancestral ties to Lordaeron that had settled in the Northern Mountains a decade earlier. He lived a quaint and folkish life; by adolescence, Benoit could ride, hunt, and trap proficiently.
Of fighting age at the start of the Second War, Benoit followed in his father’s footsteps, enlisting with Alterac’s Royal Calvary as a chasseur, later to become an irregular franc-tireur. Benoit was deployed with other Alteraci irregulars at the Battle of Darrowmere, stationed in a firing line along the Thondroril River to provide cover fire to corsairs during the attempted assassination of Uther the Lightbringer. Benoit was present when Strom's armies marched on Alterac; in the ensuing invasion, brief as it was, Benoit skirmished with Stromic regulars in the lower foothills and on the outskirts of Strahnbrad. When all seemed lost, he fled and deserted his regiment with a few other soldiers.
In the years following the Second War and Alterac’s collapse, Benoit turned to brigandage with former francs-tireurs and other Alteraci anarchists. Freebooting along the Thondroril River and robbing his way through the Hillsbrad Foothills, Benoit quickly made enemies with some of the occupying powers — namely the soldiers of Strom and, to a lesser extent, Lordaeron. During the interim, Benoit also made enemies with the newly-formed Syndicate. Benoit held the Perenolde line responsible for Alterac’s fate, and detesting competition from Syndicate robbers, took it upon himself to kill on sight anyone donning a persimmon mask.
Years later, Benoit made his way to Ravenholdt and swore allegiance to Lord Jorach. Over the next decade, Benoit worked in the service of the Manor as a yeggman, eventually becoming a liaison to Ironforge’s Hidden Circle, with whom he was involved in a series of heists that saw several dwarven notaries and banks robbed of contracts and valuable gems. By the time of the Third War, Benoit served as ‘scrutineer’ to The Assassin's League, acting on the League’s commissions to conduct investigations on various matters throughout the Eastern Kingdoms and report back to present his findings.
By the time of the Cataclysm, Benoit had retired many of his more daring roles with Ravenholdt, mantling the position of Castellan of the Manor — a role more symbolic than dutiful. So many years had not slaked Benoit’s taste for vengeance; the consummate brigand-anarchist, Benoit spent much of his time plundering the highways and hunting down Syndicate affiliates, making it his business also to harass and waylay knights in service to the League of Arathor. Though among the more venerable of Ravenholdt’s many agents, Benoit never earned the fame of peers like Winstone Wolfe or Myrokos Silentform.
With the hatching of Wrathion and the unmasking of the Grand Rogue Fahrad, Ravenholdt was thrust into a state of turmoil. After the Manor's razing, Wrathion subsumed many of the Manor's agents into his own guard outfit, leaving the seniormost members of the Manor to decide their own affiliations. Those still loyal followed Lord Jorach to Dalaran, founding The Uncrowned. Benoit, though, detested the idea of banding together all of Azeroth's rogues - for this would surely mean joining hands with the Syndicate. A slave to his pride, Benoit parted ways with Lord Jorach, offering his counsel and assistance as an unaffiliated consultant.
Present day, Benoit remains loyal to the notion of Ravenholdt Manor, still operating out of the Manor's ruins with a small circle of equally stubborn and venerable rogues. With deeply anarchistic doctrine and antipathy to Wrathion, these rogues work to thwart the machinations of the Black Prince, while still remaining true to the original ambitions of the Manor, Ravenholdt: to spin the tapestry of civilization according to their plan, to usher the rise and fall of Kingdoms, and to guide Azeroth with a tenebrous hand.
Appearance[]
Here stands a man with treachery in his veins, a phantom in a lime-lit world. Slippery, slim, and drenched in taupe leathers, he stands with posture cocked and a Machiavellian grin plastered to his face, his quiet self-assuredness as lethal as any weapon on his person. He sways and swaggers with off-step grace and rakish flamboyance, the free-wheeling sashay of his hips and snakish splays of his jeweled digits omens of his moral abandon.
He dresses in shades of nightscape; he sports a tall collar, gaudy epaulets, a velvet vest, a long embroidered coat, a tall pair of heeled riding boots, and rings on every finger. This ostentation is contrasted starkly with his reticent demeanor, taciturn expression, and gentle mode of speaking — an indulgent Alteraci lilt that drips like honey from the comb. His eyes are light umber, wild thickets with flecks of green at their eaves, his gaze declaring a bold challenge to those who wish further insight: ‘come and pry it from me.’
He stands tall, but not unusually so. He’s lean and limber, built for speed and not for comfort. His vulpine features are uneven and sharp, his cheekbones precipitous and his nose crooked, his face pockmarked and rutty but jaggedly handsome. There’s something primeval about him, something forbidding, a dusting of gray hairs attesting to his success as a rogue — for not many in his profession can claim to have lived for so long as he and to have been as profitable. Still, there’s a youthful fire to him, a measured urgency with which he conducts himself; quick, but never harried. He’s young yet old, slim yet broad-shouldered, elegant yet unpolished.
This is a man from another time. A merry man of yore. A gentleman of the road. His name is Benoit Vauquelin — he’ll have your money or your life.