User:Joshmaul/Joshmaul the Warlock/In-Game Accomplishments

This is a listing of in-game events involving Joshmaul the Warlock. For continued accomplishments, see here. For info from the Zul'Aman PTR, see here.

Fighting for the Horde
Note: This is from my perspective from playing Joshmaul; the situations described herein are in no way unique to the character.

Joshmaul began his service to the Horde by battling renegade warlocks of the Burning Blade, as a major test of his new powers. He found he could manipulate the shadow magic without much effort, and trained almost exclusively in the school of Demonology. After defeating the Burning Blade and learning to summon his first demon, the imp, Joshmaul left the Valley of Trials and ventured to the orc outpost of Razor Hill, where he was called on to kill the humans inhabiting the ruins of Tiragarde Keep, the outpost of the late Grand Admiral Daelin Proudmoore. Finding that Proudmoore had left orders to a Lieutenant Benedict in the ruined keep, Joshmaul delivered the information to Nazgrel, Thrall's chief general, at Grommash Hold in the capital of Orgrimmar. Afterwards, he travelled the troll village of Sen'jin, on Durotar's southern coast. The trolls had been forced to leave the nearby Echo Isles by a crazed witch doctor named Zalazane. In order to gain the respect of the trolls, Joshmaul ventured to the largest Echo Isle and, after a feverish battle, killed the crazed witch doctor and his slaves.

After he had done his work in Durotar and gained his second demon, Joshmaul travelled west from Razor Hill into the Barrens, to the village known as the Crossroads, where his battles continued. His most noted conflict at this stage was facing the dwarves in their fortress of Bael Modan, in the southern Barrens, who were deemed by the Horde to be a genuine threat. It was around this time that Joshmaul joined the Royal Undercity Mounted Police, or just "Royal Undercity Mounties". He trained extensively with them for many months, his most notable confrontation at this time being the attack on Shadowfang Keep, in the blighted forest of Silverpine.

Battling Powerful Foes
Joshmaul, accompanied by a party led by the undead warrior Xanatoros, entered the ruined keep to find out what had happened to Deathstalkers Adamant and Vincent. Vincent, he discovered, was found dead on the other side of the fence separating the entrance from the courtyard, while Adamant had been imprisoned in Shadowfang's cell block. After freeing Adamant and making his way into the courtyard, Joshmaul and his party entered the dining hall where they confronted the ghost of the keep's former noble, Baron Silverlaine, and defeated him. Fighting through worgen-infested halls, Joshmaul finally managed to reach the inner sanctum of the Archmage Arugal, the ruler of Shadowfang, and confronted him. Joshmaul inflicted a powerful curse on Arugal that forced the weak Archmage to speak in the tongue of demons, thus making his connection to magic even slimmer before finally killing him, and taking his head to Dalar Dawnweaver at the Sepulcher. After defeating Arugal, Joshmaul and the Mounties ventured through Blackfathom Deeps in Ashenvale and slew the beasts within.

Joshmaul left the Mounties for a time and joined the Order of Vestige, where he fought for some time - gaining more power along the way. He was accompanied by members of the order into the Scarlet Monastery in Tirisfal Glades, where he had been called upon to kill the leadership of the Scarlet Crusade there. In a confrontation with High Inquisitor Whitemane, Joshmaul removed the peaked cap from her head and took as his own, wearing it as a sort of crown - then he killed her. Then he returned to the Barrens to confront the Scourge agents that had inhabited the quillboar fortress of Razorfen Downs, eventually entering into combat with the lich Amnennar the Coldbringer. Aided by the druid Ripa, Joshmaul destroyed Amnennar and took his dagger and robes for himself. Eventually, Joshmaul left Vestige and rejoined the Royal Undercity Mounties.

In another run through the armory of the Scarlet Monastery, aided by the undead rogue Grailen, Joshmaul finally gained enough power to summon a Felsteed - a dark horse with burning eyes and hooves, snorting flames from its nostrils - to serve as his mount. He has also entered into an alliance with the undead priest Sekhesmet of Stratholme, who provides the warlock with potions he requires in exchange for gold and powerful items.

