Githnji

Githnji "The Butcher"
Picture Credit	Githnji illustrated by Kouharu
Race	Darkspear Troll
Gender	Male
Date of Birth	Unknown
Position	Leader of the Blackblades
Title	Shepherd of Shadows The Butcher Deh’yo Tikal
Affiliations	Blackblades Antu Bloodguard
Previous Titles	High Warlord of the Kor'kron Legion
Status	Alive
Living Relatives	No information

"They say he rips open the chest of his victims and extracts their heart, keeping it for some dark voodoo ritual."

"Aye, I heard the same. It be how he got the name 'The Butcher.' Fighting on the battlefield for the Horde, gutting out hearts. Taking scalps. Bloody mess."

"That so? I heard he is no ordinary troll. Folks say he worships some sorta death god!"

"Bah! I heard he's not even a living creature, but some kinda shadow beast spat out from the nether knows where in the form of troll flesh, and he floats across the land at night. Stepping from shadow to shadow to suck out the souls of wayward adventurers."

Appearance

Githnji illustrated by Veracondie

His rangy limbs stand out in gnarled bunches of muscle, held together by sinewy features washed in the dusky blue hue of his weathered skin and short fur. Cavernous eyes watch from below his brow. A faint crimson reflectiveness is seen in them, like that of a jungle cat on a night's prowl. Fluid movement permeates his gait causing a saunter to appear both leisurely yet brisk. Reminiscent of a serpent pursuing prey.

Most his form is wrapped in taut black leather; accented with deep reds; fastened with numerous straps, belts, and small metallic studs as though it were all that held him together. Sheathed in a secure horizontal position at the small of his back rest a thirteen inch obsidian blade. As well, an occasional glimpse of a troll stylized ouroboros tattoo can be seen warped around the bottom of his neckline.

History

Early Life

Githjni, who's real name is Jwa'heb, was born in Stranglethorn in the time before the Darkspear were banished from the land, the son of a High Priest of the Loa Lukou, a powerful Loa of healing and respite. His mother died at his birth leaving his father the High Priest to raise him. He was brought up in Lukou's priesthood learning the ways of mending wounds by magical means and invoking blessings for tribal boons. During his time as an adept pupil of the priesthood Jwa'heb befriended and developed a love with a she-troll of a neighboring tribe named Shayla. Jwa'heb studied hard for many years to increase his capabilities as a priest of Lukou serving as a medicine man for the Darkspear for continued favor from his father.

Eventually, his love Shayla fell ill with a mysterious sickness which was slowly eating away at her constitution. Despite many with healing knowledge being called from around the vale in attempts to cure her none, not even the High Priest of Lukou, were able to remedy what befell Shayla. Jwa'heb grew more desperate with each failed attempt and often tried to cure his love on several occasions to the brink of exhausting himself to no avail.

One day as Jwa'heb was studying the tablets his father kept he found several clues eluding to some forbidden healing practices. Thinking this knowledge could be the key to curing his love Jwa'heb questioned the High Priest of Lukou about it. His father vehemently forbade young Jwa'heb from seeking out any such knowledge.

Despite his father's warning Jwa'heb began to subtly search for more clues in the tablets. This eventually lead him to leave his tribe, setting out on a journey to travel the lands of Azeroth. Where ever he went he visited various Loa shrines in his search for guidance. Most were either met with silence or no step closer to his goal. Eventually, Jwa'heb found his way to Zuldazar the capital of the Zandalar tribe, and at the time considered to be the center of troll society. During his time in Zuldazar he befriended some of the local priesthood and pored over the vast library of scrolls and tablets the Zandalar kept, researching the Loas of all the different tribes, and any means of curing his love.

Jwa'heb's research caught the attention of one priest in particular, knowing that the knowledge he sought was forbidden. This priest approached the young Jwa'heb, questioned him of faith, the extend and means he was willing to take for his cause, and eventually told him of a secret order of trolls that could help him. Jumping at the opportunity Jwa'heb agreed to the terms of joining this order - the Deh’yo Tikal. An order of trolls, as old as the troll race itself, rooted deep within trollish culture and society. They exist, their members spanning across all the troll tribes of Azeroth, unbeknownst to the masses. Their masters are versed in the voodoo ways and Loa pantheons of all troll tribes, even practices and Loas forgotten or forbidden by the common troll people.

