Rokharr Vex-Blade: Lore of the Unbroken Chain

@Rokharr Vex-Blade

In the iron-clad barracks of the Ironfang Legion, where hobgoblin children are drilled from the moment they can grip a blade, Rokharr Vex-Blade was forged. Born into the Vex-Blade Regiment—a shadow auxiliary of the Legion tasked with missions no line soldier could survive—he was not raised to lead charges or claim glory. His purpose was subtler: to become the blade that cuts without warning, the hand that dismantles fortresses from within, the ghost that leaves only silence and ruin.

From age five he was assigned to the Silent Cadre, a brutal academy within the regiment where recruits learned that noise was death and hesitation was treason. They trained in total darkness, navigating obstacle courses by touch and echo alone. They learned to read mechanisms the way others read faces—locks as enemies to be studied, traps as puzzles to be solved, gears as weak points to be exploited. Rokharr excelled not through raw talent, but through obsessive repetition. Every motion was drilled until it became muscle memory; every tool treated as an extension of will. His instructors noted his ember-red eyes never blinked when a trap clicked shut on a fellow trainee—they simply assessed the failure and moved on.

The Vex-Blade Regiment operated in the margins of the Legion’s wars: slipping into enemy supply depots to seed slow-burning sabotage, extracting captured artificers from fortified towers, retrieving lost prototypes from battlefields still smoking with alchemical fire. Rokharr rose quickly. He mastered the art of the “clean cut”—operations where no alarm was raised, no body left behind, no trace of intrusion detectable. His signature became the Vex-Blade mark: a single precise incision on the mechanism of a vault or gate, a reminder that perfection had been violated.

The fracture came during the Siege of Kharzul Spire. The regiment was ordered to infiltrate the spire’s heart and retrieve the Emberheart Engine—a pre-Cataclysm relic capable of powering entire war machines. The mission succeeded, but the cost was catastrophic. A rival faction within the Legion betrayed the regiment’s position; the spire’s defenders counterattacked with overwhelming force. The Vex-Blade survivors were scattered across the wastes. Rokharr alone carried the Emberheart Engine’s core—a fist-sized crystal that still pulses with contained fire—wrapped in oilcloth and strapped to his chest.

Exile did not break him. He simply adapted the regiment’s doctrine to solo operations. He became a retrieval specialist for hire in the black markets of Scrapyard Gearworks and beyond: recovering lost blueprints, sabotaging rival warlords’ factories, extracting prisoners from fortified compounds. He never abandons a contract once accepted, nor does he take payment in blood—only coin, information, or favors. His code is absolute: artisans and laborers are untouchable; they build, and building is sacred. Tyrants, profiteers, and institutions that hoard knowledge or power are legitimate targets.

Rokharr moves through the world like a well-maintained machine: efficient, silent, and utterly predictable in his unpredictability. His matte-black armor absorbs light and sound alike; every buckle and seam is optimized for stealth. He speaks rarely, and when he does, his British-accented voice is clipped and precise, carrying the weight of military cadence. He studies people the way he studies mechanisms: not with emotion, but with cold calculation. Loyalty to the Vex-Blade Regiment remains his anchor, even though the regiment exists only in memory. He carries its banner—folded into a small black pouch—and will not rest until its honor is restored or avenged.

In the shadowed alleys of Scrapyard Gearworks, Rokharr Vex-Blade is a ghost among the scrap. He takes jobs that others refuse: infiltrating clockwork citadels, disabling arcane sentinels, retrieving artifacts from the hands of those who would misuse them. He is not a hero, nor a villain. He is a tool—perfectly calibrated, ruthlessly effective, and bound by a code that no one else understands.

The Emberheart Engine’s core still burns against his chest. It reminds him that some missions are not finished, and some debts are not yet paid.