Finding Taretha's Necklace
Some years before the present, Warchief Thrall - then a slave to Lieutenant General Aedelas Blackmoore, Lord of Durnholde - had a rare friendship with a human named Taretha Foxton, the daughter of Blackmoore's servant Tammis and forced mistress of her alcoholic master. Taretha's last meeting with Thrall was shortly before his attack on Durnholde, in the Hillsbrad Foothills, where he informed her of his plans. But Blackmoore managed to find out of Taretha's association with Thrall, and subsequently got himself drunk enough to order her execution. When Thrall arrived intending to offer the humans their lives in exchange for freeing the orcs, the drunkard General threw Taretha's severed head into the courtyard - sparking Thrall's rage, and sealing the fate of both Blackmoore and Durnholde Keep.

Taretha had given Thrall a simple pendant, a crescent moon on a silver chain, but it had been believed lost after Durnholde fell. Joshmaul was asked by Horde agents in Tarren Mill to discover where a kidnapped orc named Gol'dir was being held, and it was Gol'dir who informed him of the Warchief's search for Taretha's necklace. Eventually, the warlock learned that Elysa, the mistress of Lord Aliden Perenolde - the last survivor of the former royal house of Alterac, and leader of the Syndicate - was in possession of the necklace, and was living in a house along Lordamere Lake in Alterac. With his voidwalker, Phandok, dealing with the Syndicate minions in the house, Joshmaul met Perenolde in face-to-face combat, shadow magic against the coward's self-shielding and healing. With a volley of shadowbolts, the warlock killed the Syndicate leader. After clearing out the rest of the house, Joshmaul gained the pendant from Elysa, whom (uncharacteristically) he spared.

Moving Forward
Joshmaul entered the halls of Uldaman in the Badlands with the tauren shaman Mukri, the commander of the Royal Undercity Mounted Police, and several other Mounties. Leaving with an Archaedic Stone from the elemental guardian Archaedas, and a miniature copy of the Platinum Discs of Norgannon he guarded, Joshmaul left with a greater sense of just how exactly the Titans had worked in Azeroth.

After leaving Uldaman, the warlock spent many months in the deserts of Tanaris, doing battle with the sand trolls of Zul'Farrak, collecting samples of the native wildlife for the Royal Apothecary Society, and attempting to ascertain the secrets of Uldum - Earthen ruins left behind by the Titans. He realized it responded to the miniatures of the Discs of Norgannon, but would not grant him access without the "Discs of Uldum", a missing portion of the Discs of Norgannon. Letting it be for now, Joshmaul ventured west, to the overgrown crater of Un'Goro, where he did battle with tar beasts, reptilian monsters, and spirits of the elements run amok.

Soon Joshmaul reached the fifth circle of the Shadow Council, and became privy to greater powers and even greater secrets. Dispatched to Felwood to a gnome warlock named Niby the Almighty - or to be more specific, his imp minion, Impsy - Joshmaul received a rather odd request...to help the imp create a pet of his own. Joshmaul had been asked, after speaking to his master Zevrost in Orgrimmar, to take a piece of felcloth (which the undead mage Maruz provided for him) to the imp to create this pet. He then set out to collect parts from the corrupted Irontree treants and the tainted oozes that plagued Felwood for its "body". The final portion - the most difficult - involved gathering voodoo feathers from six undead troll spirits, as stuffing. This would require him to travel back to the East, to the sunken Temple of Atal'Hakkar in the Swamp of Sorrows...

Venturing Into The Temple
The Temple of Atal'Hakkar, or the Sunken Temple as it was also known, was a temple to the Blood God Hakkar the Soulflayer, erected by the Atal'ai trolls and their crazed leader, Jammal'an the Prophet. Believing that Jammal'an and the Atal'ai intended to use the Temple to summon Hakkar back into Azeroth, the great dragon Aspect Ysera and her Green Dragonflight plunged the Temple into the depths of the Swamp of Sorrows. But they did not realize their error until it was far too late...

Though the ineptitude of the shaman and warrior leading him into the Sunken Temple caused many pitfalls, Joshmaul, accompanied by the tauren hunter Meks and an undead warlock, both from the Royal Undercity Mounted Police, managed to enter deep inside of it and defeat the troll-ghost guardians that defended the inner sanctum of Jammal'an the Prophet. The Mounties, Joshmaul would note later, did much of the work; the shaman was not fulfulling his healing duties, and the warrior was unable to maintain his attacks on the trolls within - or the crazed green dragons corrupted by the evil of the Atal'ai. Eventually, after much toil, Joshmaul's party reached the inner sanctum of the Prophet, where he, his brother warlock and Meks - at the forefront of the assault - defeated Jammal'an in a contest of both physical prowess and (in the case of the warlocks) arcane mastery. After taking the Prophet's head, the warrior and the shaman intended to proceed deeper into the Temple and confront the Shade of Eranikus, a green dragon corrupted by an evil that had entered the Emerald Dream - the realm of Ysera and her dragonflight. But the Mounties knew that, due to their suicidal ineptitude, battling the dragon shade was not possible, and they immediately used their hearthstones to escape from the Temple.

