It begins with the waning power of the lich king, and the mighty onslaught that is the army he commands. As the power of Arthas, champion of evil, grow, so too wanes the power of the lich king. The lich king focuses the majority of his power into Arthas and looses a huge portion of his agents, restoring their free will and in many cases giving them the release of a death at the hands of an unwittingly merciful enemy.

For kal'Igosh, one of the stronger of the death knights (nothing of note really, just above average strength and will) this release comes just a moment too late, as the killing blow is dealt an alliance transport, cleaving the boat and sinking all occupants, including himself. needing neither air nor rest, Kal'Igosh instinctively makes his way along the ocean floor toward kalimdor.


a year prior
In the Eastern Kingdoms, as the Scourge Plague begins to grip the land, a youth and scholar leaves his town which has been gripped in the paranoid fear that, like Andorhol, their township would fall to the plague. The traveler leaves town and goes to explore the world. after exploring the world for a year, he finds himself in the stonetalon mountains.

In stone talon, he encounters an unnatural cold, that seems to be coming from an individual who sits in a frozen clearing. The Wanderer approaches the figure and talks with him, eventually befriending the person who, it is revealed, was formerly one of the Lich King's Death Knights.
The Wanderer, intrigued, inquires much about the origins of the death knights and the lich king, and the origin of their powers.
The wanderer convinces the death knight Kal'Igosh to allow the wanderer to accompany him in his travels, and together they might be able to combat the Lich King.
The newly formed Order of the Ebon Blade seeks to undo their former master, but their methods seemed too slow paced for the radical thinking of the Wanderer who believes that with a small force with inside knowledge could do more damage than an amassed force, like commandos versus mainline military.
The Wanderer and kal'Igosh make their way to Icecrown where the Death Knight resurrects the Necropolis that spawned him and his cadre, many of whom were weak and did not survive what the Ebon Blade calls "The great Purge". Derelict and unmonitored, the necropolis is raised and its empty halls seem to draw the wanderer in, curiosity first. escorted by Kal'Igosh, the wanderer sets about ripping secrets of the Scourge from the empty halls and eventually comes upon the tools and incantations used in resurrection of Death Knights. Two remain entombed, Grimhowl the Blood Drinker, and Yuristeria, Blight-touched. Grimhowl is the first to be resurrected.
The wanderer is unconscious for a week after the ceremony, and when he awakens, he finds that his body is nearly completely numb and that he is without feeling, save for his insatiable curiosity.
With more time, Grimhowl rises to something of his former glory, and the wanderer seems to normalize. in reality, its not a restoration of feeling in his body, it is a gradual unconscious comfort with feeling nothing.

Grimhowl reforges his armor and sword, and the 3 set about reviving the unholy death knight in their fold. The process scars the wanderer's hands, blackening his arms to the elbow and his feet to the knee. he is left without a voice for weeks, and nearly crippled. while silenced, he voraciously reads everything in the libraries in the necropolis. the halls that once were threatening begin to feel like home and the three death knights leave their silent companion to his own devices much of the time.
kal'Igosh expresses concern that the path down which the wanderer is headed leads to darkness, and begins to believe that nothing good will come of using the tools of the enemy against them.

The wanderer's curiosity peaks with experimentation on life-forces and manipulating life energies. eventually he empowers his death knights and restores full power to the necropolis.

An advanced force of mixed Ebon Blade and Argent Crusade forces encounter the now-fully opperational necropolis and seek parlay with the wanderer, who is now nearly unrecognizable as the man he was, gaunt and pale and cold to the touch, his movements are more like gliding as he walks, and his robes seem to flow as if extensions of his body.
The expedition forces threaten to report this as a dissenting force, that undermine the horce/alliance efforts to combat the lich king.

because this would hinder the wanderer's research, he obliterates the entire party, some forty men.
The wanderer becomes adept at many schools of magic, but shadow and frost stand out as his strengths, and he learns to levitate great distances in the air, eventually no longer needing to ride the skeletal gryphons to the ground.
As he gets stronger, he finds that he no longer needs to eat or drink as much, and his appetite is even smaller than his need for sustenance. he stops sleeping, spending weeks with his nose buried in his books, growing ever stronger.

as his power increases, the three death knights begin to spend more time seeking his council and planning their assault on Icecrown. the necropolis is ordered to visit one of the lich kings many mass graves to collect the much-needed reagents in amassing an army of undead and the hel-forge is activated, turning out squads of ghouls and abominations weekly. on an alternate plane of existence, this gigantic army is stored and preparations are made for the assault.

the weapons require raw life-force, living blood, to be channeled, requiring a living host to be plugged in. The wanderer discovers, with little affect that he is no longer possessed of the variety of living essence needed to power these weapons, so a foray is made to gather more raw materials in the form of living prisoners from horde and alliance bases.

the attacks do not go as well as they could have, and the wanderer is horrendously burned.

more later, im tired and going to bed