User:Joshmaul/Rocangus Snowhammer

"'Ah came 'ere lookin' fer spirits, an' all ah found was beer. There's a lesson fer ye.'"
 * - Farseer Rocangus Snowhammer

A member of the Explorer's Guild and the son of a decorated war veteran, Rocangus Snowhammer is a farseer of Ironforge, wandering the worlds of Azeroth, Outland, and Draenor in search of spirits to commune with and precious gems to craft.

Biography
Angus Snowhammer was born in Thelsamar along Loch Modan, nearly two hundred years before the opening of the Dark Portal. His father, Barildar Snowhammer, was an officer in the Royal Army who would rise to the rank of general, serving in many of Ironforge's wars over the centuries, including against the Dark Irons, the Horde, the Burning Legion, the Scourge, and the minions of Deathwing. While Barildar was built for the soldier's life, Angus was much more spiritual, often sitting among the rocks and the trees along the shores of the Loch, and often played out the ancient legends of the dwarves' origins. His father, observing his meditations one day, described him as being as "stoic as a rock". Despite his lacking interest in military skills, he served in the Army as his father's courier during the Second War, dispatching messages to other dwarf garrisons during the Bleeding Hollow clan's siege of Ironforge.

Years after the war, when the ruins of Uldaman were discovered, and the origin of the dwarves was conclusively confirmed as being from the earthen - an ancient race forged by the Titans millennia before - Angus joined the Explorers' Guild. It was around that time that the refugees from Lordaeron began to trickle in, those who were not infected by plague or killed by the rampaging undead Scourge. General Snowhammer recalled his son from his explorations in the Badlands and asked him to help lead supply caravans to the dwarf towns that took in refugees, as well as to Menethil Harbor to assist those who took ship and fled southward to Stormwind. Angus never forgot the tales of horror he heard from the refugees, and resolved that one day, he would find a way to help prevent such things from happening to innocent people again.

A Spiritual Awakening
Angus continued his work as part of the Explorers' Guild for years afterward, yet he knew that there was something else to him that he had not yet discovered. His first sign of it was when he travelled through the Dark Portal to Outland, to study what remained of the world that had been home to the orcs and sanctuary for the draenei, who had recently joined the Alliance. It was in Nagrand, the former heartland of the orcish clans before the demon corruption, that he received his first sign. While near Oshu'gun, the "Mountain of Spirits" and remnant of the crashed draenei vessel that had brought them to Draenor, Angus was struck by what he called at first a "waking dream": A great dragon-like creature in a dusty, red land, its flame consuming a living suit of armor carrying a frozen hammer, which he took to be representative of his father, the general. Another vision came in Northrend, while he was with the Guild studying iron dwarf settlements in the Grizzly Hills, in which an earthen picked up the frozen hammer that had fallen with the suit of armor, and raised it high, lightning striking it.

The answers to his visions came in the wake of the Cataclysm. King Magni Bronzebeard had been petrified by an ancient ritual; his daughter Moira, who had married the Dark Iron Emperor Dagran Thaurissan, briefly took the throne as Queen of Ironforge, until she was deposed by King Varian of Stormwind and made a member of the "Council of Three Hammers", uniting Bronzebeard, Wildhammer, and Dark Iron for the first time since the War of the Three Hammers centuries before. The Wildhammers' ways of shamanism began to spread to the ranks of the Alliance, and Angus found himself drawn to the dwarven training village of Anvilmar; there he met the Wildhammer shaman Teo Hammerstorm, who instructed those dwarves of Ironforge who had been touched by the spirits. Angus was among those who answered the call of the elements; remembering his father's comment about his being "stoic as a rock", and his vision in Northrend of an earthen figure being charged by lightning, he renamed himself "Rocangus".

Among the areas hardest hit by the Cataclysm was his native land of Loch Modan. Thelsamar was largely untouched, but the great Loch itself had spilled out into the Wetlands after the Stonewrought Dam was destroyed by Deathwing's emergence from the Maelstrom. Seeing his beloved land irrevocably altered disturbed Rocangus, and he took great pains to avoid staying near the Loch or Thelsamar for very long.

Guiding a Warlock
It was during this period that Rocangus met Professor Rakeri Sputterspark, a powerful gnome warlock and gifted engineer. Recognizing Rakeri's service to the Alliance in the years prior to the Cataclysm, Rocangus hoped to steer his dark powers and engineering prowess to constructive ends in the years after. But Rakeri became obsessed with revenge against a human named Saavedro, who had used him as a mechanical butler when he had been "decursed" by the Titan-forged mechanism known as Gearmaster Mechazod, and broken by overzealous explorers.

