| Lord Aeliren Chesterhill Warden of the Range | |
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Gender: |
Male |
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Race: |
Human |
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Nationality: |
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House: |
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Titles: |
Earl of Westmarch |
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Affiliations: |
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Status: |
Alive |
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Family: |
Marilyn Greydon, wife |
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Allegiance |
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Branch |
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Years of Service |
1138 F.A. - Present |
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Rank |
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Unit |
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Battles/Wars |
See Battles Alliance-Horde War:
Post-Alliance-Horde War:
Third Legion Invasion of Azeroth:
Post-Legion Invasion:
Blood War:
War against the Jailer:
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Awards |
Liam's Cross |
Lord Aeliren Chesterhill (January 30th, 1115 F.A. - Present) is an officer in the 3rd Brigade of the Gilnean Army, the Blades of Greymane, hailing from the port town of Keel Harbor in the Kingdom of Gilneas, along the southern coast of the Headlands.
A hardened veteran, he fought alongside Berenal Grayblade and other senior members of the Blades of Greymane such as Godrick Darkwater and Cedrec Delcarn since the early years of the Blades, though ironically enough he fought as a Northgate rebel during the Rebellion. He now rules as Earl of Westmarch within the Range, having risen to the nobility due to the re-legitimization of his lineage and as a result of his staunch loyalty and reliability.
History[]
The Northgate Rebellion[]
Although born to a shipwright and a tavernkeep in the port town of Keel Harbor, Aeliren was of noble ancestry through his father, descendants of the disenfranchised House of Chester of the Ashen Coast that had been believed to be wiped out around 400 F.A. when their estate had been sacked and burned to the ground. The sole survivor of the massacre fled from the Coastlands to the Headlands, settling in the coastal town of Keel Harbor where her descendants led quaint lives, eventually establishing a trade as shipwrights. Having long been since replaced by the House of Elmwood, there was little chance for the family to have their titles restored, and a culture of laying low as simple commoners to avoid the assassins that had almost ended the family bloodline discouraged such attempts until many generations later, when Aeliren's grandfather Owain sought to try and gather enough proof to restore a measure of his family's ancestry, and eventually passing on the mission to his son, Aeliren's father Sebastian.
However, while Aeliren was being prepared to pick up the family trade himself from a young age, he had not yet been made privy to his family's origins. As such, when the Greymane Wall was constructed and his father entered military service after being put out of work by the closing of the ports, Aeliren was amongst those who instead sympathized with Lord Darius Crowley's cause, enticed to join the Northgate Rebels by some of Keel Harbor's rebel sympathizers. Despite lacking any sort of military training at the time, being forced to rely on his wits and guile during the fighting turned him into an effective fighter, slaying several loyalists during the course of the civil war.
During the waning hours of the rebellion, Aeliren joined Erik Darkwind as one of his lieutenants alongside Cheryl Crowhall as they established a crude blockade on the Northgate Road to waylay the royalist forces reinforcing the city. However, despite their best efforts they were defeated by the forces of the Blades of Greymane led by Erik's father, High Commander Harric Darkwind. Cheryl was slain in combat, whereas Aeliren was incapacitated and Erik forced to stand down. Regardless, after Lord Crowley's incarceration he found an opportunity to silently slip away with many other rebels and went into hiding, returning to Keel Harbor in secrecy.
The Fall of Gilneas[]
Choosing to wait out the tension of the rebellion, Aeliren spent much of his time amongst other former rebels and sympathizers in Keel Harbor, avoiding even his own family. However, while skulking out in the streets one night, he came across a soldier that had been left to die, gruesomely butchered and mutilated as a hooded figure fled in the distance. Only upon further examination of the body did Aeliren realize that it was his own father, who had returned home on leave and had been attacked by a member of the Wolfcult that had begun to sweep across the land.
Sebastian had not yet perished when he was found, and was grateful that it was Aeliren that found him. With his dying words, he started Aeliren off on the quest to restore their family's heritage, reconciling to a certain degree with his son as he died. His father's death left him with mixed feelings, but he didn't have a chance to reflect upon any of it, as it was not long after that the Greymane Wall was breached and the Forsaken begun their invasion of Gilneas. Armed with leftover rebel weaponry stashed across the town, Aeliren helped the town watch fight back against the Forsaken, and later fought valiantly against their orcish reinforcements.
Aeliren was one of the last to board the transport ships during the exodus, having stayed behind to buy as much time as possible for a strike team to destroy the orcish gunship overlooking the Northgate River. He'd managed to reconcile with the rest of his family over the rift that was created when he left, seeing off both his mother and sister as they boarded their ships to escape. The short-lived reunion only made Aeliren more devastated when he learned that his sister's ship had never reached Teldrassil, having been lost during the terrible storm that wracked the Gilnean exodus on their voyage to Kalimdor.