The master of his new order directed the young Jwa'heb to seek out the knowledge he sought in the deserts of Tanaris. Traveling to the scorched dunes the searching priest finally came upon a neglected and derelict shrine which the sands had nearly claimed. Not knowing to what Loa the shrine was dedicated he prayed for guidance in his quest to save his love, and he was answered by the whispers of Mueh'zala, the God of Death, Father of Sleep, Son of Time, the Night's Friend.

Mueh'zala, who is normally not a compassionate Loa, took delight in a couple aspects of Gith's coming to him. The Loa found joy that someone had visited his forgotten shrine, and that a troll other than the local sand trolls was praying to him. Most of all this death Loa was amused that a priest of Lukou had come to pray to him for guidance. So, Meuh'zala promised to impart with the knowledge Githnji sought should the troll complete a task for the Loa.

Jwa'heb in his long quest and grown weary and was eager to agree, not bothering to question what the Loa would have him do. Mueh'zala, in order to strike a blow at his enemy, the Loa Lukou, then commanded that the young priest slay Lukou's High Priest, Jwa'heb's own father. The troll's heart grew heavy and torn between the love for his father and his love for Shayla, but after much internal debate he solemnly agreed and returned home to fulfill his task, for the sake of his love.

Knowing that he would not be able to match his father's strength in the mystic arts despite his time studying in Zandalar, Jwa'heb resulted to subtlety and an ambush in the dark derived from his training given to him by the Deh'yo Tikal order he now belonged to. His father, the High Priest, slain, Lukou became furious with Jwa'heb and immediately stripped him of his priestly abilities and powers, never to again able to heal himself or others nor wield mystic power of the sort.

The task done, Jwa'heb returned to Mueh'zala's shrine. The death Loa delighted in knowing his will had been carried out, and enlightened the troll with a means to sustain himself and his love, staving off death itself and reinvigorating the body with youth, by means of a dark voodoo ritual which required eating the souls of others.

Returning back to his tribe, they where grief stricken at the loss of their High Priest of Lukou not knowing who murdered them. Jwa'heb rushed to his love and in private told her everything he went through from his journey and research, joining the order, finding the shrine to Mueh'zala, killing his father, and the ritual to beat her sickness and keep her alive, and he did it all for her. But his love recoiled in horror; called him a monster, and kicked him out of her hut. She told him to never return.

Jwa'heb, having spent more than half his life in pursuit to find a way in helping his love, even killing his own father and being cast out of his priesthood, was now at a loss having been rejected by her. From there he lived his life as a loner on the outskrits of his tribe, but began to take part in the ritual Mueh'zala had tought him to prolong his own life, thus as well to pray to the death Loa. Every once and a while another troll would turn up missing, another victim of Jwa'heb's dark secret. He lived on and watch from a distance his tribe, and his love. He watched her slowly wither away from the illness that gripped her. When his love passed away, so the others would forget him, he changed his name to Githnji as a mock irony for what Shayla called him, a word in ancient Zandali he had come across during his research in Zuldazar; it's meaning roughly that of a monster from a nightmare, an evil spirit.

Years passed. Every now and again the secret order he belong to would call upon him to complete another task. He grew more and more proficient in his trainging of subtlety and trickery often used by the order. The dark ritual sustained him. His flesh began to grow brittle and weak inbetween rituals due to his unatural means of prolonging his life, only to return to a youthful vigor with the next claiming of a soul. Githnji still being a member of the Deh'yo Tikal was being called upon by them as one of their more talented agents to the point he obtained Masterhood within their ranks.

Forever living on the fringes of his tribe, even those who where young when he had returned had grown old and barely remembered him. Eventually the Darkspear where exiled from Stranglethorn and they left to sail the seas until they found the Broken Isles and settled there calling it Darkspear Isles. After some time Thrall came to their islands and helped his tribe to fight a powerful sea witch and her endless horde of murlocs. Githnji traveled with them afterward when Vol'jin, the new cheiftain of the tribe after the death of his father Sen'jin at the hands of the Sea Witch, agreed to go with Thrall to Kalimdor and start a new life.

