User:Joshmaul/Urgan of the Black Harvest

"'He is unstoppable! He is immortal! Saavedro has failed us...he lives...oh, my good Master, something terrible has happened. Our House is damned - the Corruptor lives!'"
 * - Lieutenant Ivaris Sunblade of the Whitehair House Guard, near death, while questioned by Master Taeril'hane Ketiron

Urgan of the Black Harvest, known by friend and foe alike as the Corruptor, is an orc warlock who has been active since the days of the Old Horde. In the near-decade since the Battle of Mount Hyjal, he has become feared and reviled by all who know of him, constantly growing in power with the use of artifacts he had collected over the years. After being defeated by a "grand coalition" of his foes in both the Alliance and the Horde during the war against the Lich King, Urgan largely disappeared from the world stage, and was believed by many to be dead - but using the powers of illusion, he hid in plain sight among those who fought against the Scourge in Icecrown.

Consumed by greed, powerlust and vengeance, Urgan sought to claim greater power through any means necessary, and achieve the one goal that had eluded him since the beginning: A final victory over his greatest enemy, Saavedro of Stratholme. As prophecied, Saavedro slew the Corruptor in single combat, apparently at the cost of his own life. But Urgan had set great wheels in motion, and - on the eve of victory against the Burning Legion - the Corruptor was returned to life. In time, he would rise to the leadership of the Modas il Toralar, the feared cult of darkness within the ranks of the Horde...

Origins
Born in the village of Gul'rok on the edge of what is now the Bone Wastes in Terokkar Forest, Urgan was a member of the Bleeding Hollow clan, and eventually became a shaman. Like many of his contemporaries, he fell into the embrace of fel magic during the rise of the Horde, and used his dark powers in battle against the Alliance during the First War. Though he publicly "repented" in the wake of Orgrim Doomhammer's purges of warlock magic in the Horde, he secretly used his powers against the dwarves during the Bleeding Hollow's siege of Ironforge during the Second War. Captured and held in the internment camp that is now Hammerfall in the Arathi Highlands after the Battle of Blackrock Spire, he was freed years later.

Urgan kept a low profile during the establishment of Durotar, until he eventually came into contact with the warlock guild rising up in the Cleft of Shadows in Orgrimmar. His journeys in search of greater power eventually brought him to the Undercity in Lordaeron, where the Forsaken used black magic relatively openly, and where he began his on-and-off alliance with the shadow priest Sekhesmet of Stratholme. Urgan also spent the years that followed in conflict with a number of "do-gooders" in both the Alliance and the Horde, including Blood Knight Master Taeril'hane Ketiron and the "redeemed" death knight Baron Artimus Devaneaux. His bitterest nemesis was the paladin Saavedro of Stratholme, Sekhesmet's former student, and they clashed regularly in the Plaguelands, Outland, and Northrend. It was Saavedro who dubbed him "the Corruptor" for his penchant for using dark magic to turn Saavedro's allies into enemies, and Urgan accepted it as a badge of honor.

Believed to have been killed by Saavedro and Ketiron in Northrend during the Cataclysm, Urgan's powers remained within his desiccated corpse, which were kept in stasis by Professor Rakeri Sputterspark, a mad gnome who had been recruited by one of Urgan's early apprentices, Linavil Shadowsun. Rakeri experimented on the body and used it to claim fel empowerment, destroying the corpse... however, his spirit was saved afterward and kept in a soulstone by his vrykul acolyte Helbrand the Wanderer, who turned his soulstone over to the Council of the Black Harvest. The power Rakeri took from his corpse was released after he was killed on the time-altered Draenor and has been wielded by a number of "wannabe Corruptors", including the corrupted Stormwind mage Alieth Taldir, who was raised as a Forsaken by Sekhesmet and made into his unwilling puppet. After Taldir was killed by enemies of Sekhesmet, her powers made their way back to the soulstone at Dreadscar Rift, and Urgan was resurrected. Having been absent from the world for so long, he found that Saavedro was dead, Ketiron was undead, and the world of Azeroth is very different. He travelled to Argus using the teleport beacon in Dalaran near the end of the campaign there, seeing for himself the domain of the Legion, and witnessing Sargeras' last act of spite in Silithus. It was shortly after his resurrection that he reconnected with Sekhesmet, and became a member of the feared shadow syndicate known as the Modas il Toralar. By the Zandalar campaign, he would eventually rise to lead what remained.

With Azeroth again at war, the Corruptor - impressed with the increasing lack of scruples shown by now-Warchief Sylvanas - took a wait-and-see approach, but looked forward to adding to the pain and suffering that no doubt lay ahead. His patience was rewarded starting with the Darkshore campaign, witnessing the "magnificence" of the burning of Teldrassil. During the siege of Lordaeron, he was challenged to Mak'gora - a ritual duel to the death - by Ketiron, now known as "the Crimson King", only to be denied a fair result by the interference of Sekhesmet. Enraged, the Corruptor slew Sekhesmet on the spot...and was utterly astonished that Saavedro, who had previously been thought banished to oblivion, had resurfaced in the prison that had once been his body, and now called himself "Shankolin". He was even more shocked when Shankolin left without taking action, leading him to wonder exactly what his erstwhile enemy would do...

Sometime afterward, the Mag'har - the remnants of the Iron Horde living on the alternate Draenor - made their appearance as members of the Horde, and Urgan has discovered that there is a shaman among them who looks a lot like him. As he looks over the front lines in Zandalar, he wonders how this information was going to be used against him...or how to use this himself.