But Joshmaul knew he would be back to the Temple some day, and when he did, he would be backed by the Mounties - and ONLY the Mounties.

Infernal Control
Upon entering the fifth circle of the Shadow Council, Joshmaul was given a quest by Niby's minion Impsy to gain three flawless fel essences around the world - in the hands of the Legashi satyrs of Azshara, the Jaedenar Legionnaires of Felwood, and the Felguard Sentries near the Dark Portal in the Blasted Lands. They were required to create a fel fire that could reanimate the infernal called Kroshius in Shatter Scar Vale, north of Bloodvenom Falls in Felwood. Aided by a fellow warlock and a rogue, Joshmaul summoned Kroshius back into the world - and then destroyed him again and took his infernal core.

Delivering it to Niby, Joshmaul was granted the ability to summon an infernal of his own, and was also given the Shard of the Green Flame, a portion of the infernal core that boosts his fire spells.

Race for the Dark Portal!
Joshmaul was in competition with the paladin Saavedro of Stratholme as to who will reach the Dark Portal in the Blasted Lands first when it reopened. Word had reached both powerful men of the survival of the Archmage Khadgar, one of the Alliance commanders that had defeated the orcs at the Battle of the Hellfire Peninsula on the planet Draenor, the homeworld of the orcish race. For nearly twenty years, the Dark Portal had been sealed off by the destruction of Draenor caused by incredible magical forces as the result of the shaman Ner'zhul opening unstable portals into the Twisting Nether. What remains of Draenor is now known as Outland - floating in the Nether for all eternity.

In the end, however, Saavedro defeated Joshmaul in the race to reach the Dark Portal, but the warlock was not deterred; he managed to reach Outland shortly after Saavedro did, and began to take advantage of his surroundings.

Stealing a Dreadsteed
After much toil in the Plaguelands, Silithus and the battlefields of Hellfire Peninsula, Joshmaul finally reached the level where he would be able to control and ride one of the famed Dreadsteeds of Xoroth. Sent from his masters in Orgrimmar to the human warlock Mor'zul Bloodbringer and his servant, the goblin Gorzeeki Wildeyes, Joshmaul embarked on a serious of dangerous but fruitful quests to obtain the ability to summon one of these beasts. First, he had to obtain the blood of crazed owlkin from Winterspring to write Xorothian glyphs onto parchment, then take an imp deep inside Scholomance, to the alchemy lab maintained by Ras Frostwhisper, to create the parchment there. The next part involved crafting four powerful items for the summoning circle - the Bell of Dethmoora, the Wheel of the Black March, the Doomsday Candle and the Black Lodestone. Upon completing these tasks, Joshmaul was joined by three other warlocks - two undead and a fellow orc - to take the components deep into the city of Eldre'Thalas...now known as Dire Maul.

First hunting down the imp Pusillin in the eastern sections to gain the Crescent Key - the master key of Eldre'Thalas - the warlocks then proceeded to enter the western sections and began deactivating the pylons that imprisoned the two-headed demon Immol'thar, located where the summoning circle would be placed. Destroying Immol'thar proved to be simplicity itself; the next part, however, did not. After hours of slaughtering through Azeroth, the summoning was about to take place.

The master warlock who held the components that Joshmaul had helped to assemble set them in their places, and began the ritual of summoning. While the components powered up, imps and felguards from Xoroth - protectors of the Dreadsteed stables - began pouring into the summoning ring and attacking the warlocks from every direction. Joshmaul and his felguard, Shaadhun, felled many imps and even several felguards as the nine symbols required to open the portal to Xoroth and summon the Dreadsteed began to form around the summoning circle. At last, the task was done, and the Dreadsteed was summoned into the world of Azeroth. Joshmaul and his brother warlocks attacked, but as the steed was weakening, the portal opened once more, revealing the Dreadlord Hel'nurath, the stable-keeper of Xoroth. But his intervention was too late - the Dreadsteed fell, and Joshmaul and his comrades divided the powerful spirit among themselves - allowing them all to summon Dreadsteeds.

