User:Joshmaul/Zhenren Puretide

"'As the parable of the Warlord and the Monk reminds us, if you must strike first, you have already lost. Exercising patience in battle is not an easy thing; striking first may seem to be the 'correct' choice. But it is not the first strike that truly decides a battle - it is the last. As the story teaches us, the truest victory is when the enemy defeats himself. It is not always possible, but it is always true.'"
 * - Master Zhenren Puretide, address to Shado-Pan trainees

Master Zhenren Puretide was a veteran Shado-Pan Blackguard who helped train new recruits under the direction of Master Wan Snowdrift during the war for Pandaria. He retired from active service after the war ended, and in honor of a student from the Wandering Isle who fell, took to wandering the world beyond the mists. His contemplative mindview was similar to the Tushui philosophy taught to aspiring monks from the Wandering Isle, and he was thus semi-officially aligned with those of that discipline in the service of the Alliance. He was mortally wounded during the battle for Argus, and allowed by the masters of the Wandering Isle to make his final journey to the Wood of Staves.

Biography
Born seventy years before the parting of the mists, Zhenren Puretide hails from the village of Binan, located in the plains of Kun-Lai in northern Pandaria. His family has served as Blackguards of the Shado-Pan since the time of its founding by the Emperor Shaohao, ten thousand years ago. His father, Master Zhangde, brought him to the Shado-Pan Monastery, high in the Kun-Lai Mountains, when he was eight years old. When he was fourteen, he underwent the Trial of the Red Blossoms, and was one of the six who survived the rigorous trials necessary to become a Shado-Pan initiate, after which he was trained by his father to become a Blackguard. As one of the Shado-Pan's descriptions of themselves was the "Watchers on the Wall", he spent many years stationed on the Serpent's Spine, and sometimes joined raiding parties that ventured beyond it when the yaungol hordes (and occasional mantid swarm) became too aggressive. With his wife Zia, a fellow native of Binan, he had two sons - Zhaoren, who followed in his father's footsteps and became a Blackguard of the Shado-Pan, and Zhangren, named for his father and grandfather, who became a Lorewalker.

By the time the mists fell, after more than fifty years of service, Zhenren had been tasked by Master Wan Snowdrift, the chief Blackguard, to become a training master at the Shado-Pan Monastery, instructing new initiates. Around this time, he elected to expand his own horizons as well, by studying history with his son Zhangren and the Lorewalkers - a path often associated with the Omnia mystics, rare for a Blackguard. But like his fists and his chosen weapon - an ancient spear that had gone down the Puretide line for thousands of years - Zhenren saw knowledge as a great weapon against the threat of ignorance.

He had been away from the Monastery for a time, seeking out new recruits, when it was taken over by two powerful Sha primes - Violence and Hatred, the latter manifested in the master of the Shado-Pan himself, Lord Taran Zhu. But a group of outsiders from the Alliance and the Horde, which had stumbled upon Pandaria when the mists fell, entered the monastery and attacked the Sha-corrupted masters within, freeing both Master Snowdrift and Lord Zhu from the grip of the Sha. Zhenren had heard from Lord Zhu that the Alliance and Horde were involved in a "race war", seeking to conquer one another, but their actions saving the Shado-Pan from the corruption they had sworn to fight made him see them in a new light.

Of those he met from beyond the mists was a pandaren descended from those who had followed Liu Lang many centuries before - a monk named Yatiri Stormwatcher. From Yatiri, he learned of how the trainees were taught on the Wandering Isle, and of Tushui and Huojin, the prevailing philosophies among the grandchildren of Liu Lang. He was intrigued by Yatiri's description of Tushui, recognizing its precepts of careful thought before action and a devotion to justice and morality as being similar to the precepts that ruled his own life, and that of his sons. Taking Yatiri under his guidance, he trained the younger pandaren as a Blackguard, and took him over the Wall into Townlong and the Dread Wastes to battle the threat of the mantid and yaungol, both of whom were in the grip of the Sha. During this time, his wife Zia was killed in a yaungol attack in their native village; with the permission of Lord Zhu, he buried her in the graveyard of the Monastery, intending to be laid to rest there himself when his time came.

The Road Beyond Pandaria
Garrosh Hellscream, the Sha-corrupted Warchief of the Horde, located the still-beating heart of the Old God Y'Shaarj - whose seven-headed visage was split long ago to form the Sha primes - beneath the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, and dumped it into the great pool in the courtyard of Mogu'shan Palace, destroying the eastern half of the Vale and unleashing the Sha of Pride, the last remaining (and most insidious) of the seven. Yatiri, sworn to the Alliance, joined the armies that arose to defeat the Sha of Pride and its corrupt guardians in the Vale, before sailing north to the coast of Durotar in Kalimdor, to lay siege to Orgrimmar itself. Master Puretide, curious about the world beyond Pandaria and eager to fight against Garrosh's madness, went with him across the Great Sea and fought against the mad Kor'kron defenders, and witnessing the corruption take hold in Garrosh before he was at last deposed. Taran Zhu, wounded but unbowed, stepped between former Warchief Thrall and King Varian Wrynn over the right to execute Garrosh for his crimes, and offered to have him stand trial in Pandaria. Master Puretide agreed with his lord's decision, believing that justice, not vengeance, was the answer to tyranny.

He returned to the Monastery for a time, where he began to wonder what became of Yatiri after the great battle in Orgrimmar. His student had returned to the Alliance. An answer of sorts came to him in the form of Professor Rakeri Sputterspark, a powerful gnome warlock, who informed the old Master that Yatiri was aiding him in his works, and that he should not be worried. Yet something about Rakeri troubled him - namely his use of demonic minions and dark magic, which reminded him too strongly of the Sha - and he could not sit still for long. Finally, he could not stand it any further. His son Zhaoren, who had served with distinction on the Wall and beyond during the war, had returned to the Monastery, and Zhenren asked him to take over his duties in aiding the Masters in training new recruits. After more than fifty years, he was retiring from the Shado-Pan and going to see the greater world that Yatiri had spoken to him about...and he was also going in search of Yatiri himself. Zhaoren understood his reasons, as did Zhangren, who was visiting from the Seat of Knowledge in the Vale. Bidding farewell to Lord Zhu and Master Snowdrift, as well as his sons, Master Puretide left Pandaria and set out for the city of Stormwind.