User:Joshmaul/Zulimbasha

"'Bwonsamdi don't care how da spirits reach da Other Side... only dat dey do. I will make my own journey to da Shadowlands in time. But until den, dere be always more work ta do...'"
 * - Zulimbasha, death priest of Zandalar

Zulimbasha the Collector is a high priest of Bwonsamdi, the Loa of death and supreme Loa of the Zandalari Empire. Since the Cataclysm, he has been on a quest to deliver souls, troll or otherwise, to the spirit world. He walks the edge between light and darkness, for he believes that all souls are destined to join Bwonsamdi on the "Other Side" - including, eventually, his own. It is with this mentality that he follows his people into the Horde... for better or for worse.

Biography
Born in Zuldazar, Zulimbasha came from two family lines of priests in service to various Loa. His father, Vim'bal, was a priest of Rezan, wielding the Light, while his mother, Zimala, was a priestess of Hir'eek who ritually blinded herself in devotion to her patron. At first, Zulimbasha was considering following in his father's footsteps, but he had an epiphany when his parents came home from a gathering led by adepts of Zul, the prophet to the King. Zulimbasha listened as his parents told him what Zul had predicted - that Zandalar would be consumed by the sea, and the only way to preserve the Zandalari Empire was to set out across the sea and unite the various troll nations under their banner in order to take over Azeroth.

Spurred on by something he did not quite understand, he laughed at them. If death was coming to Zandalar, he told them, then so be it. Death was a natural part of life; they could flee from it all they wanted, they would not be able to avoid it. He went on to mock their belief in Zul; if they were buying into his doomsaying, then they were welcome to it. Zulimbasha would remain behind - and made it clear he did not expect to see either of them alive again. And so, Zulimbasha watched his parents leave with Zul while he remained in Zandalar, thinking on the flash of defiance that had led him to accept death's inevitability. Death was the province of Bwonsamdi, and the idea of placing himself in the service of Death - the first of his family to do so, as all of his ancestors had tried to serve the "living Loa", like Rezan - flashed in his mind the instant he saw his parents' ship disappear over the horizon. Even as he used his healing magic to try to save lives, he could also see that for some, all that could be done was a gentle easing of their spirits to the Other Side.

Thus it would be to Bwonsamdi's service that Zulimbasha would dedicate himself, and conducted the ritual commonly associated with warriors and shadow-hunters - that the souls of those he slew would belong to Bwonsamdi. But he knew there were those who violated the balance, such as the Forsaken who served the Horde, using plague to create legions of the undead. His request to Bwonsamdi was simple: If the lord of the dead would protect him from sickness and poison, he would travel beyond the boundaries of Zandalar to collect souls in his name - particularly those who thought they could run from death. Amused at the fear that motivated the request, Bwonsamdi nonetheless agreed to the bargain; there were always more souls to be found in the world, and Zulimbasha soon began to understand that Bwonsamdi cared little where the souls came from... only that they came to him. In the meantime, however, there was work to be done on the home front: In Nazmir, the swamp-land in which Bwonsamdi maintained his temple, a new threat arose in the form of the blood trolls, savages dedicated not to any Loa in the Zandalari pantheon, but to a god of blood they called "G'huun".

In the Service of Death


Zulimbasha would have a chance to make good on his bargain when the Horde arrived in Zandalar years later at the behest of Princess Talanji, the only child and heir to King Rastakhan. He was disgusted to find that not only were the Forsaken at the vanguard, but that Zul, whom he considered to be a fraud and a deceiver, had come back with them. The Horde vessel moored in the harbor was a Forsaken battleship, the Banshee's Wail, serving as the mobile headquarters for a war against the Alliance - as well as their effort to recruit the Zandalari Empire into the Horde. While he believed, as his patron Loa did, that the Forsaken ruler, Sylvanas Windrunner - who was also the Warchief of the Horde - violated the balance between life and death with her plagues and her val'kyr raising the dead to serve her unwillingly, Zulimbasha was curious about the more "lively" members of the Horde. He interacted with a number of visitors in the Port of Zandalar, including trolls of various tribes, orcs from Durotar and Draenor, tauren from Mulgore and Highmountain, and elves from Quel'Thalas and Suramar, as well as some surprising folk he had not expected... pandaren, both those from the Wandering Isle and those from the mainland. He was even more surprised when they took in the sights and sounds of Zandalar with both cordial grace and keen interest, even in spite of Zul's failed effort to resurrect the ancient mogu tyrant Lei Shen, the fearsome Thunder King, and conquer Pandaria. It would be from the Mag'har orcs, however, that he would receive a gift - a traditional orcish skull mask favored by the Laughing Skull that would serve as a symbol of his calling, as well as strike fear into his enemies.

As he explored the world beyond Zandalar, Zulimbasha's chief interest was in the various undead, searching for potential souls who he deemed had "cheated death" long enough. His gaze fell not only on the Forsaken, but also the death knights - some raised by the former Lich King, others dedicated to the service of the current one - in the ranks of both the Alliance and the Horde. But curiosity would also took hold, and he ultimately decided to set out for Pandaria, gambling on the generous spirit of forgiveness displayed by the pandaren. It would be in the Jade Forest that he would encounter one survivor, a warscout, whom he was very interested in seeing sent to the Other Side: His uncle, Zo'rin, his mother's elder brother. It would be from him that he would learn the fate of his parents, killed by those champions who had come to the defense of Zouchin Province on the northern coast of Kun-Lai. Even in spite of Zul's failed effort to bring back the Thunder King - he had returned only to be killed again, this time for good - Zo'rin remained a "true believer", even as Zulimbasha tried to tell him what had happened... about how Zandalar was intact, how Zul had fallen into the influence of G'huun and tried to overthrow Rastakhan, and how he had paid for it with his life. Zo'rin was not swayed, and attacked his nephew. Though not physically strong, the powers of both Light and Shadow that he wielded as a priest of balance allowed Zulimbasha to overpower him, slaying his uncle on the spot and sending his soul to Bwonsamdi. He then travelled to Zouchin Province, where he discovered the bones of two individuals he knew were his parents; Zimala's skull still showed the scars around her eye sockets from where she had gouged out her eyes in devotion to Hir'eek. The irony that he served a Loa of death, while both of the Loa his father and mother served were actually dead, was not lost on him.

