An Explanation
So I thought I might finally kinda outline how and why I made Tara the way I did with the background I chose for her. I know a lot of people don’t like pairing OCs with canon characters, and I knew, even while I was researching, that I wasn’t just going to be able to put it out there without a lot of criticisim.
See, Tarvasha started out as a Warhammer 40k character. She was a touch-averting, bitchy, angry void-master who slowly crept into being a Tech Heritic with a hard-on for the ship engineer who was basically just a brain in a metal body.
Her last name was Winterscale and, those of you familiar with the lore, would recognize it not only from Winterscale’s Realm, but also the current Rogue Trader of the Winterscale dynasty, Calligos.
I had made her one of his bastard children who resented him for not acknowledging her. She set out to prove herself by trying to find the lost Baleful Eye (think bionic eye with a laser. pew pew) of Sebastian Winterscale. In her mind, if she could find it, perhaps she could prove her worth as a decendant of Winterscale.
Fast forward to getting back into WoW.
Originally, I had wanted to make her Varian’s daughter. Why, you ask? Because this is Calligos:
Big, hulking man in a position of power. And dat chin.
However, once I started looking in the timelines, I realized it would not only be impossible, but also that it wasn’t what I wanted for her.
I did however, want a Varian-baby.
I also wanted Tarvasha to have blue hair initially, like her 40k counterpart.
So Tara became a half-elf. God only knows how many hours of research I put into all of this. What it came down to was this:
Her mother is Shalandrala Winterscale, a Highborne elf (like, student/council of Queen Azshara Highborne) who left Zin-Azshari before the sundering of the world. She brought not only a fair handful of followers with her, but she also managed to sneak a vial of water from the Well of Eternity with her.
After some hundred years, the Highborne elves began secretly crafting halls of learning deep beneath the Tranquil Glades (present day Felwood). The vial was used to create a new font of power which they hid from the druids of the Glades and used to continue their study.
This hidden sanctuary became known as Cartouche (named after a song by Blackmore’s Night which fits its ambience perfectly). and was hidden away from the watchful eyes of the forest’s druids.
Fast forward to a few decades prior to present time.
In small groups, the elves had been visiting the Kirin Tor, learning and sharing their magics and getting to know the strange beings (humans) from the other side of the water.
Humans seemed to have a natural affinity for magic, and did not need to rely on things such as the moonwells or the Well of Eternity to replentish their magic.
Shalandrala had the idea to breed with the humans to bare children who would be as powerful as the elves and as hardy as the humans. Children who would not need to rely on the waning magic beneath the earth as they did.
It was a disaster.
While human/elf hybrids aren’t unusual, the rituals they used to ensure strong children backfired and caused a slew of miscarriages and stillborn offspring.
After several years of trial and pain, Shalandrala herself attempted the ritual with the help of a young man from Dalaran who was particularly gifted in the arcane. It was a success, though it drained a great deal of the elf’s own power to bring her child into the world unharmed.
Tarvasha bears her mother’s mark upon her palm and with it, the untapped power within her.
Good, okay, got ourselves a half-elf baby. As it turned out, however, I ended up giving her burgundy hair instead, so it was sort of pointless in the long run. lol
It did open up an opportunity, though. An opportunity to put her in the one place she could possibly have met and had some sort of relations with Varian Wrynn.
When the Burning Legion came to Kalimdor, they decimated the Tranquil Glades, turning them into the Felwood. It made sense, in my mind, that the font of power beneath the forest would be an obvious attractant to them.
Now, Tarvasha had been pretty much ridiculed and spat on her whole life by the elves who hadn’t agreed with Shalandrala’s methods or who had lost their own children from it all.
That constant hatred came to a head the night Tara docked her own ears in a desperate effort to seperate herself from her mother’s kin. With rounded ears, she looked human. But her mother had caught her right afterwards and it drove her mind to despair, allowing the Legion to infultrate her conciousness. When the Legion came upon the Glade, Shalandrala helped lead the way through.
She became known as a great traitor amongst the druids there and much of the rest of the Kaldorei.
Tarvasha fled the forest, originally running south into Ashenvale before turning east, desperate to get away from any elves she might’ve come across.
She ended up in Durotar, or the land it was before the name was given to it.
Along the coasts, there were fires.
And there were orcs.
Orcs who would have killed her for being a human were it not for a single savior among them.
Or so she thought. The orc turned out to be a greasy slavemaster named Oog’tar.
Tarvasha was enslaved for years. She bore and lost multiple children during that time and finally lost it when one of them was killed in front of her for being born without arms.
Her mental state landed her into the fighting arena with a pack of boars. The deal was as such, if she lived, she could leave. She would be let loose into Durotar to make her way somewhere else.
If she died, she would die with honor.
A final game played but her cruel slave master.
By some miracle, she made it through, though she wasn’t capable of standing by the end of it. Instead of honoring the arrangement, Oog’tar sent in more boars.