With this powerful demonic horse in his control, Joshmaul returned to Outland and began his reconquest of his homeworld...

Chase Across the Barrens!
During one of his periodic returns to Orgrimmar, Joshmaul received word that Splintertree Post in Ashenvale was under attack. Flying from Orgrimmar to investigate, he found that two blood elves had already intervened, but were on their way to the Barrens to intervene in the Crossroads. Upon arriving in the Crossroads, Joshmaul found himself matching wits with an ingenious gnome frost mage who called himself Cowcheesy.

The mage was attacking the weaker denizens of the Crossroads. With what little nobility remained in the warlock's soul, Joshmaul attacked, and the two became locked in combat. The orc warlock had the advantage of experience and power, but Cowcheesy had a few surprises of his own. With the cleverness often associated with his race and class, the mage led his enemy on a chase across the northern Barrens, utilizing his powers of summoning water elementals and creating frost novas (as well as blinking across the distance) against the Demonologist's spells, keeping one step ahead of Joshmaul's felguard minion, Shaadhun. It came to a head near Dreadmist Peak as Joshmaul finally caught up with his exhausted and powerless quarry, the mage having exhausted his energies evading the warlock. With a burst of flame, Joshmaul cast down his foe, ending the combat. It gave the warlock new respect for both the mage he had defeated and his race in general, who (despite their similarities to the insane goblins) had proven to be a most ingenious and interesting foe on the field of battle.

Rediscovery of Urgan's Soul


As he gained in power, a change came over the warlock over time, and some vestiges of his previous life as Urgan - including his time living in the Bleeding Hollow village, in the forest of Terokkar - came up front. Realizing that the Mag'har was his race's only salvation - despite his adherence to warlock magic - Joshmaul offered his service. In time, the soul of Urgan himself appeared to him and gave him counsel in how to serve the Mag'har...

In the span of two days, aided by the tauren warrior Tothjowii, Joshmaul had destroyed the Burning Legion's forge camps, ended ogre incursions, and rescued a powerful Mag'har shaman from the Murkblood corruptors. For this, he was tasked by none other than the leader of the Mag'har herself, Greatmother Geyah, to determine exactly what had roused the spirits of Nagrand. To that end, Greatmother Geyah sent Joshmaul to the spirit of Mother Kashur, the long-dead shaman who mentored Drek'Thar. The spirits were becoming increasing agitated, and Kashur tasked him with destroying them. But for each one he laid to rest, more followed. Kashur then sent Joshmaul to seek the ancestors at Sunspring Post, the Laughing Skull ruins, Garadar, and Joshmaul's home ground - the ruins of the Bleeding Hollow. But none were there; only visions of the forgotten, whispering, "It is a beacon. A remnant of a forgotten era", and "We are infinite...eternal."

Disturbed by this, Joshmaul returned to Kashur...who sent him to meet with the being who called the ancestors to Oshu'gun: The naaru K'ure.

Encounter with the Naaru
Twenty-five thousand years ago, Velen - a leader of the eredar - sought guidance and a potential way to escape the corruption of Sargeras, who had enraptured Velen's friends and fellow leaders, Archimonde and Kil'jaeden. His prayers were answered by K'ure, who saw that Sargeras planned to annihilate all life in the universe. Using a huge crystalline vessel, K'ure bore Velen and his followers, henceforth known as the draenei, away from the eredar homeworld of Argus. Two hundred years before the First War, the vessel crashed on the homeworld of the orcs, which would be known as Draenor.

The shamanistic orcs adopted the vessel as a sacred "mountain" and called it Oshu'gun - "mountain of spirits" in their tongue. They believed that the spirits of the ancestors communed there after their deaths, when in truth they were drawn by the presence of the weakening K'ure. Before, only shaman were allowed inside the mountain; now it was crawling with demons, as it had since the days of Ner'zhul. It was here that Joshmaul prepared to enter...one of the first members of the Horde to set foot inside Oshu'gun in nearly fifty years.