Betrayals upon Betrayals

A congregation of Deh'yo Tikal Masters was held in Zuldazar under the guise of they being members of envoys from the world's troll tribes converging on Zuldazar once every six years. As was done with every six year gathering. Among the Master's of the Deh'yo Tikal there exist a council serving as the order's leadership. Upon ease-dropping on a secluded meeting of this council Githnji learned he had been manipulated and played as a puppet from nearly the beginning of his life. He discovered hints of his father being a former member of the Deh'yo Tikal Master's Council - one that had left his seat and the order to live a peaceful life with the woman he loved and raise a child. The departure of Githnji's father was taboo among the Deh'yo Tikal, as members were members for life or otherwise were executed by agents of the order. Yet due to his father being not only a former Master but also among the Master's Council he possessed some of the greatest skill and spiritual power that no ordinary agent could hope to match. The Master's council had always had thirteen members in an accordance to a belief of balance among them which coincides with thirteen constellations observed by Zandalar astrologers - each member of the council a representative of their respective patron Loa. When Githnji's father severed himself from the Deh'yo Tikal, willingly leaving a seat of the council empty, it was seen as a grievous abandonment and disruption of balance by the council. In retaliation they crafted a plot influenced by Mueh'zala, a death god among the Sandfury pantheon of Loa. Githnji's father had been a representative of Lukou on the Master's Council. Mueh'zala being a malevolent death god was a natural enemy of a god of healing and respite, and had long coveted direct influence among the Master's Council. With the repesentative of Lukou vacating their seat among the council, Mueh'zala saw this as a window of opportunity to claim more power and strike a blow against an opponent. The Deh'yo Tikal are sworn to act as the hands which carry out the will of the Loa, guided by the Master's Council. When Mueh'zala directed the Masters to carry out his plan to gain retribution against the one who turned his back on the order, in exchange for putting a representative of his own their council, the Masters agreed.

Utilizing coveted alchemical and voodoo secrets of Mueh'zala's own design the Masters crafted a vial's worth of an incurable desease which gradually drains the life vitality of it's host. The Master's Council waited for their opportunity to enact the plan - when Jwa'heb, the son of the wayward Deh'yo Tikal Master grew into young adulthood and took a mate. One faithful evening the Loa designed disease was administered to Shayla while she slept, the lover of the young Jaw'heb, beginning the first stage of Mueh'zala's and the council's convoluted plan. Shayla's incurable illness acting as the catalyst combined with Deh'yo Tikal agents being dispatched to pull at strings of influence lead Jwa'heb down his pre-determined path to seeking out a cure, being recruited and groomed by the Deh'yo Tikal, becoming a servant of Mueh'zala, killing his father, and becoming Githnji. For the grand scheme of this plot was for Githnji to become Mueh'zala's representative among the Master's Council - the death god taking delight in the irony of the former Master and representative of Lukou being killed and replaced by his own death bringing servant.

Githnji, having learned all this, was outraged at having been manipulated his entire life. Especially feeling betrayed by his patron Loa which he served as the death god's soul harverster. He began concocting a plan of his own. One of revenge. He knew well to not attempt confronting anyone of the Masters of the council head on, as they possessed much power and commanded the entirety of the Deh'yo Tikal organization. So, on the very night of learning of the council's betrayal, making use of the clandestine training instilled in him by the order, Githnji managed to break into the Master's Council archives where they kept the Deh'yo Tikal's most coveted scrolls. Within he found the knowledge of an ancient enchantment capable of masking the user from spiritual scrying, and from the eye of the Loas themselves. Later, Githnji was indeed placed on the Master's Council as a representative of Mueh'zala. It was then reveled to him members the Master's Council sustained an extended lifespan by similar methods which were taught to Githnji, by consuming the souls of others through various means. For as long as they keep up this practiced each remains youthful and will not die by natural means.

Over the next couple of years, by no small feat, he gathered the items needed for the concealing enchament from across Azeroth all the while playing ignorant to the truth of the Master's Council control over his past. Finally, having all he required for the enchanment the vindictive Githnji stole away to a withdrawn cave and set about his task. He placed the enchantment upon the very vessel which served as the physical portrayal of his contract with Mueh'zala as the Loa's soul haverster - The Black Blade. Successful in his goal he utilized the enchantment immediately - grasping the hilt of the blade and simply having to will the magic into action, he felt a sort of seperation from the spiritual world encase him while still retaining the gifts bestowed upon him from the Loa, most importantly the ability to drain and consume another's soul. It was there he fell off the grid, hidden from all. None among the Deh'yo Tikal knew of his plans. None were capable of finding him through any mystic means. The extensive training and years of service as an agent of the Deh'yo Tikal ensured he had the skills to remain hidden though use of subtly. Githnji wasted no time in carrying out his plan of vengeance. He began to dismantle the Deh'yo Tikal. Attacking one sect at a time, taking out every member by making use of the power of soul eating granted to him by Mueh'zala. Devouring their souls and thus their spiritual power; along with it their memories. The first sect to fall was his own. Those loyal to him under his direct command were the Stranglethorn branch of the order, encompassing members from many of the jungle tribes of the Gurubashi Empire. They knew not what their master had in store for them when Githnji gathered them all at a long forgotten shrine within the jungle. The trap had been set and his will carried out, each of his sect fell before him in a swift fell swoop, their spiritual energy eaten and added to his own. Justified in his mind as a necessary evil for his plan.