Luckily for her, Rehgar and his gladiators were close by. Varian, unaware of his past, called the detestable slavemaster on his bullshit. When he refused to send the boars back, the warrior said he would fight in her place. Oog’tar didn’t want to honor such an agreement, but Rehgar pushed the issue. It would be good training, after all.
Needless to say, he took down every single boar in that arena.
When she was told she could leave, she begged the human to let her stay with him instead. She would rather have been a slave with company than be turned loose into the unforgiving lands of Durotar.
Rehgar allowed it, for a time.
During her stay with them, she found herself enamored with the amnesiatic man. Eventually they would lie together, though much of their time together was out of companionship of their humanity and desperation out of loneliness.
They did care for each other, though it was far from anything lovey-dovey.
She had been so excited when they traveled to Dire Maul. Watching him fight... He was even finally given a name that wasn’t something she felt uncomfortable calling him.
Lo’Gosh.
Finally, her life seemed to be looking up. In love with a Crimson Ring champion. Away from the harsh climates of Durotar.
It all changed when they traveled to Thunder Bluffs, however.
Once Lo’Gosh retrieved pieces of his memories from the pools, she was all but forgotten. Cast aside for his desperate race to return to his wife and child.
She tagged along for a time, but her gladiator was no longer warmed to her as he once was.
Tarvasha realized that she was baring his child, terrified to let him know.
She stayed behind in Theramore when they journeyed there.
And she found herself in shock when she learned of his true identity.
For some time, she had studied the royal family of Stormwind from books or from conversation. When her daughter was born, she gave her the name of Varian’s mother.
Taria.
Now, when I created Taria, I got my timelines messed up bad. I thought Anduin was older than he was, and I originally had Taria pegged as a teenager.
I was so fucking wrong.
So, enter Pandaria.
Tarvasha traveled there with her daughter. At the time, she was a pretty reputable merchant and this was a great opportunity.
Beneath that, she did some scouting work for both the Alliance and Vol’jin’s rebellion against Garrosh.
During their time there, she left Taria with various innkeepers as she worked, eventually leaving her with Tong in the Tavern in the Mists. Taria, at the time, was four years old and loved to hunt with her crossbow.
She hunted various beasts around the tavern, her favorite hunts being tigers. The little girl managed to catch the eye of Wrathion, if only for a moment.
Tarvasha, during this time, had been captured by Oog’tar who was now a quartermaster under Garrosh’s Horde. After being tortured and branded, she was freed when an Alliance squad took down the encampment. Oog’tar escaped, but Tara was called upon as a minor witness during Garrosh’s trial to describe her ordeal under a man Garrosh had personally appointed.
She had written to Tong to bring her daughter to the Temple of the White Tiger where the trial was being held. In the middle of their journey, a massive tiger came upon their cart and attacked them, wounding Tong and slashing the characteristic scars that now sit across Taria’s face. The beast fell when it lunged for the little girl. Taria held out a sharpened pole and the beast impaled itself upon it, much the same way Lo’Gosh felled the gator that earned him the name Crocbait.
Taria was crushed beneath the cat and near death as Tong carried her the rest of the way to the temple. They were met near the steps by a hysterical Tarvasha, screaming and crying as she laid eyes on her dying child.
There was no one close by to heal her, most of them were up at the trial.
However, out of the shadows stepped Wrathion with a deal to be made.
He would make certain she didn’t die, in exchange for Tarvasha handing her over to him. He had seen the potential she carried while staying at the Tavern. If he was going to help, he was going to get something out of it.
She regretfully agreed to his terms and didn’t see her daughter against for over two years.
Meanwhile (mostly because I needed a way for her to exist as something other than a child since I’d already leveled the toon) Taria was aged using a combination of chronomancy and mental manipulation. She was educated and became a fully fledged adult.
I don’t do that child trapped in an adult body crap. That’s just weird.
I wanted her to be a fully grown warrior and that’s what she became.
In the time before they were reunited, Taria asked to spend her off-time in Durotar. She had been told many stories about her father, Lo’Gosh, champion of the Crimson Ring, and was convinced he had been an orc. With her size, it was a reasonable mistake. Despite not having green skin or tusks, she was certainly as large as a female orc.
After some time, she gained the interest and tolerance of some of the orcs in outlying villages, many of which were too old to care about one human or too young to do anything about her. Some fought her, some taught her. But she gained a fascination and appreciation for the race which her father, unknown to her, was once enslaved by.
Eventually, Taria learned of her father’s identity and struggles everytime she passes by Stormwind Keep, aching to know her brother, but knowing better than to reveal herself to the world.
It is a secret that very few know. Valeera, Wrathion, and Tarvasha’s first husband being about half of them.
Well, this outline turned into a history lesson. Hope you guys enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it, and thanks so much for reading!
Oh, and here’s Taria’s Tumblr for anyone interested in my angry Lo’Gosh-baby: @thepalewolfhowls
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