User:Joshmaul/Thek'la

"'For honor and da purity of da elements, I be servin'.'"
 * - Thek'la

Thek'la is a Darkspear shaman from the Echo Isles who rallied to the banner of Sekhesmet of Stratholme after being exiled by Chieftain Vol'jin for murdering his father and mentor, Master Ve'rak. After Sekhesmet's apparent demise, Thek'la remained with the Forsaken for a time before wandering in the wilds of Pandaria in the wake of the war there, and offered his aid to his former chieftain, Vol'jin, in the war against Garrosh Hellscream. Following Hellscream's downfall, he was given a full pardon and allowed to come home.

Biography
Thek'la was born in Stranglethorn fifteen years prior to the Darkspear joining the Horde, and lived under the constant threat of the Sea Witch and her minions. In honor of their ancestors, each male member of the family colored their hair white and wore greyish-white face paint, and when he came of age shortly before the arrival of the Horde, Thek'la did the same. Fleeing across the sea with Thrall and his Horde as they made their exodus to Kalimdor, Thek'la and his father settled on the Echo Isles with their people, and later at Sen'jin Village and Orgrimmar after Zalazane's coup. It would be several years before Zalazane would fall for good - and Thek'la would begin his training, for he too had the grasp of the spirit magics.

Things did not go well once they returned to the Isles, however. Thek'la was impatient and reckless, and Ve'rak tried his best to curb his son's excesses. It eventually came down to a showdown in the middle of Darkspear Isle, where Thek'la boldly lashed out with a blast of frost. A shard of frozen water broke from the bolt and slashed Ve'rak's throat; he was dead within moments. Rather than kill the shaman, believing the incident to be an accident, Vol'jin exiled Thek'la from the Echo Isles on pain of death. Disheartened and angry, Thek'la left to wander the world, and eventually landed in Lordaeron. It was there that he met someone who would guide him...

The Meeting with the Blighted Father
Sekhesmet had become a powerful shadow priest since his resurrection, and was also a master apothecary. While the Forsaken were apathetic to who ruled in Orgrimmar, their tactics were tolerated (to a degree) far more as the days went on under Garrosh than they had been under Thrall, and they made no secret of their methods. As a result, Sekhesmet was more openly seen in Orgrimmar than he had been under Thrall's rule, and it was here that he encountered the young troll shaman. Rather than laugh or try to kill him, Sekhesmet sensed that this was a potentially useful ally, and demonstrated his own powers, and spoke of his philosophy of gaining more. Intrigued, Thek'la desired to learn more about gaining power, and Sekhesmet taught him accordingly.

Embracing the Blighted Father's will, Thek'la altered his appearance drastically so that he would not be recognized. As a final break from his "old life", the exiled shaman pledged his services to Sekhesmet and his mistress, the Dark Lady Sylvanas, as he believed himself to be "forsaken" by his people. But as time went on, the shaman realized that Sekhesmet was insane and obsessed with vengeance against his former student, Saavedro of Stratholme, a mighty paladin. It was in Southshore that he had an epiphany that perhaps Sekhesmet's people were not the kind of people he wanted to be associated with, seeing the toxic sludge that covered the human village. It violated the purity of the elements, and to a shaman - even an embittered exile like Thek'la - that very idea was sacrilege.

It was during his service to Sekhesmet that he eventually made his way to Pandaria, as the renewed war between the Alliance and the Horde spilled into a new land.

Ketiron and the Road to Redemption
Upon witnessing the power of the Sha of Doubt as it utterly desolated the Serpent's Heart, Thek'la was horrified to realize that Sekhesmet wanted to harness such power for himself...and in time, word came that Garrosh Hellscream was thinking the same thing. Realizing that he had allowed his anger and ambition to blind him, Thek'la began to distance himself from the mad priest, and was not at all surprised when Saavedro eventually vanquished him at the summit of Mount Neverest in Kun-Lai.

Following Sekhesmet's death, Thek'la still returned to Undercity from time to time, but this became less frequent as he immersed himself in the elemental powers of Pandaria. For the first time, he began to realize that Vol'jin had been right about exiling him, and had been merciful - he could easily have ordered his execution. It was during this period that Thek'la met Taeril'hane Ketiron, a powerful sin'dorei nobleman and Blood Knight Master, who offered Thek'la a way to redeem his honor. The troll shaman agreed, and stood at the Master's side during the campaign against the Zandalari, who had aligned with the mogu and resurrected the first Emperor, Lei Shen, in their quest to unite all of troll-kind under their dictatorial banner. It culminated in the final battle against the Zandalari elite in the palace of the Thunder King on the Isle of Thunder; Thek'la took up many items of great power from the hated usurpers.

As Vol'jin became the paramount leader of a revolt against Garrosh, Thek'la sided with his people despite all that had happened, and returned to Durotar with Ketiron during the great siege of Orgrimmar. Following Garrosh's downfall, Thek'la returned to Darkspear Hold and knelt before Vol'jin, now Warchief of the Horde, who decided that Thek'la had proven himself to his people and to the Horde, and allowed him to return home.