Battling through the demons and ritualists from nearby Kil'sorrow Fortress, Joshmaul was able to destroy the shivarra who was draining the void energies from K'ure. Once free, K'ure explained that he was turning into a creature of shadow - part of the naaru life cycle - and was responsible for the pain caused to the spirits of the orcish ancestors. Seeking to find a way to end the suffering, K'ure instructed Joshmaul to travel to Shattrath, and speak with A'dal, leader of the Sha'tar.

A'dal, recognizing that this had far greater ramifications, sent Joshmaul to Auchindoun, where he was to rally a war party and destroy Exarch Maladaar, the crypts' guardian. After doing so, another naaru appeared before him - D'ore, who had been killed in the crash landing of Oshu'gun centuries earlier. The Prophet Velen and his compatriots buried him in a sarcophagus, making him the first to be buried in what would become the vast necropolis of Auchindoun. D'ore instructed Joshmaul and his comrade, an undead warrior named Lyger, to take an Auchenai artifact called a "soul mirror" from within Maladaar's chamber and return to Nagrand, where they would split the souls of the orcish ancestors and destroy the darkened spirits. After doing so successfully, Joshmaul returned to Garadar to bring his news to the Greatmother, and then to Garrosh. Garrosh was convinced that Joshmaul was far better suited to be chieftain of the Mag'har than he.

Upon being informed of this, and of the existence of a son of Durotan, Geyah sent Joshmaul and Lyger to Orgrimmar, to inform Warchief Thrall of the situation. Thrall travelled through the Dark Portal along with Drek'Thar and a battalion of Kor'kron honor guards, his arrival heralded by the beating of war drums...

After Thrall departed, Joshmaul continued to do battle with the ogres of Nagrand, finally becoming exalted with the Mag'har and earning the right to wear their tabard and ride one of their war talbuks into battle. It was then that the greedy, selfish spirit of Joshmaul resurfaced, and the aid of Urgan vanished.

Time Travel


Along with a war party from the Mounties, Joshmaul entered the Caverns of Time and prepared to free Thrall from his imprisonment at Durnholde Keep. He and the entire party were given human forms by the Bronze Dragonflight to avoid too drastic a change in the timeline; for him, this was not difficult to form, as he was possessed by the spirit of the human sorcerer Kiran Joshmaul, whose name he had taken for himself. To his surprise - when he travelled to the town of Southshore - he met a very familiar human priest, who was travelling to Stormwind on orders from the priesthood...a man in his mid-thirties named Saavedro. Briefly, Joshmaul considered killing the past-Saavedro, but was not certain how much of an effect that would have on the timeline...and he preferred not having to find out.

In their human forms, Joshmaul led the party into Durnholde Keep; having been interred here when he was known as Urgan, he knew the keep's layout well. Blackmoore's troops were everywhere, and moving was difficult - but it was entirely possible. The distraction, historically carried out by Taretha Foxton, was carried out brilliantly under Joshmaul's guidance. He set the incendiary charges in the keep's internment lodges and - with the aid of his allies - defeated Lieutenant Drake. Entering the keep itself, the party killed the guards leading to the basement, and went downstairs to find Thrall himself awaiting them. Claiming to be friends of Taretha, Joshmaul and his party convinced Thrall to come with them and escape. Upon reaching the outside (after Thrall killed the armorer and took some weapons and leather armor for himself), they were ambushed by more of Blackmoore's troops. It was a relentless push, but in the end the party destroyed much of the enemy and made their way to the front gates of Durnholde, where they were confronted by a paladin named Captain Skarloc. After a long and exhausting combat, the paladin was defeated.

Taking Skarloc's horse, Thrall, Joshmaul and the party rode to Tarren Mill, where - after killing most of the town's guards - they discovered Taretha imprisoned on the top floor of the inn. At that moment, the powerful Epoch Hunter called Thrall and his comrades out. The other town guards began to transform...into infinite dragons, just like the Epoch Hunter himself. After defeating the waves of enemies, the party set to attack the Epoch Hunter himself. After a hard battle that nearly killed everyone involved - including Thrall - the infinite drake fell dead, and Thrall's destiny was ensured. The next step would be to enter the next timeway and aid Medivh in opening the Dark Portal. This would ensure not only the current timeline's survival, but also Joshmaul's existence...

