Gorgorab

Centuries ago, Gorgorab – along with his younger brother, Mortab – belonged to the brotherhood of the Mausoleum Mages. Keepers and practitioners of dark magical knowledge, the Mages served an ancient Human kingdom on the island of Tarnok, among the eastern Lost Isles. It was their duty – according to ancient custom and the prophetic calendar that guided the kingdom – to resurrect their dead rulers across an expanse of centuries, building an Undead dynasty that they believed was worthy of the Dragonkin Empire that Tarnok had sworn fealty to centuries before. Despite wielding necromantic arts, the Mausoleum Mages were forbidden from prolonging their own lives. Gorgorab's temperament was ill suited to his priestly duties. Impatient and rebellious, he never truly accepted the right of the Undead rulers to command and control him, let alone in some perverse emulation of the Dragonkin Empire, which was, by then, long fallen. Together with Mortab, Gorgorab stirred up unrest among the Mausoleum Mages, pointing out the injustice of their subjugation and recommending the only possible remedy – revolt. Those the brothers convinced to betray their oaths rose up and used their sorceries to unbind and destroy their liege-lords. Anarchy soon gripped the island of Tarnok with the collapse of the regime and, in the midst of this, the traitors, realizing they had lost control and unable to agree on any one course now that their rulers had been slain, made their escape from Tarnok’s blighted shores. The Mausoleum Mages scattered across Teleria, most going their own way. After disagreements relating to the use of their magical powers, Mortab lost contact with Gorgorab, and later came to believe his brother had been slain by the surviving, living descendants of the old kings. He was mistaken, for Gorgorab had endured, concealing his identity as he traveled to Anhelt, intending to leave behind the legacy of the Mausoleum Mages and chart his own course toward immortality. Like the other Mausoleum Mages, Gorgorab embraced the unrestrained use of necromancy and flooded himself with its energies, unnaturally prolonging his life while bringing on the curse of lingering decay. After turning against his old rulers, he found himself ill suited to serving others, despite the fact that many Mausoleum Mages had slipped back into those same habits. Filled with ennui, he wandered far and wide, seeking purpose besides fighting back against the slow corruption of his body and the arrogance of those who he believed sought to control and use him. Eventually, Gorgorab journeyed to the Stormwind Wastes, hoping to find the bones of the Dragonkin civilization that had supposedly once commanded the respect and veneration of his ancestors and raise them from death for his own gain. He wandered the region for many years, becoming a dire legend to those few mortals who encountered him on their travels and lived to tell the tale. Gorgorab came across a ruined shrine that he identified as the tomb of a long-dead noble of the Dragonkin Empire. He attempted to resurrect the dusty remains but found it beyond his powers. Never one to give up lightly, Gorgorab established the ruins as his new home and ransacked its artifacts, including ancient stone tablets inscribed with spellcraft that the necromancer could not fully grasp. Believing the Dragonkin could further his knowledge and perhaps recompense his people for their misplaced fealty, he renewed his efforts to resurrect the noble, intending to force it to teach him how to achieve a degree of power that would ensure none would ever seek to use him as either servant or savant ever again.