The Return of Varkev Hammerhoof
Varkev was one of my first alts on Thorium Brotherhood.
He was also my very first RP character in WoW, predating Mama Lana by several months. The character was rolled on Eredar as a Tauren Warrior before I abandoned that server and moved to Thorium Brotherhood, where he was rolled as a Tauren Hunter. The patient, slow-speaking young Tauren developed through his entry into the Harbingers of War, the insanity and death of his half-sister and an attempt at Druidry before I finally deleted him and sent the character off, off-screen, into Northrend. My new druid was his sister, Ipolani, and gradually I found that I really didn’t know her as well as I had thought, that she was a lot harder for me to play than Varkev had ever been.
All I had to do was understand something very, very important about Varkev:
He’s not an idiot.
I think this was a fact that was difficult to translate for those that played with him, too, because of the way he interacted with people and his habit of mixing up robes with dresses (they were the same thing, as far as he was concerned). His speech, in Orcish, was almost child-like, he was long-winded – often taking several statements to get to his point – and his patience was interpreted as him being slow.
Varkev Hammerhoof is a patient, gracious man who is very comfortable with himself; he is quite happy to wander around a city in a pink dress if he feels like it, and he is just as able to sport the heavy leather armour of the Bear Brother that he is. He’s willing to stand back and heal, or rush forward and take a few fists to the face.
He’s also eccentric.
His trip into Northrend drastically changed him and made him understand things that he had never understood before, but just what, even I’m not certain of yet. Perhaps it forced him to grow up.
Now, Varkev is a level 71 Tauren Druid with a Bear and Tree spec available to him. As a Bear, his health sits around the 12k mark, with some rather impressive (to me, at least) avoidance stats and what appears to be decent damage numbers. He is prepared to take on the threats of Northrend with some macros, spec and rotation advice offered in some of BBB’s Bear-Tanking Intro posts.
And I am feeling more comfortable with this character than I ever had before. It’s almost like, shoving him into the back of my head and forcing myself not to try to get into him, effectively “killing” him for a while, made us come to some understandings with each other. His sister standing in for him seemed to make it easier to step into him.
Add onto the fact that I’m far, far more comfortable playing men (most of the time) than women, and I wonder why it took us so long to figure things out.
This is Varkev Hammerhoof, and he’s back and ready to start eating some faces.
Glory to the Horde!
… One day I will get myself a decent, non-GIMP, image-editing program for work. ONE DAY. And yes I was totally lazy with the image BUT AT LEAST THIS TIME I HAVE A PICTURE.
Tank Talk, WHARRGARBL, rp | admin | 
February 3, 2010 4:24 pm
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