In Battle Against the Legions of Kael'thas
Arriving in Netherstorm on behalf of the Scryers, Joshmaul was informed about the manaforges that littered the area. There were five - B'naar, Coruu, Duro, Ara and Ultris. These manaforges harvested energy from the Twisting Nether itself and used it to power Tempest Keep, the naaru fortress taken by the self-styled lord of the blood elves, Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider. As he progressed through them, the warlock learned what had happened to the fifth, Ultris; apparently, a leak in one of the mana-energy pipes became a beacon for mana creatures, and the void lord Dimensius was summoned by the Ethereum within the damaged manaforge, causing a massive explosion. Voidwraiths and other shadow creatures now resided within the pipelines, and around the area of the exploded manaforge.

At Manaforge Ara, Joshmaul realized that the area was crawling with demons - gan'arg and mo'arg technicians, shivarra priestesses, and a Wrathguard overseer. Upon speaking with a Sunfury defector named Magister Theledorn, he discovered that Kael'thas had betrayed his people as well as Outland's ruler, Illidan Stormrage, and was now in the service of the Burning Legion. Aided by the mage Maruz, Joshmaul led the attack, his destructive spells complimented by the frost mage's ice attacks and water elementals. Joined later by a priest and another warlock, Joshmaul began the shutdown sequence of Ara's control center, causing waves of gan'arg and mo'arg engineers to attack in order to prevent the shutdown. Towards the end, they were assaulted by Chief Engineer Gork'lonn, a huge mo'arg forgefiend, but he was defeated in the end by the combined magical assault.



After collecting the damning evidence of Kael'thas' collusion with the Legion, Joshmaul - still aided by Maruz - was tasked with collecting the two halves of Socrethar's Teleportation Stone, which allowed access to a teleporter at Invasion Point: Overlord, north of the Stormspire. The pieces were held by the commanders of Forge Bases Oblivion and Gehenna: The mo'arg Forgemaster Morug and the pit lord Silroth. Through careful planning, Joshmaul and Maruz were able to defeat the two Legion commanders and take what they required. Joshmaul then delivered the pieces to Voren'thal, who dispatched him back to Netherstorm to defeat Socrethar himself - the eredar commanding operations in the area.

Though Joshmaul had managed to sabotage the manaforges, he did not realize that he had acted too late. Kael'thas already had the necessary energies from the manaforges and intended to potentially return to Quel'Thalas - to use the manaforges to re-energize the destroyed Sunwell. But Kael'thas did not intend to renew the Sunwell for his people - according to rumors, the "Sun King" intended to use it as a mystic portal to summon the Deceiver, Kil'jaeden - the Supreme Commander of the Burning Legion in the absence of Sargeras - into the world of Azeroth...

Will of the Warchief: The Fall of Kargath Bladefist


While he waited for the opportunity to battle Socrethar, Joshmaul was called from the Netherstorm to Hellfire Peninsula by a messenger from Nazgrel, the commander of Thrallmar. Word had gone out that Kargath Bladefist, the legendary and revered chieftain of the Shattered Hand Clan, had been corrupted and transformed into a vile fel orc. He declared himself Warchief of the Fel Horde and prepared to do battle with the forces of Honor Hold and Thrallmar. Nazgrel had received orders from Thrall in Orgrimmar: Kargath must die.

Joined by members of the Draconic Legion and - surprisingly - the old Order of Vestige, Joshmaul entered the Shattered Halls shortly after Grand Warlock Nethekurse had been defeated. Steeling himself for a hard fight, Joshmaul battled through legions of Shattered Hand and Shadowmoon fel orcs before confronting the ogre known as Warbringer O'mrogg. The ogre proved to be the tougher fight, taxing in resources - and the shaman who served as healer fell early. Joshmaul was able to find another in order to allow the party to continue the short distance to Kargath himself. Using every spell and every dirty trick at his disposal, Joshmaul helped hold off attackers and contributed to the damage done to Kargath himself, before the "Warchief" finally fell under the unrelenting assault. Taking the fearsome bladed scythe that served as Kargath's hand, Joshmaul returned to Thrallmar and delivered the fist to Nazgrel as proof that the false Warchief was indeed dead.

Banishing an Ancient and Powerful Evil


While in Shadowmoon Valley, Joshmaul was dispatched to the Sketh'lon Wreckage, a ruined arakkoa settlement east of Shadowmoon Village. The village was destroyed, its inhabitants condemned to undeath, when they raised arms against the warlock Gul'dan prior to the First War. It is believed that the arakkoa there, known as the Dark Conclave, were attempting to prevent Gul'dan from raising the volcano that today bears his name. Sent from Shadowmoon Village to collect pages of the Sketh'lon commander's journal, there was a reference to a "deserter" from their ranks, an arakkoa named Parshah.