Uncertain Futures


Zulimbasha gathered the bones of his parents and brought them back to Zandalar, laying them out in the catacombs of the Necropolis, Bwonsamdi's temple in the swamps of Nazmir. He had come home to a land still reeling from the death of Rastakhan. Although Zul and his allies in the Zanchuli Council had attempted to topple Rastakhan, swearing themselves to G'huun in a bid to finish what they had begun overseas, they had all ultimately fallen... as had their "Blood God", hunted down and slain in the halls of Uldir. It had been the Alliance who had finally ended Rastakhan's reign, though the "God King" had sworn himself and his line to Bwonsamdi in exchange for the power to defeat the traitors. Zulimbasha had attended the coronation of Talanji before he left on his voyage of exploration, and upon his return to the Necropolis, he began to meditate on what he had seen. Sylvanas was dragging the Horde down a dark slope, and with the Zandalari now associated with them, he began to wonder about the future of his people. There was also a matter of pride to consider, for the Zandalari Empire had existed long before humans, orcs, or any of the other races had crawled out of the primordial soup; with the Golden Fleet gone, the once-mighty Zandalari were now reduced to begging for scraps. But he also knew, based on what he had learned from his interactions with others, that inevitably, something would come along that would be even worse.

It soon became clear that G'huun was "small stuff" compared to what awaited. The way had been opened into Nazjatar, the realm of Queen Azshara and her naga - former night elves who had been transformed by the Old God N'Zoth following the Sundering ten thousand years before. Azshara was able to unlock the way for N'Zoth to return, and the Black Empire began to rise once more, smashing its way through the Vale of Eternal Blossoms in Pandaria and the deserts of Uldum.

Shaken Faith


During that conflict, Zulimbasha discovered - after the pandaren Lorewalker Zhangren Puretide reached out to him for his "death-priest" expertise - that the Knights of the Ebon Blade, the death knights once in the service to the Scourge, were conducting a "recruiting drive", raising new knights for some unknown purpose. Among those raised was Zhangren's elder brother, Zhaoren, who had been killed by the Legion during the sacking of the Peak of Serenity. After the Black Empire finally fell, the conflict with Sylvanas escalated to another siege, culminating in the near-mythical duel between Sylvanas and High Overlord Varok Saurfang, resulting in the orc warrior's death and Sylvanas' abandonment of the Horde. But even as an apparent armistice settled in, the Ebon Blade "recruiting" continued. A surprising addition to the death knights' ranks was the Nightborne arcanist Randarel Vendross, with whom Zulimbasha had struck up a surprising friendship during the war; he had been murdered by Elodie Noirceur, the "Shadowreaper of Suramar", a powerful warlock in the service of Urgan of the Black Harvest. Zhaoren, acting on instructions from his new masters, had taken Randarel's body prior to his burial, as it was decided he still had work to do.

The war against N'Zoth, the endgame at Orgrimmar, and the "desecration" committed by the Ebon Blade had shaken Zulimbasha's spirit even more than the near-collapse of Zandalar. But worse was yet to come; in a confrontation with Zhaoren, who bluntly told him either to strike him down or stand down, Zulimbasha learned from the pandaren that the sky had shattered in Icecrown. There had still been a Lich King directing the Scourge (and the death knights)... except now his crown had been broken, and the damned rampaged across the world. When it became clear that the "breach" in the sky was in fact a gateway to the Shadowlands themselves, Zulimbasha suddenly realized why the Ebon Blade had been raising new death knights: As a vanguard to go beyond the breach. He reluctantly made peace with the idea, as he knew that whatever power had caused such a breach, Bwonsamdi would welcome any help.

What he learned next shook him to the very core. Word came back from the death knight vanguard, and Zulimbasha learned to his horror that Bwonsamdi did not rule the land of the dead... which was not one realm, but many. The Other Side was a very small part of only one of the realms of death. The death knights had made their way through the Maw - the dark realm seen through the breach in Icecrown - to a city called Oribos, where they learned that the natural mechanisms of death had been broken by the Jailer, the Maw's ruler, to ensure that all the souls of the freshly dead made their way to him to suffer in eternal torment. The fact that everything he believed seemed to be a lie nearly drove him to suicide. But in the depths of his despair, he was visited at the Necropolis by Zhaoren, now calling himself "Deathtide". Zhaoren explained the situation he had seen and appealed to Zulimbasha's belief in a balance between life and death, hoping to stir him into action. To that end, Zhaoren also offered him a familiar guide, in the form of Randarel Vendross. Randarel brought Zulimbasha to Oribos, where he revealed that the gateway to the Other Side was believed to be somewhere in the forests of Ardenweald, a realm of nature.

Upon arriving in Ardenweald, Zulimbasha experienced a vision that showed him the truth. Far from being insignificant, Bwonsamdi had in fact made sure that the souls collected by his mortal followers on Azeroth actually arrived on the Other Side. Though the Jailer had usurped the natural order of the Shadowlands, Bwonsamdi had expended a great deal of his power to ensure that at the very least, the spirits of troll-kind made their way to him, rather than the Maw.