Name: Nomahska
Age: 58
Race: Orc
Gender: Male

Class: Shaman (formerly Warlock)

Languages: Orcish (mother tongue), Elemental [Kalimag] (proficient), Demonic [Eredun] (proficient), Troll [Zandali, North-Eastern dialects] (Proficient), Common (a few words and phrases)

Personality: taciturn and aloof, externally gruff and blunt but internally compassionate and not quick to anger. Prone to fits of guilt or depression or nightmares. He won’t generally join a casual conversation, and spends a great deal of time in quiet contemplation. Nomahska is wise, but it’s wisdom borne of pain. He is not quick to judge others, understanding that life is not black and white, but he is also not quick to make friends.

Likes/Dislikes: Strong Drink; his love and weakness. He also enjoys traditional Orcish music and can play both drum and flute, but don’t expect him to play for any mortal like you or join you in dance. He will however play to the delight of the elements, who will calm and harken to him as soon as he begins. He despises warlocks in the way only a reformed warlock can, and will avoid them like a recovering drug addict avoids users. He is quite fond of Trolls, having known and interacted with them for many years, and speaks excellent Zandali.

Appearance: Older than his age. His back is already beginning to bend, and his limbs are beginning to lose much of their firmness. His skin is a pale mossy green, thin, spotted, and wrinkled. His hair and beard are both white. His hair he keeps cut into a short Mohawk. His beard is long and thin, he keeps it plated into a single braid. He bears many scars from wounds he suffered in numerous wars.

Strengths/Weaknesses: Nomahska is a rather powerful channeler, but not as physically strong as he was in his youth; he prefers to use spell casting to weapons in combat and can both heal and attack. Nomahska used to be able to summon some of the most powerful Demonic minions, and even now is still capable of summoning powerful Elemental allies. He is also developing rather poor vision in his old age.

History: Nomahska was born on Draenor to the Frostwolf clan during the rise of the Horde. He was the child of two very prominent Shaman lineages and was trained from a young age in channeling the elements and magic based combat, however, as a young and impulsive man, he was captivated by the charisma and rhetoric of Grom Hellscream, and forsook Durotan and the Frostwolf clan to enter into the ranks of the Warsong and joined the blood pact with Mannaroth. During this period he gave up his studies in shamanism and embraced fel magic, becoming a warlock skilled particularly in the summoning and control of Demonic entities.

Quote “You can’t know what it was like if you weren’t there. All my friends, hundreds of young orcs all chanting, all in unison. My heart beat faster, my mouthed moved on its own. I couldn’t have stopped myself chanting along with the rest if I had wanted to. But I didn’t want to.”

As proficient a Warlock as he had been a Shaman, Nomahska accompanied the Warsong Clan in the invasion of Shattrath and genocide of the Draenei, as well as all its campaigns in Azeroth in the first and second wars. Having earned some minor distinction in battle in the first war, he was generally tasked with the training of troops during most the second war, in particular he helped induct Troll mercenaries and recruits into Orcish military units while on Azeroth.

Like the rest of the Warsong Clan he was trapped on Azeroth after the destruction of the Dark Portal and lived in the wilds of the continent of Lordaeron. However being extremely disillusioned after the defeat of the Second War, he kept himself aloof from most other orcs, and lived alone in the forest; preferring not to engage in any of Grom Hellscream’s activities in Lordaeron. In particular he sought to purge himself of his addiction to fel magic and travelled to the Hinterlands where he could live unmolested. He spent many years living as a hermit in the wooded hills about the Hinterlands. Though he kept himself informed of the comings and goings of the Orcs in Lordaeron, he did not want others to witness his struggle against fel addiction.

Quote: “If you could imagine having your insides tied in knots then ripped out of you, feeling so sick and weak that death seems like the best option but not having the physical strength to kill yourself, that’s what giving up Fel magic is like. Pain is the touchstone of progress.”

During his years of solitude he retaught himself to the channel the elements, and learned about the soothing and healing properties of water. Having learned the Troll language during his dealings with that race in the first and second war, he developed a respectful correspondence with the Raventusk and learned some of their skill in healing arts. He vowed that as penance for the atrocities he participated in during the Wars, he would become a healer, and would not turn away any creature that came to him in need of healing, though in practice few creatures other than beasts of the wild came near his hermitage. He was aware generally of the occurrence of the third war but was not involved. Nor did he hear the call to remove to Kalimdor before the invasion of the Scourge. The Hinterlands, relatively untouched by the third war, remained quiet while the rest of the world approached the brink of destruction.

Indeed, Nomahska did not even learn that Durotan’s son was still alive and had been chosen Warchief of a reformed Horde until several years after Orgrimmar had been founded, when emissaries of the Thrall’s new Horde began to deal with the Trolls of Raventusk Village. He brought himself from seclusion to see for himself this young Shaman of his own clan and journeyed to Kalimdor as if on pilgrimage. He met Tauren for the first time, and Undead Humans, who of their own free will had joined the Horde, which was a great shock to him.

When the Dark Portal was reopened, Nomahska felt it was a sign that he must atone for his past. He put his skills as shaman to use as a field medic in support of the effort to repel the burning legion and establish Thrallmar in Hellfire peninsula, although seeing the shattered remains of Draenor for the first time since its destruction broke his heart. He also advocated vocally for induction of the Blood Elves into Horde because he sympathized with their struggle against magic addiction, pitied their decent into fel magic and sought means to help them bear the pain of withdrawal. He even aided the Blood Elves in their quest to restore the desecrated Sunwell.

After some semblance of peace was returned the remnants of Outland, and the Sunwell was restored, Nomahska once again retired to his hermitage and lived for several years in peace in the Hinterlands. He knew of the campaigns in Northrend, but as he was approaching the end of his middle age, felt he was too old to be much use in yet another war in such forbidding land as that. However he could not ignore the very earth itself groaning in pain as Deathwing the destroyer erupted from it to wreak havoc on the land. Once again Nomahska brought himself out of seclusion and helped train novice Shamans in the arts of healing so that that they could help the people of Azeroth defeat the Destroyer and abate the Cataclysm. He was not pleased however to learn that Grom’s son Garrosh had become the new Warchief of the horde. To Nomahska the Hellscream name was a curse, and he had not witnessed Grom’s redemption and death in Demon Fall Canyon. To him, Garrosh was just another blood thirsty and hot-headed butcher, and though he passed often through Orgrimmar during the fight against Deathwing, he did not do so with pleasure.

Nomahska has recently begun travelling the land of Pandaria, having heard of secluded mountain temples where monks practice meditation and study the unique healing properties of mist weaving.