User:Joshmaul/Jaeden'laek the Seer

"'We will do what we have always done. We will survive, and we will see what the world has in store for us next.'"
 * - Ambassador Jaeden'laek, to Master Ketiron, General Tanis and Baron Devaneaux - the pact at Sorrow Hill

The Farseer Jaeden'laek, an apprentice of Farseer Nobundo, was the chief advisor to the leaders of Saavedro's Coalition and served for several years as the right hand of Saavedro of Stratholme. A veteran of both the war in Outland and the war against the Lich King, Jaeden'laek answered the call of the elements in a world reshaped by the Shattering.

Biography


The son of a priest, Jaeden'laek was born in Farahlon fifty years after the draenei's arrival on the world they called Draenor - roughly a century-and-a-half before the draenei holocaust at the hands of the Horde. He earned a living as an artificer, working in the small towns such as Farahlon, Tuurem and Telmor; much later he began working in Shattrath. Several years before the rise of the Horde, Jaeden'laek and his family - a wife and three daughters - moved to the Temple of Karabor, where Jaeden'laek first met Velen, the leader of all draenei, and Restalaan, the Prophet's chief general. Velen saw the makings of a seer within the artificer, but noted that he also had the heart of a fighter - a fighter for the Light and for the draenei. So Jaeden'laek set aside his work as an engineer and decided to accompany Restalaan to Telmor, where the Prophet's right hand served as captain of the guard. There, he saw his first orcs - Durotan, son of Garad, and Orgrim, son of Telkar Doomhammer, two orcs who would become part of the Horde that would slaughter the draenei...

To Karabor and Beyond
When Telmor fell, Jaeden'laek fled with other survivors to the Temple of Karabor, where they remained until the orcs decided to lay siege to it. During the attack, Jaeden'laek's parents, wife and children were butchered by the orcs, an event that has remained a haunting part of his life ever since. Fleeing with the Karaborian cleric Akama, Jaeden'laek was dismayed to see that the valiant monk had begun to degenerate into a Krokul, or "Broken". Joining up with Velen, Jaeden'laek remained at his Prophet's side until the time of the raid on Tempest Keep, five decades later.

When Tempest Keep arrived in Outland - as Draenor was now known - and was seized by Kael'thas Sunstrider and his blood elves, Velen decided the time was ripe to make their escape from their shattered world. The Prophet mobilized his people to assault the floating citadel and take control of the Exodar satellite. Jaeden'laek offered his engineering expertise to the operation, and battled against the blood elves who sought to stop them. Though the blood elves managed to sabotage the Exodar, the naaru vessel materialized in the world of Azeroth, screaming across the skies of northern Kalimdor and crash-landing on the Azuremyst island chain.

Awakening
Before the raid on the Exodar, Jaeden'laek experienced his first vision. A Broken would come, touched by the elements, and he would be taken in by the Prophet and allowed to teach others the ways of the shaman - a path formerly taken by the orcs before they became genocidal, blood-crazed maniacs. He would teach any who would listen about how to show the proper respect to the elemental spirits, and how to harness their power against the enemies of the draenei. Sure enough, not long afterwards, a former Vindicator named Nobundo arrived in the Prophet's camp and - despite the prejudicial responses from the vindicators - was allowed in to see the Prophet in private. Velen encouraged Nobundo to find anyone willing to follow the path of shamanism, for the purity of the elements was as holy as the purity of the Light. With Velen's blessing, Jaeden'laek took up his destined path. He was joined by many others, including a young woman named Ammenkayn, daughter of one of Restalaan's vindicators. With the powers of the elements on their side, Velen led the draenei in their raid on the Exodar.

When he awoke in Ammen Vale, having survived the Exodar crash, Jaeden'laek began putting into effect the lessons that Nobundo had taught him in the ruins of Draenor...

Independent Investigator
In the year-and-a-half since his arrival on Azeroth, Jaeden'laek has acted as a private, impartial investigator acting on behalf of Stormwind Intelligence. SI:7, which also acts as the Alliance assassins' guild, has investigated such incidents as the actions of the Defias Brotherhood, Grimtotem and deserter activity in Dustwallow Marsh, and the disappearance of a Stormwind diplomat - in reality, King Varian Wrynn himself - on his way to Theramore. Jaeden'laek, having done many such tasks for the Hand of Argus on the Azuremyst Isles, warmed to the challenge of serving the greater Alliance all across the world of Azeroth.

