Vakos Stormchaser

Elder **Vakos Stormchaser** is a fallen shaman, standing proudly in his attempts for redemption. He is a proud member of the Wildhammer Clan, as well as a venerable member of the Dwarven Vanguard. His head is adorned with tattoos of his clan, as well as a red marking of a wolf over the left side of his scalp. He wears a blindfold over his eyes, being blind after losing both his eyes on separate occasions; despite this he is led by the whisperings of the elements and a bit of instinct and luck.

## History

#### Early Life

Vakos was born in Grim Batol, a hill dwarf of the Stormchaser Clan loyal to the Wildhammer. Vakos' generation marked the time between the Wildhammer's expulsion from Ironforge, but before the exodus from Grim Batol after the War of Three Hammers. Because of this, Vakos carried on a long tradition of mixed feeling towards both the Bronzebeard and Dark Iron clans. Vakos' father was Jorgan, a blacksmith. His mother was Baelinda. Vakos was born the fourth of five brothers: Malik, Haldenar, Victengar, Ozen, as well as his younger brother Laugren. He also had an older sister, Saerae.

When the Dark Iron came north in the War of Three Hammers, Vakos was only a young dwarf and green in combat. As the majority of the Wildhammer dwarves were conscripted into the defense of their city, Vakos watched as his father and older brothers fell in combat. Vakos was at one point knocked down by a Dark Iron maurader, but managed to grab the Dark Iron's head and sear his face within the steel helmet in a way Vakos could not even begin to comprehend. After the battle, the Wildhammer were left homeless and destitute. Vakos' mother threw herself onto a fire in anguish. Vakos' sister Saerae took their younger brother Laugren and fled into the Highlands; Vakos instead choosing to head north into Lordaeron with many of his kin to find a new home.

#### Call of the Elements

The Wildhammer people arrived in the Hinterlands unaware of what their exodus would produce. They began to live off the land, build cities on the surface rather than excavating the earth. They had seen the devastation produced by the Bronzebeards and Dark Iron in their homes and chose to carve a different path. Thus, the at-times barbaric and naturalistic clan of dwarves was born. Vakos was amongst the first to adorn his head and body with the tattos that would mark him as one of his kind.

Left without a family after the war, Vakos often wandered the forests of the north by himself. There he heard the quiet murmers that he'd listened to in the bowels of Grim Batol against the Dark Iron. The same voices that ushered him to melt the steel helmet around the dwarf's skull. He listened to them, crawling further into the wilderness; going further and further each day into an unknowable land. There he found another Wildhammer dwarf, Talgren Kilrok; a hermit and seller of strange herbs. Kilrok told Vakos that there were spirits in the dirt of the earth, the wind, and the rivers and rain. That despite what Vakos had been told, that the Light and Arcane was not the only power in the world.

Kilrok showed Vakos some of the first beginnings of Wildhammer shamanism; allowing Vakos to communicate with the elements. He started to speak to them, praying to them, and allowing a bond to form. The elements returned in kind, shaping the world around Vakos. Vakos, along with the other shamans of the clan, began promoting the elements as a more pure and good way to live; the Wildhammer being shaped not so much by teachings of old but by the world around them.

#### Troll Wars and the Blind Wolf

When the Amani trolls began to use their old hunting grounds now occupied by the Wildhammer, conflict was inevitable. War erupted constantly as vicious trolls and wild dwarves clashed in the borderlands between their homes. As Vakos aged, he became a powerful soldier; the gifts of the elements bestowed upon him allowed him to survive and emerge victorious in many clashes with the trolls. But dwarves fell constantly, and thus a new type of warrior needed to be made.

The first of the berserkers were merely those who were the fiercest of fighters. The almost savage nature of Wildhammer combat encouraged the dwarves to fight in a brutal manner. The Thanes of Aerie Peak and the surrounding hill lords however needed better warriors to protect their lands. As the rituals and traditions to producing bersekers however cemented, it became more a test of the utmost strength and endurance. Vakos, as a shaman, often administered these rituals and learned the intricacies of herbalism, runemastery, and how the elements could shape not only the physical world but also of a dwarf's soul.

After a long time, Vakos was hand-picked to become a berserker. He spent months scratching rocks for little sustinence with no shelter and only a simple spear to protect himself against the environment and trolls he encountered. After surviving for so long, he was met by a soothsayer who had Vakos smoke the leaves of a blue flower he had never seen before. With it, he entered a deep trance and began to see a distorted and at times horrifying vision of the world around him. He stopped fighting the real beasts around him, and was forced to combat the dark images and demons within his mind. He began to follow a strange silhouette through the demented and twisted wilds. He felt drawn to it, and began to track and stalk it. It moved faster than he ever could and was always just getting away. Vakos collapsed from exhaustion, and the silhouette turned to face the dwarf. It took the form of a grey wolf, both its eyes missing. The wolf growled menacingly at Vakos, the dwarf thinking it would surely end his life. Instead, it tiled its head and whispered Kalimag. It said, "((to insert )) ." With that, the wolf fled into the deep forest and Vakos was left lying there for several days before returning to his people. He told an elder shaman of his journey, and was given the title, "Blind Wolf of the Valley".