User:Joshmaul/Vindicator Velenkayn

"'These strangers who came from the other world, this Azeroth - there are even some draenei among them. Some of them look familiar, some don't...is this a sign, Jaeden'laek? Do you think...'new' versions of us are coming from this Azeroth to replace us?'"
 * - Vindicator Velenkayn, to his friend, Artificer Jaeden'laek

Velenkayn was a draenei vindicator and guardsman of Telmor, forced to relocate to Karabor after the town was sacked by the Shadow Council. After the defeat of the Burning Legion at Hellfire Citadel, Velenkayn rose to the rank of exarch in the Lightbound, the draenei-led army seeking to pacify Draenor in the name of the Light - and battle against the orcs who refused to submit. He would spend his last years in a personal struggle with a Mag'har shaman, ultimately ending in his death at the orc's hands.

Biography
When the time-altered world of Draenor was connected to the Dark Portal on Azeroth, an expedition led by the Archmage Khadgar (just as he had done on the original Draenor, now Outland, in the aftermath of the Second War) travelled through it to combat the Iron Horde. Among those who travelled through was the worgen archdruid Eidan Zherron, packleader of the Shadowhowl and advisor to the High Priestess Genevra Stoneheardt. Packleader Zherron, guided out of curiosity, travelled to the town of Telmor in the forests of Talador (Terokkar Forest, in the "main timeline"), remembering that Battlelord Velenkayn had remarked that he was a vindicator who had served in Telmor during the rise of the Old Horde more than thirty years before.



Much to Zherron's surprise, upon speaking with Captain Restalaan of the Telmor city guard, he found that there was a Vindicator Velenkayn in the Telmor guard here as well. He and his father, Vindicator Incarikayn, had remained in Talador, with Incarikayn joining the defense forces in Shattrath City; Velenkayn had evacuated his wife Taelina and their daughter Taelinkayn (who would become Ammenkayn in the main timeline) to Karabor. Zherron introduced himself and explained where he had come from. The vindicator asked point blank what the worgen's interest was in him, to which Zherron revealed that there was a Velenkayn with the same family currently residing on Azeroth, where he had become a death knight of the Scourge after being slain in battle and raised by the Lich King - who had once been Ner'zhul, the orcish chieftain of the Shadowmoon clan. Vindicator Velenkayn listened to the tale with a mixture of horror and fascination.

Several days after their meeting, Telmor was sacked by the Shadow Council, which had broken away from the mainstream Iron Horde and was attempting to transform the orcs into a fighting force in service to the Burning Legion, ancient enemies of the draenei. But rather than be hunted to near extinction, as they had been on the original Draenor, the draenei stood their ground and - aided by the Alliance and the Horde from Azeroth - fought against both the iron tide and the demonic corruption both within the orcs...and, it was discovered later, within their own people. Velenkayn fought to protect survivors as they fled to the districts of Auchindoun and beyond, supported by Azerothian reinforcements. Among them was the blood elf general and paladin Taeril'hane Ketiron, a friend of the "original" Velenkayn.

Following the fall of Telmor and fighting off the Iron Horde siege of Shattrath, things grew steadily worse. His father, Incarikayn, was assassinated in Shattrath by agents of the Sargerei, draenei traitors who served the eredar lord Socrethar (formerly Exarch Othaar, head of the Sha'tari and leader of the Council of Exarchs), and sought to rejoin their "man'ari" brethren under Archimonde and Kil'jaeden in the Burning Legion; Auchindoun itself was breached by Teron'gor, acting on orders from his master, Gul'dan, the lord of the Shadow Council. It was during the fighting for Auchindoun that the Vindicator at last met the Battlelord, and together they worked to keep the Sargerei and Shadow Council forces at bay while champions sent by Exarch Maladaar and Lady Liadrin confronted and (supposedly) defeated Teron'gor. Upon the death of Vindicator Maraad during the Iron Horde siege in Shattrath, he was interred there; after his murder at the hands of the mad mage Alieth Taldir, so was Battlelord Velenkayn, at last granted the peace of death he had been so long denied by the power of the Scourge.

While others fought in Nagrand against the Warsong and in Tanaan against the newly-created "Fel Horde", Velenkayn remained at Karabor with his family, acting as a guardian for the temple. However, he never forgot the Azerothians who had come to help them, and agreed with Exarch Yrel's promise to aid Azeroth should the Legion ever return.

Bound by Light, Broken in Death
Though orcs and draenei worked together in peace at first, the draenei descended into zealotry following the defeat of Archimonde at Hellfire Citadel. Velenkayn was among those who embraced the new way eagerly, and rose to the rank of exarch. His sudden move from peaceful coexistence to forced submission earned him the ire of an orc shaman named Urgan, who had belonged to the long-fallen Bleeding Hollow clan until it had succumbed to the temptations offered by Gul'dan, and now lived among the united orcs, now called the "Mag'har". For more than two decades, the farseer and the exarch clashed in some form or another, finally culminating in one last bloody duel in the wilds of Gorgrond. Wounded, and with only the hammer in his hand to fight with, Urgan struck Velenkayn in the head with enough force that the stone head of his hammer shattered. Keeping up the offensive, Urgan then stabbed the exarch in the chest with the broken haft of the weapon, before finally finishing him by snapping his neck. Urgan used Velenkayn's bloodied and broken armor to forge an axe blade to replace his hammer, and also salvaged his broken crystal warhammer to forge another axe. Ironically, Urgan would carry both weapons to Azeroth, when the Horde from that world finally returned to deliver them from the Lightbound.