After Githnji left the jungle in pursuit of destroying the next sect it was not long that the Master's Council began to suspect something was amiss. There was no contact with the Stranglethorn Deh'yo Tikal, no reports, and Githnji had seemingly vanished out of existence - unreachable and untraceble via spiritual means. Githnji spent the next several decades carrying out his slaughter of the Deh'yo Tikal. His crusade came to be known among the order as the Silent Massacre. They gave him new names - Deathbringer, and Snake Breaker to reflect his destruction of the order, for the symbol of the Deh'yo Tikal is a snake eating it's tail. By the time the council determined what was happening, Githnji had already laid waste to the next target of his ire - the Hinterlands branch of forest trolls. The Master's Council, learned in their knowledge of the forbidden, and wise in their years quickly understood that Githnji had learned the truth of their manipulation, that he had found a way to mask himself, and that he was building his power to eventually take them and the whole of the Deh'yo Tikal down by consuming the souls of the order. The council responded at first in reprimand, using their influence to have Githnji's tribe - the Darkspear, exiled from Stranglethorn. Perhaps their thinking was he may still care some for his originating tribe and cease his actions. As well, the council placed the Deh'yo Tikal sects across the globe on alert, warning them of Githnji's betrayal and his killing, and sending their best to hunt him. Unfortunately, for the Quel'thalas and Zul'Aman Deh'yo Tikal the alert was little help in preventing Githnji decimating the region's division of the order. As for the order's best and brightest agents assigned to stop Githnji - when he allowed them to find him, one by one, they too became his victims. Rather than feed Githnji more power the Masters resigned to sending no more of their order in pursuit of their former council member. Instead their plan was one none the order never foresaw. The Master's Council used the same enchantment Githnji found knowledge of in the council's archives to mask their selves from him, and seemingly disappeared, abandoning the remaining Deh'yo Tikal order. Left to the slaughter without the direction or organization of the council each branch eventual fell to Githnji's subtle assaults and ambushes.

Finally, after many years Githnji's quest of dismantling the Deh'yo Tikal was all but complete with only the Master's Council remaining, but hidden from him. Perhaps, out of some sense of nostalgia or remorse for what could have been he returned to his tribe. The Darkspear having been driven from Stranglethorn came to live on the Darkspear Islands then. Githnji spent his time living on the fringes of his tribe, watching, careful to remain unseen so as not to arouse suspicion of who he was. Githnji took up living in a portion of the jungle where the sunlight nor a breeze could penetrate the foliage of the dense undergrowth. The tribe rarely ventured there and called the area First Home, where many spirits dwelled. The darkness and seclusion of First Home, Githnji found comforting and peaceful. The spiritual masking enchantment upon his blade protected him from the Loa that dwelled there, which were said to make vicious, swift, and unpredictable judgments upon those that entered the jungle. His shadowy presence, when rarely observed, was assumed by the tribe to be another Loa of First Home, perhpas a protective spirit.  After some time Thrall came to their islands and helped the Darkspear to fight a powerful sea witch and her endless horde of murlocs. Githnji traveled with them afterward - when Vol'jin, the new chieftain of the tribe after the death of his father Sen'jin at the hands of the Sea Witch, agreed to go with Thrall to Kalimdor and start a new life.

Reformation, Service to the Horde, and The Shattered Hand

Githnji "The Butcher" as illustrated by Baenhoof.

