History:Edwin VanCleef, born in the lower quarter of Stormwind to the talented, but frequently unwise stonemason Morrison VanCleef, unaware of his mother’s identity save that she was “a beautiful woman, with hair like a raven’s wing, and a heart like a chip of ice”, and was raised exclusively by his father. Morrison VanCleef himself was widely regarded as one of the most talented stonemasons and building designers in Stormwind, but his seeming inability to keep his mouth shut around his social betters and a long series of losses in what amounted to Guild politics saw that he was always kept out of the limelight, and strictly smalltime.
Edwin, for his part struggled with the lessons his father attempted to teach him. Try as he might the most he could make from a block of stone was a smaller stone and a lot of gravel; he didn’t seem to have the feel for the stone, and while he could manage to design simple buildings and actually showed something of a flair for decorative additions and visually impressive vistas he didn’t seem to quite have the grasp of basic structure mechanics; which is to say he was very good at making pretty building that wouldn’t stay standing in a stiff breeze.
While he had an interest and a small aptitude for machinery his father saw little point in indulging it. Machinists were strange, mad people, and his son, thankfully didn’t have that crazed gleam in his eye that seemed to characterize them. Let the boy tinker, he’d grow out of it eventually
What he did learn well from was the assorted guild members who either made dark comments or pleaded with his father to learn some self-control. They were, not to put too fine a point on it, at the bottom of the heap. It was almost ironic. One of the finest masons in the city, only ever asked to cut rough stone for basic purposes. It was little wonder his father grew depressed, and their home became filled with delicate models of cathedrals and buildings, while day after day he churned out simple blocks of stone, as his real skills languished.
As he grew older and began to comprehend their situation he began to feel bitter, and bored. Un-talented as he was he was still a stonemason, or at least an apprentice and he could recognize his father’s genius, even if he couldn’t share it. Frustrated by the inattention and the tightening of belts brought on by the guild deliberately refusing to hand out jobs large, important, or even requiring a modicum of skill Edwin began harboring dark thoughts towards them.
A chronic (and severe) insomniac he found himself with little to occupy his mind during sleepless nights, and would go wandering the streets at night. Eventually he would find himself staring at the Stonemason’s Guild Hall. He felt it only fair that he should take by night the livelihood they denied his father by day. He first tried sneaking into the Guild Hall, but found that it was filled at all hours of the night, and they wouldn’t take the son of a disgraced mason seriously, or let him out of their sight. Disgusted he decided to get some practice elsewhere and took up petty theft, where he found he quite enjoyed disassembling the locking mechanisms, and with his small size avoiding the watch was more a game than any real difficulty. At first breaking and entering only to get better at it and at practicing stealth, after a while his discontent with the family situation saw him taking more and more valuable trinkets, and quietly supporting his family with the gains.
At first his father seemed not to notice, as sunk into his depression as he was he tended to leave as much of the family business as possible up to Edwin, including collecting the prices of jobs. Whether or not he actually knew was something Edwin was not quite sure of, as Morrisson finally decided Edwin was ready for the next stage of his training, or rather, that he could do no more with the boy, and someone else should try, and, amazingly, got him apprenticed to the Guildmaster. Where, coincidentally he would be under a much greater degree of observation, and sneaking out at night would prove considerably more difficult. Not that this slowed him down much. Yes, he failed on sneaking out for his nightly “outings” many times, but at this point the bruises he received only taught him to be more careful.
It was here he also received another surprise, he was not, as he had so long assumed, only moderately incompetent, and there to better himself. He was terribly, monstrously incompetent, and the Guildmaster quickly put him to just making big stones into smaller stones for the apprentices who were actually good. He fared a little better at building design. The Guildmaster would present all his apprentices designs, and ask them to point out where they were weak, or ugly. Edwin could never find the weak, but he did have an eye for beauty the other apprentices lacked and his sketched changes were often workable, and quite nice looking, so the Guildmaster would shrug and incorporate them, figuring he might as well get
some good out of the boy.
As the years unfolded Edwin expanded his roguish repertoire: rumor mongering, public speaking/pandering, public lying/successful pandering, breaking into more and more advanced “safe” rooms, and running in the alleys as he did, more than a few street fights with boys his age taught him honor in combat was a really good way to get kicked in the nadgers. He managed to break into the Guild Hall a few times, but he wasn’t quite so good at sneaking yet that he could make it through a well-lit, crowded room unnoticed, and it was generally assumed he had a habit for staying hidden after he was supposed to have left.
At age 11 he was idly practicing pick-pocketing when something that hadn’t happened in ages and ages happened. He was caught. He ran. Then something almost unheard of happened. The target chased him and caught him. He knew he was caught, and by all rights should have had to fight, but he was allowed to get away. It didn’t make sense why someone would let him get away, he got curious, so he met the target again. His name was Mathias Shaw.
