User:Joshmaul/Koschei the Deathless

WANTED: Vindicator Joranaan, alias Koschei the Deathless. Sha'tari explorer who travelled to northern Lordaeron to study the Plaguelands. Disappeared near the ruined city of Stratholme, returned two months later to kill Sha'tari troops in the Bone Wastes. Believed to have been corrupted by undead force known as the Scourge; last seen wearing dark armor and wielding runic blade. Entered Auchindoun shortly afterwards; intelligence indicates he is still there.

Do not attempt to apprehend alone - considered armed and extremely dangerous.

Preferred alive, but no one will mourn if you bring back his head.
 * - Wanted Poster, Shattrath City

Vindicator Joranaan was a powerful and devoted servant of the Light and the naaru in the ruined world of Outland. An unlucky journey to the Plaguelands of northern Lordaeron, however, resulted in his corruption at the hands of the Scourge. Fallen into the power of death, Joranaan took the name of Koschei the Deathless, Deathlord of Auchindoun. He maintained that title after he was liberated by Artimus Devaneaux.

Biography
Born shortly after the draenei arrived on the world they called Draenor, Joranaan was destined from the beginning to be a warrior of the Holy Light. He was trained in all of the arts of combat by Restalaan, the Prophet Velen's chief general, and also was taught how to wield the Light by the clerics of Karabor. He remained at Karabor for most of the period prior to the rise of the Horde, serving as captain of the temple guards. When Karabor fell, Joranaan fled to Shattrath with his men and remained along with the Aldor in hiding - a period of hiding that lasted nearly five decades.

When the naaru came to Shattrath and took control of the city, Joranaan eagerly took up the power of the Light again to defend the city, becoming one of the Sha'tar. Joranaan served for a time at the Sha'tari base camp west of Auchindoun. Disturbed by the corruption that permeated his homeworld, now called Outland, Joranaan took one of Khadgar's portals and travelled to Stormwind City, the capital of the "Alliance". He had heard tales from draenei from the Exodar, the new draenei capital on the world of Azeroth, about how this Alliance had stood against the might of the Burning Legion, even allying themselves with the draenei's old enemies, the Horde, to do so. There, Joranaan met a young human officer named Oren Tanis.

While sharing a few drinks at the Blue Recluse Tavern in Stormwind's Mage Quarter, the two exchanged stories of the trials they had witnessed. Oren mentioned that his father, Vorian, had been a beloved general of the Alliance who had been killed by a legion of undead called the Scourge. The Scourge had sacked the Kingdom of Lordaeron several years earlier and, with the exception of the ruins of the capital, controlled the majority of the northern provinces as well as the southern half of the blood elf kingdom of Quel'Thalas. Intrigued and disturbed by this, drawn to the place by curiosity (like a fellow vindicator named Velenkayn was sometime before), Joranaan joined a Sha'tari expedition travelling to Azeroth to investigate the Plaguelands, and - upon observing the rituals of prayer - set out for Lordaeron.

Vindicator's Fall
Upon arriving in the Eastern Plaguelands and stopping at Light's Hope Chapel - a place where the Light kept the Scourge at bay - Joranaan discovered that the Scourge had set up shop in the ruins of the city of Stratholme. While traversing the Plaguewood, Joranaan suddenly felt a rush of power as Naxxramas, the floating pyramid he had sighted upon entering the fungal forest, disappeared from the sky it had floated over for nearly two years - taking with it anyone who may have been inside. However, to the east came a new necropolis to terrorize the skies of the Plaguelands: Acherus, the Ebon Hold, the fortress of the Knights of the Ebon Blade.

Accompanying Acherus from Northrend was a death knight named Artimus Devaneaux, who was honing his runeblade technique while training with the Scourge's best death knight trainers, such as Instructor Razuvious. Before he entered Naxxramas - prior to its departure for the Dragonblight - the high elf necromancer Lor'revan Kethlir, a fellow member of the Council of Deathlords, spotted Joranaan headed for Stratholme and relayed his destination to Artimus before entering his master's citadel. Artimus set a trap for Joranaan outside Stratholme, where he was ambushed by necromancers from the Cult of the Damned. Bleeding and broken, Joranaan was brought before Artimus and his master, the Lich King, at the Ebon Hold. It turned out that Artimus had been partly the reason for the Sha'tari expedition of which Joranaan was a part - hunting down the murderer and, if necessary, killing him.

The Lich King knew that Joranaan was conflicted, upon seeing so much death and corruption in Outland and in Azeroth. Artimus believed that Joranaan could be useful to the Scourge if he could be turned, then sent back to Outland to allow the Scourge to gain a foothold. The Lich King agreed with Artimus' assessment. When given the choice between mindless undeath and unlimited power, Joranaan - his mind weighted down by the evil he had seen, the tendrils seeping into his soul - gave in and sold his soul to the Lich King. He took the name Koschei, which in Draenei means "dead soul", and was trained by Artimus in the dark arts.

Liberation
Koschei, despite being linked to the Lich King as a death knight of the Scourge, still had a part of himself that saw what he was doing as wrong. After the Battle for Light's Hope Chapel, Koschei was still in Outland, and he felt his connection to the Lich King suddenly severed. Two days later, he was visited by none other than Artimus Devaneaux, recently liberated from the Scourge and now a member of the Knights of the Ebon Blade. Artimus was also accompanied by his lieutenant, Battlelord Velenkayn, who had also been a vindicator before he was corrupted. Artimus offered him a place within the Ebon Blade and the new Council of Deathlords that served it, and Koschei gladly accepted.

An Unexpected Outcome
While fighting in Outland, Koschei and his comrade General Settra were ambushed by Joshmaul the Corruptor, recently resurrected after his date with death at the hands of Artimus months earlier. The battle between orc and draenei near Auchindoun caught the attention of a Sha'tari patrol, who - despite their prior demands for his execution - came to the aid of their undead brother. The unexpected arrival of the Sha'tar forced Joshmaul to flee, but not without delivering what would be considered the coup de grace - a powerful bolt of fire empowered by a trapped soul.

In spite of his "wretched" state, the naaru A'dal instructed that Koschei was to be treated with respect by the Sha'tari healers, remarking that Koschei had not chosen his fate, but his fate had chosen him. A'dal, at the behest of Settra, alerted Artimus as to what happened; the Baron in turn informed Saavedro of Stratholme, who was in Dalaran as part of the campaign against the Scourge. This had been just one incident in several involving the recently-returned Corruptor, his identity confirmed by an attack against Artimus himself several days later.

Despite the best efforts of the Sha'tari healers, Koschei died of his injuries in Shattrath City. He was buried in the Ring of Observance in Auchindoun, in the center of the war-torn city of the dead.