The Blades of Greymane[]
Despite the elves' hospitality, Aeliren didn't stay in Teldrassil for very long. Restless and still mourning the losses of his family in the aftermath of the rebellion and the invasion, he took the first ship to Stormwind in search of work. Working oddjobs to pay the bills, he stayed in a dingy home in the slums. It was during one of his jobs that he'd found the Blades of Greymane recruiting, attempting to restore the brigade to return to Gilneas and reclaim their home in the Ashen Coast. The irony of joining the military, specifically the brigade that had fought and defeated him during the Northgate Rebellion, was not lost upon Aeliren; but still he rallied to the cause of Gilneas and enlisted as a recruit under the command of High Commander Berenal Grayblade, who would eventually go on to be one of his closest friends.
When the Blades had mustered their forces, they marched from Surwich, which the Blades had been using as their base of operations, to Silverpine Forest and Pyrewood Village. After establishing themselves there and turning the village into a military camp, the Blades began using it as a forward outpost from which they struck against the Forsaken and the Horde across the forest and beyond. During his time in the Blades of Greymane, Aeliren rose through the ranks of the military astoundingly fast, owing to his prowess and reliability his promotion to the rank of major in the span of a mere few years in order to fill in the many gaps in the Gilnean Army left by the Forsaken invasion.
During the reclamation of the Ashen Coast, Aeliren served with distinction during the battle of the Bite, serving directly under the command of High Commander Grayblade when the Blades returned to Gilneas upon hearing the news of Lord Xavier Greydon's passing and Gryphonvale being overran by a mercenary company. Aeliren served in a logistical officer post for most of the First and Second Range Rebellions, missing much of the action in the field during the restoration of the Ashen Coast and the turmoil from Lord Simeon Houndsbane's machinations that threatened it from within, though he actively participated in many other campaigns, from the purging of the Blightlands to the Reclamation of Taenia.
Elevation to Nobility[]
As the House of Elmwood had been wiped out by the invasion of Gilneas, the lands of Edenford had been left without a noble family to run it. It was at this time that it came forward that Aeliren was distantly related from the noble line that had ruled Edenford before the Elmwoods were elevated. Already seen as a reliable and loyal man when the call was sent out to fill the seats left behind by the dead, he was elevated to nobility and granted the title of baron, achieving his late grandfather and father's goal of restoring their family; though he kept to choose his own surname and founded the House of Chesterhill.
Although he maintained a good working relationship with the Marcher Lord of the Range, Lord Godrick Darkwater, some of the Marcher Lord's attitudes, specifically towards the local Gabhatine Galuyn and the Grand Fields, troubled him; as well as leaving a lasting legacy of distrust from both groups that he would have to deal with when he was later appointed as Warden of the Range.
As baron of Edenford, Aeliren made it his priority to restore the region, which had been overran by a major criminal cartel that operated out of the ruins of Edenford. Under his rule, Fort Gaelik was restored and made into a regional headquarters of the Third Brigade, and the towns of Folston, Crossbrook and various other hamlets were resettled, though he would only finally oust the banditry's presence from Edenford with the oncoming of the Burning Legion, which had broken the criminals' lines and made them desperate enough to broker a deal with the Blades that ended with them and their provisional leader, Aaron Lunarward, being put into service under Aeliren's command in the Greystalkers.
War against the Legion[]
Aeliren's continued dutiful service with the Blades of Greymane led to his advancement to the rank of lieutenant commander, as well as his eventual appointment by the Duke as spymaster of the Greystalkers, succeeding his friend and future sister-in-law Idrya Haven.
Aeliren would go on to fight the Burning Legion with the Blades, participating in the battle of the Broken Shore with the onset of their invasion. Following the disastrous routing of the Alliance and Horde armies, the Blades returned to the home front where the Azikal Warband was attempting to invade the Ashen Coast. Aeliren was briefly missing in action when Azikal the Decimator's command ship, the Spear of Decimation was disabled and crash-landed on the Broken Isles while attempting to warp back to the Black City. He, along with the rest of the strike team that had gone to disable the Legion command ship, were eventually found and rescued.
During the war, Aeliren would go on to fight with the Blades in Cyrvall, Northfold Peaks and the Refuge Cove before returning home at the end of the war, when the Burning Crusade came to an end. However, he ended the war learning that his father had been raised into undeath and now served under the command of Hendrick Cobalstant, bringing to the surface emotions and feelings that he had not been confronted with since Sebastian's murder at the hands of the Wolfcult; although he chose to bury those emotions and focus on his duty.
It was the summer after the end of the Legion invasion of the Ashen Coast that Summertide Illness swept through the Range, claiming the lives of many in the region. Following the death of Lord Darkwater, Aeliren put the Greystalkers' resources to work to contain and quarantine the disease and minimize its spread, though countless still died in spite of it. It was after the end of the plague that the House of Greydon resurfaced and petitioned for the restoration of their lands and titles. As a condition, Aeliren was to be wed to Marilyn Greydon and installed as Warden of the Range, as well as Idrya being wed to Ryan Greydon, who was named Marcher Lord of the Range.
Though Aeliren and Marilyn's wedding had originally been a political one, they did grow to care for one another, and together they had a daughter, Gwendolyn.