Oddly enough the two became friends, in some odd twisted way Edwin never quite understood. Being proud by nature but having little to actually boast about since Mathias outstripped him quite handily in almost all physical areas. He lied and claimed he was already a journeyman stonemason, and that several of the designs the Guildmaster had taken credit for were really his. It was kinda-sorta-almost true. The designs incorporated his decorations, certainly, and some of them had changed in order to do so better. It was just that he hadn’t actually designed any of the plans per se. Mathias for his part tried to train Edwin in all the little tricks he kept picking up from…somewhere. He seemed reluctant to name the source. Edwin took to this much better than to his stonework. He already had extensive practice in stealth, being a little better at moving silently, and a little worse at actually hiding but the differences were minute.
For a time he was…happy. With Mathias’ training he was able to sneak into the Guild Hall and he and his father began living a bit better.
It came to an end soon enough. The Horde washed over the city like a wave over rocks, and as the call came to defend the city Morrison VanCleef picked up a sword to defend the city. He was pierced by a trollish spear before the gates were ever breached. Fleeing for his life the next few years seemed like one long, long nightmare. Fleeing ahead of the Horde Edwin fled to Lordaeron, where he was found by Mathias.
In Lordaeron Edwin busied himself finding the remaining splinters of the Guild, many of whom had perished in the attacks and with a gift for speaking that he thought had rusted away years ago, one by one he bound them together into a rough group again, convincing them that alone they would forever live in squalor, together they might ever over top the riches they had had before.
When the Horde was pushed back out of Stormwind Edwin saw his chance and brought the Masons to the ruins. There they set up and quietly began planning, and building a new, better city. Stronger, more beauteous, capable of laughing off sieges many times stronger than the one that had leveled the ruins they now camped in. Edwin, not wanting to risk his tentative position as unspoken leader spent much of his time on organizational matters, and left the city frequently, where the scouting or guerilla units of the Horde quickly learned to fear the man who appeared like a ghost and drove arrows into their midst with terrifying force and accuracy. Indeed Edwin’s greatest contribution to the actual planning of the city was the final approval of all designs, many of which he made changes to, some actually functional, and not just decorative. Of course as final approver, arbiter and presenter he gained much credit for all the work he didn’t actually do…
When the work was complete Edwin promised the Masons he would see them re-compensed. Without pay or profit they had labored, some nearly starving, and he would see them rewarded. The followed him to the high courts and palaces, where Edwin graciously presented a sum to the Nobles of Stormwind. A pittance for all that had been done. Millions of tons of stone shaped, quarried and set. Defenses more fierce and powerful than any other, a city beautiful beyond imagining. A work of centuries completed in short years. He might not have designed or cut but he had laid stone and he had spoken and when there was almost no one living in the ruins he had led his fellows down and given the people of Stormwind a MIRACLE! And all he asked was that those who followed him be duly rewarded.
The Nobles sneered and laughed at the idea of loosening their precious purse strings. When Edwin insisted they laughed more. When he claimed that if his fellows went unrewarded they would lose faith and maintenance would suffer the Nobles smiled, and replied that the solution was obvious. Get other stonemasons, who didn’t demand what was “not theirs to have, by right or by service”. They exiled him, him and every other mason who had worked so hard.
Enraged beyond all reason Edwin led the Masons from the mud before the city gates to a hilltop. There he spoke with a passion and a skill that he had never before, nor since been able to recapture, and lit a fire in their hearts. The city was their creation! By the work of their hands! The sweat of their brows! Their tears and their blood! Theirs! Given over in good faith of reward and payment, it was
stolen from them, as if by some crawling thief in darkest night. Condemning them to die of privation and wounds! Of starvation and exposure! Leaving them to the mercies of the wild!
Well if they wished to be a den of thieves then by the cloak and dagger would the die. It was clear! The Nobles of the city were corrupted. Glutted on power and greed they writhed like worms in their palaces, lovingly constructed, but ever meant for true leaders! For men of virtue! What right had those worms, those pigs to so callously disregard the lives of their people!? To all but consign hundreds to death, rather than let some measly few coins slip their purse strings!?
With a solemn oath Edwin swore he would defy them. He would never, ever stop fighting, in any way he could until each and every one of the worms lay dead or disgraced, and men worth following, worth believing sat those thrones. Every man on the hill that day swore with him. And so began the Brotherhood Defias.
The Brotherhood started small, but they grew, others hearing the ring of truth as masons turned bandit told their story, and were as persistent as weeds. A hundred camps, each changing location on a weekly basis. Edwin himself moved from camp to camp, teaching his followers. They were bandits. For now. Soon they would be seen as what they really were. Not bandits, but revolutionaries.
It was late one night, a rare night that came far too few, when Edwin was actually able to sleep, the thousand thousand worries and voices and images in his head finally subsiding into peaceful rest. When he woke with a dagger to his throat he stared into the face of his sole childhood friend. Mathias. Mathias wearing the insignia of the Crowns pet psychopaths and murderers.
Mathias fled from the tent, and Edwin followed, and called out to him. He would curse himself for that later. Once the man’s name was known, well…the Brotherhood was protective of it’s leader. Whether he wished it or not. At the thought of this strange betrayal Edwin has sunk into a kind of weary gloom, the cheer gone from his voice, save for occasional flashes of dark sarcasm and gallows humor. Mathias who taught him. He begins to wonder if what he seeks will be worth the cost he’ll have to pay.
Subject: Edwin VanCleef 
Wed May 20, 2009 7:35 am