One of his most serious cases was the investigation behind a break-in in Saavedro of Stratholme's personal vault in the Bank of Stormwind. The trail led the two to a former Lordaeron nobleman named Artimus Devaneaux, who had used an alias and a forged permission slip claimed to have been from Saavedro himself to access the vault, steal a set of crafted armor and weapons that the paladin had set aside, and escaped. Jaeden'laek went to Northshire Abbey, where Artimus had stayed shortly before deciding to sell his soul to the Lich King, and found Artimus' journal, showing him to be a man blinded by greed, hate and rage. Jaeden'laek accompanied a friend of Saavedro's, a dwarven general named Korogh Madeyes, to Northrend and lost track of the renegade (and the general, who ran in after him) in the ruins of Azjol-Nerub, waiting until they were rescued by Lord Kel'theris Decibelius, a mage of Dalaran.

The Fighting Shaman
In addition to being a skilled seer, engineer and investigator, Jaeden'laek is also a warrior. He was trained by Restalaan himself in the use of the maces that were favored by draenei soldiers when he joined the Telmor city guard. Upon arrival on Azeroth and his elevation to the status of farseer, he was trained in Ironforge in the use of axes. Most recently, he began training in the use of daggers - having received two long blades as a gift from Saavedro - under the tutelage of Master Mathias Shaw of SI:7. Under Shaw's instruction, Jaeden'laek honed his skills with a blade to superb quickness, with only rogues able to match him.

Unlike some shaman, who use their magic almost exclusively, Jaeden'laek uses relatively few totemic and elemental powers, and the ones he does use are used to aid him in hand-to-hand. From his experience fighting the early Horde on Draenor, Jaeden'laek prefers a straightforward fight rather than blasting his foes from afar with lightning or fire.

Gift of Prophecy
Like Velen, Jaeden'laek has the gift of Sight, able to fortell the future. He made two prophecies relating to two different men, both of them death knights - Baron Artimus Devaneaux, master of the Council of Deathlords, and Seekthreed, an orc he met in the wilds of Kalimdor.

Artimus' prophecy was made during his service to the Scourge, fortelling his break from the Lich King's control. The prophecy he made for Seekthreed was at his request; despite ancient hatreds and the hotheadedness of the orc, Jaeden'laek agreed to look into Seekthreed's future, and delivered his message, fortelling the second split of the Council of Deathlords. The first had been a separation between the Ebon Blade and the Scourge; the second, he saw, would be between members of the Council and the increasingly paranoid Scarlet Baron.

A Draenei in Orgrimmar?


At the height of the war with the Lich King, as he prepared to join with the Argent Crusade to make the final push, Saavedro was becoming increasingly concerned with the state of affairs between the Alliance and the Horde. He knew, as Jaina Proudmoore and Tirion Fordring did, that only an alliance between the two would bring an end to the Scourge once and for all. Ever one to tempt fate, Saavedro decided to challenge the age-old hatred between orc and draenei, and he sent Jaeden'laek (with the authority of a reluctant King Varian) to Orgrimmar as his emissary to the Horde. Unlike Varian, Saavedro held Warchief Thrall in high regard, praising his honesty and his desire for peace between his people and those who had been his enemies.

Jaeden'laek, while somewhat skeptical of the idea, decided to take it one step further. He suggested that his bodyguard would also be draenei, and the other would be well-known to the Horde as well: Battlelord Velenkayn, with whom Jaeden'laek had built up a working relationship maintaining the peace in the regions that Saavedro and his comrades had cleared out months earlier - insuring that nothing went wrong that would jeopardize the initiative in Icecrown. With this rather odd pairing - a Light-fearing shaman and a death knight - all set to go, Jaeden'laek left for Durotar and (after sending word ahead to the House of Whitehair to send an honor guard that would give them access to the city) presented his credentials to Warchief Thrall.

Family


Jaeden'laek was the son of the High Anchorite of Farahlon and his wife, and had an elder sister named Tasaera. He married a Telmor guard named Caerys, a childhood friend of his sister's; it was her service, combined with his sojourn to Karabor, that inspired him to join the city guard as well. They had three daughters before the Horde holocaust. Jaeden'laek was joined by his wife and children when they fled to the Temple of Karabor, where Caerys became one of the Temple guards. Caerys and all three daughters, as well as Jaeden'laek's mother and father, were killed when the Horde attacked the Temple and butchered everyone in it as a test of their new warlock powers. Jaeden'laek and Tasaera escaped to Shattrath, where Tasera joined the Aldor's guard force.

When Jaeden'laek fled Shattrath, Tasaera refused to leave her duties and remained behind. Jaeden'laek believed her dead for decades afterwards, until a chance encounter in Outland a year-and-a-half after the opening of the Dark Portal. Tasera had by that time joined the Peacekeeper forces maintained by the Sha'tar in a mostly-restored Shattrath City. When she saw that Jaeden'laek had not only survived but thrived on the world of Azeroth, Tasaera was ecstatic, asking about the powers over the elements that he had been granted by the elemental spirits.

In-Game Accomplishments

 * Current gear and raid experience
 * Everything so far