Parshah instructed Joshmaul to retrieve powerful artifacts: A war totem from the ghostly arakkoa called Asghar, the Rod of Lianthe from a lockbox in the Illidari blood elf base of Eclipse Point, feathers from the Sketh'lon inhabitants, and finally energizing the head of the staff with the essence of Gul'dan himself, trapped in the Altar of Damnation. These were combined to form the Staff of Parshah. With the staff in hand, Joshmaul returned to the Sketh'lon Base Camp, where the Dark Conclave's ritualists were deep in their summoning spells. The creature they were summoning was similar in appearance to the Old God C'Thun, who controlled Ahn'Qiraj back on Azeroth.

Moving quickly and without delay, Joshmaul and his faithful voidwalker, Phandok, killed the ritualists, destabilizing the spell matrix. Planting the staff into the dusty ground, Joshmaul unleashed its energies, and sent the summoning portal - and the half-summoned monstrosity it was producing - back into the void.

Cleaning Out Kirin'Var


Kirin'Var was a village established by a contingent of the Kirin Tor, led by Archmage Vargoth, that followed Khadgar through the Dark Portal into Draenor. They settled in the area when it was known as the Plains of Farahlon. When Draenor was destroyed by Ner'zhul's mystic portals, the Plains of Farahlon became known as Netherstorm, and the surviving wizards remained in their mostly-wrecked village. However, when Kael'thas Sunstrider took over Tempest Keep, he attacked Kirin'Var with a vast army and utilized many horrific weapons, including a mana bomb not unlike the one used to obliterate Cenarion Thicket and the one Joshmaul detonated at Firewing Point in Terokkar Forest.

Prince Kael'thas placed a curse on the Violet Tower and ensured that Archmage Vargoth would remain trapped within it. But through his surviving (sane) apprentice, Ravandwyr, Joshmaul was able to reconstruct Vargoth's staff and communicate with the archmage, and eventually attempt to break the wards that kept him trapped inside. While he did so, he found there were other matters to deal with - the undead spirits of the town's dead citizens, mana creatures created by the mana bomb, and the blood elves of Sunfury Hold, the garrison not far from Kirin'Var. Joshmaul confronted the spirits of four of the Kirin Tor's mages: Abjurist Belmara, Cohlien Frostweaver, Conjurer Luminrath, and Battle-Mage Dathric, taking items that were precious to them - Belmara's tome, Cohlien's hat, Luminrath's cape, and Dathric's sword - and (uncharacteristically) returning them to their proper places, thus setting the spirits of the four mages to rest. He also destroyed legions of the severed and tormented citizens of Kirin'Var, facing some truly disturbing adversaries as he did.

While battling the blood elves, Joshmaul took torches from Sunfury flamekeepers and set Sunfury Hold ablaze, destroying their ballistae and their tents, killing the majority of the garrison in the process. Next, he was dispatched to located Master Daellis Dawnstrike, the archer who had commanded the attack on Kirin'Var, somewhere west of Manaforge Duro. Joshmaul picked out the Master by his distinctive black-and-crimson armor and tabard, and killed him. Returning to Kirin'Var, Joshmaul investigated the causes of the spirits' torment, and discovered that powerful necromancy was being utilized to corrupt the citizens of Kirin'Var. It was then that Joshmaul found out about Vargoth's other apprentice, Naberius, who had become a lich in the process of his corruption of the town - the only lich Joshmaul had seen in Outland, where the Scourge had no presence. Steeling himself, Joshmaul used trickery and his mastery of shadow magic to destroy the lich; Custodian Diesworth, back near the Violet Tower, ensured that Naberius would not return by destroying the lich's phylactery - which Joshmaul had discovered shortly before.

Finally, Joshmaul was able to discover the identity of the "Keymaster" who kept Vargoth trapped in the Violet Tower. Taking a scrying crystal from the giant called Apex, Joshmaul returned to the tower and used Vargoth's orb to discover that it was Commander Sarannis, one of Kael'thas' lieutenants, who possessed the Keystone. Sarannis resided in the Botanica, one of Tempest Keep's satellites - and Vargoth dispatched Joshmaul to fly to Tempest Keep and obtain the Keystone...from Sarannis' dead fingers.