Though he continued his shadow war against Saavedro during the war in Pandaria, Rakeri fought as part of the Alliance forces during the siege of Orgrimmar, as did Rocangus' father. It would be there that Rocangus' first vision from Outland, of a draconic beast breathing fire to consume a suit of armor with a frozen hammer, came true: General Snowhammer was killed by one of the spawn of Galakras, the last scion of Galakrond, the fearsome progenitor of dragonkind. Barildar's blackened stone hammer and Ironforge shield would be returned to him by one of Barildar's warriors. Rocangus would wield the weapons as his own for some time afterwards, honoring his father's memory. For a time afterward, Rakeri and Rocangus would travel in search of Titan relics, and Rocangus' journeys would take him through not only lands of great mystery, like Uldum (where he had helped the Ramkahen tol'vir during the Cataclysm War) and the Storm Peaks, but also into the Elemental Planes themselves, particularly Skywall.

Despite Rakeri's plaudits in the war for Pandaria, Rocangus began to become leery of the warlock, who began outright ignoring his counsel. The last straw came when Rakeri sacrificed Saavedro to resurrect the Forsaken war criminal Sekhesmet, Saavedro's former mentor, as a flesh-and-blood human being again. Rocangus thus ceased offering his advice to the professor, knowing now that it would be ignored - and knowing that his part in Rakeri's atrocities would earn him the emnity of the elemental spirits if he continued. Nonetheless, when the Iron Horde began its invasion through time, Rakeri prepared to lead what followers he could muster through the time-altered Dark Portal to the "new" Draenor, and tasked Rocangus with keeping his ears to the ground on Azeroth. Rocangus mutely agreed to Rakeri's request, as it allowed him to maintain a healthy distance from the warlock...and thus it was no great surprise to him that the gnome would meet his end on that time-changed world, at the hands of a vengeful sin'dorei paladin named Taeril'hane Ketiron, whose wife had been murdered by Rakeri.

Atonement
With Rakeri dead, Rocangus realized that he had made a critical mistake in trying to support and counsel the warlock, blaming himself for not being able to stop his atrocities. He returned to Ironforge, and served for a time in the Ironforge Guard, but was restless and despondent. Believing he had dishonored his father's memory, he locked Barildar's hammer and shield away into the Snowhammer family vault in the Bank of Ironforge, declared he would never aid another warlock again, and exiled himself into the wilderness on a search for greater understanding. He travelled the worlds regularly, never staying in one place for too long. It was during his travels that he met Battlelord Velenkayn, a former draenei vindicator-turned-death knight, who had been an ally of Saavedro. Velenkayn did not blame Rocangus for Rakeri's crimes, and decided to help in Rocangus' quest for atonement by directing him to the priestess-turned-paladin Genevra Stoneheardt, whose Conclave Saavedro had been a part of; after her initial reservations, Genevra accepted him as part of her group.

On Draenor, Rocangus' elemental powers grew substantially due to the volatile nature of Draenor's elements. He had also taken to carrying new weapons he found in a vault near Ulduar - a Titanforged hammer charged with lightning that he called the Ancients' Justice, and a matching shield that he called the Guardian's Visage. With these precious relics, he would aid the Alliance's war against the Iron Horde.

The Burden of Earth
Following the defeat of the Iron Horde, the Burning Legion invaded Azeroth in a force not seen since the War of the Ancients, and the mortal races banded together in great orders based on the powers they wielded. As a shaman, Rocangus was formally initiated as a farseer of the Earthen Ring, meeting in their cavernous hall overlooking the Maelstrom, near where Thrall had worked to contain the damage done by Deathwing during the Cataclysm. He mainly operated in the mountainous northeastern regions of the Broken Isles during the conflict, particularly making a study of the vrykul towns and shrines in Stormheim. When the way to Argus was opened, he would join the conflict there as well, feeling particularly pained by the elemental agony of the broken world.

Rocangus was horrified when he witnessed the blade of Sargeras plunged into Azeroth's heart, which caused horrific wounds to break out across the world. Her potent magical lifeblood, spilling from those wounds, was exploited by the Alliance and the Horde as "Azerite". The move to control this substance led to the formal beginning of the "Fourth War", and brought the Alliance to Kul Tiras, to bring them back into the fold, and to Zandalar, to prevent the Horde from bringing the Zandalari fleet under their control. Rocangus took ship with Admiral Eliphas Aximand for Boralus, the capital of Kul Tiras, and offered his services against the Horde and others who threatened the land.

While serving in Kul Tiras, Rocangus learned that his father's broken, scorched armor had been recovered along with his weapon, but that it was considered virtually irreparable at the time. Calling upon the services of Vindicator Jeniraan, a Lightforged veteran and master blacksmith he had met during the campaign on Argus, Rocangus requested that the armor be restored. Jeniraan readily agreed to his request; choosing to honor the dwarven heritage of both the armor and its wearers, the vindicator began the work at the Great Anvil in Ironforge. He worked at the task for days using lightweight but strong metals, similar to those used by the Army of the Light, to allow the shaman better ease of movement while maintaining the armor's appearance and integrity. Upon receiving the newly reforged armor, Rocangus gave Jeniraan his father's hammer from the Ironforge bank vault to use as a smithing hammer, as a token of his gratitude.