Githnji fought along side the new Horde in the Third War as a fresh recruit and helped to found Orgrimmar. He then disappered into the new mass of the Horde, joining it's military to have easy access to kills for his ritual. Unbeknownst to his superiors in the military, and the masses, soon after the Darkspear landed in Kalimdore with the orcs, Githnji had begun building the Deh'yo Tikal order anew - one which he could mold to his own dark purposes. Gathering trolls to him from within the Darkspear, drawing upon tribes from across Kalimdore, troll refugees from across Azeroth during the war, and wherever the Horde's reach extended. Githnji once again found himself Master of his own sect - the only of it's kind of this new Deh'yo Tikal. He taught the the new Deh'yo Tikal the lessons and ways of the old order taught to him, and from the memories he now retained by consuming the souls his former Deh'yo Tikal brethren. It was on the battlefield he earned the nickname "The Butcher," given to him by his fellow Horde soldiers due to his extracting the hearts (to be used in his ritual) and scalps as trophies of his fallen opponents.

To further strengthen his Deh'yo Tikal Githnji would from time to time set them to the task of traveling across the globe to old troll and Deh'yo Tikal dwellings to recover ancient tablets and scrolls of their forbidden knowledge. This process of recruitment, training, and mission dispatching continued throughout the Third War well after the founding of Orgrimmar, the Alliance and Horde's expeditions into Outland, and for a time during the Northrend campaign.

Githnji now being a Master of the Deh'yo Tikal and leader of his own sect was often involved in underhanded activities. His subtle actions and methods caught the attention of the Horde's own new clandestine Shattered Hand order and an enigmatic figurehead among them known as The Farmer. The Farmer having sent his best spies to watch this troll they relaid intel reports, often explaining how the troll managed to slip away from their watch without their understanding of how he had done so. The Farmer dug deeper and discovered that not only was this troll a member of an ancient order of trolls, the Deh'yo Tikal, who worked in similar methods liken to that of the Shattered Hand, but he was also a Master of the order. And so, it was unto this that the fabled Farmer sought to recruit this troll who had drawn his intrigue into the Shattered Hand, and have this troll build him a unit of the Hand's most elite, teaching others the minor-mysticism methods he utilized. Githnji agreed to the plan.

The Farmer tasked Githnji with infiltrating one of the Horde's most elite military branches, The Kor'kron Legion, under suspicions they were forming their own covert operations unit. Githnji's objective was to gain entry into The Kor'kron Legion's covert operatives in order to learn from them and eventual become their leader so that he can sway them into working for the Shattered Hand be it be direct or subtle methods. So, Githnji with the help of a few strings pulled by the Shattered Hand had been enlisted by the Kor'kron Legion and indeed joined their covert-ops unit known as The Blackblades, a name Githnji found ironic for the effigy which served as his the symbol of his contract with the Loa Mueh'zala was a thirteen inch obsidium blade known as The Black Blade. The name of this covert unit would later be used as the moniker for the order formed by Githnji to fulfill previous request of The Farmer. And indeed Githnji became the Kor'kron's Blackblade leader. When he did become The Kor'kron Blackblade leader Githnji began a new initiation ritual for the covert unit, kept hidden from the Generals and Warlords of the Legion. This ritual utilized Githnji's mystical obsidian blade, known as The Black Blade - infused with voodoo magics. When The Black Blade is used to cut someone it draws the blood into itself and with magical effects spiritually binds together all who's blood it has consumed, thus binding the Blackblade operatives together and to Githnji as their leader.

Rise to Military Power

Githnji was a soldier of the Kor'kron Legion, and leader of their covert operations unit - The Blackblades. For a time he welcomed the playing of his role among the Kor'kron having regained some simbilance of fraternal loyalty among them. All the while building and leading the new Deh'yo Tikal, gathering information and the lessons of the Kor'kron Blackblades for The Farmer and the Shattered Hand. He had seen the death of the Legion's leader Warlord Garkar Axebite at the hands of the Mountain Guard. He witnessed the passing of the Legion's next leader, who was mentor to the Legion's founder, the Warlord Ruvok Blackwolf of the Blackrock clan. Leadership of the Kor'kron Legion fell to various hands in temporary holds to stabilize the military branch until finally it came down to the Legion's most veteran and skilled soldiers and it was upon Githnji's own shoulders which the mantel fell. An unexpected turn of events for his and The Farmer's plans yet they played it to their advantage and Githnji became High Warlord to lead the Kor'kron Legion.

Late for his own Funeral

(coming soon)

The New Blackblades

(coming soon)