 Yokumba the Younger
| |
|---|---|
 Yokumba the Younger as he appears in-game. | |
|
Race |
Jungle/Zandalari Troll |
|
Sex |
Male |
|
Born |
March 15th, 7 L.C. (Age 25) |
|
Tribe |
|
|
Affiliations |
|
|
Family |
|
|
Loa Affinity |
|
|
Alignment |
|
|
Occupation |
Witch doctor |
|
Status |
Alive |
Yokumba the Younger is a reformer and adapt witch doctor belonging to the Darkspear Tribe. He is the first and only son of Samati the Pariah, a Darkspear shrine priestess, and the infamous Zandalari captain Yokumba (the Elder). Despite a troublesome childhood brought upon by the circumstances of his birth, Yokumba has dutifully stood by his tribe and fiercely fights in the name of the New Horde. Equipped with ancient dark voodoo, alchemical knowledge, and a penchant for slaying mages, Yokumba has found mild success on and off the battlefield, even though his victories are routinely punctuated by moments of failure and disaster.
This Troll currently resides in the southern foothills of the Highmountain border with Suramar. He regularly descends upon the ancient lands of the Nightborne to pillage the now-charred ruins and skirmish with the remaining forces of the Grand Alliance and remnants of the elite, Legion-supporting shal'dorei in preparation for any major military action the Horde may take to seize the valuable region. It is also here that Yokumba spends his time studying the ancient laws and traditions of his people, writing treatises on how the Trolls must adapt once again to a changing world.
Biography[]
Early Childhood[]
Born over a decade before the arrival of the Orcs on the Darkspear Islands, Yokumba the Younger was initially not considered to be a member of the Darkspear Tribe. Though his mother, Samati, could trace her bloodline back to the time of Hakkar before the splintering of the Gurubashi Tribe, he was sired by the Zandalari Yokumba the Elder. At the time of Yokumba's conception, Samati was a 17-year old virgin priestess who was offered by her family to maintain the small, swampy shrine to a local loa called Olm'ek. His far less pious father was a captain within the expansive Zandalari navy, and would routinely use the islands upon which the Darkspear settled as a rest stop during long voyages from Zuldazar to the Drakkari capital of Zul'drak.
Yokumba the Younger was born on March 15th, 7 L.C. not far from the dim torchlight that illuminated the shrine of Olm'ek and was begrudgingly blessed by the chieftain Sen'jin as a member of the Darkspear tribe on June 21st, 7 K.C. Though his mother was permitted to carry him to term, it was decided by the tribe that she would no longer perform the sacred rites once tasked to her.
Instead, she performed mundane chores for the remaining priestesses, such as collecting reagents needed for rituals and tending to the local population of persnickety firebomb salamanders. The earliest years Yokumba can remember were spent assisting his mother in her tasks and although she trusted the toddler with the safer activities, painful stings, bites, and itchy rashes were all too common.
The Darkspear hesitantly accepted the young Yokumba, despite his unusual heritage and his now-ostracized mother. Upon his 8th birthday (15 L.C.), Yokumba was sent from the shrine to the main Darkspear village to learn the ways of the witch doctor under Master Gadrin. Barely a year had passed before Master Gadrin declared the young Troll "unteachable" and ceased his role as a mentor due to Yokumba's impatience and easily provoked temper, which led to brawls with the other students. While these traits may have been sought after in bersekers, they were unsuitable for the meticulous craft of the witch doctors.
Zandalari Purification[]
Around the age of 10 (17 L.C.), Yokumba the Younger was unwillingly and unknowingly involved in the cleansing ritual known as The Purification. Likely invoked by his father, the ritual calls upon the ancient and primitive pterrorwing loa Num to "maintain" the purity of the Zandalari race by trimming the inevitable "impure" family trees that became inevitable due to the far reach of the Zandalari. The ritual often takes many months, or even years, as the ethereal Num sends out one of her material avatars to hunt down the offspring of Zandalari and non-Zandalari parents. The death of a half-Zandalari, however, is not always certain.
A pterrorsaur avatar of Num.
Though their blood may be mixed, Trolls can still prove that the superiority of the Zandalari is within them if they are able to slay the flesh and blood avatar of Num. Yokumba succeeded in this task when the avatar of Num attacked him during his mid-day feeding of firebomb salamanders, which was followed by the young Troll fleeing first into deeper brush and then throwing one or two of the extremely combustible salamanders into the pterrorwings snapping maw. Though he still maintains that it was the adaptability and determination of the Darkspear that saw him through his trial, the effects of the newfound guardianship of the broodmother Num remain powerful to this day.
This bond with Num was uncommon outside of pure-blooded Zandalari for obvious reasons, and is what drew the attention of another Darkspear by the name of T'zwari. A Shadow Hunter turned Witch Doctor in her old age, T'zwari was a veteran of the bloody Gurubashi War against the Humans of Stormwind. Armed with Zandalari voodoo previously bestowed upon her northern, Forest kin to counter the powerful magic of the encroaching High Elves, T'zwari followed the Gurubashi to Stormwind. Provoked by the immense slaughter of Jungle Trolls by the Guardian Medivh, the Trolls laid siege to the city, with T'zwari slaying a handful of the many mages attempting to defend the human capital. Being in the right place at the right time was the only thing that saved T'zwari from the obliteration of the Troll army, and she returned to Stranglethorn with the survivors in the aftermath.
It was her immense knowledge of Zandalari voodoo and her innate connection to the Loa that led her to believe that Yokumba would be worth teaching, as his blood alone made him more of a competent candidate than any of the local Darkspear. T'zwari quickly took him under her wing as her only pupil, and was quick to impart discipline upon him. While a student, Yokumba learned not only the traditional witch doctor skills, such as hexes and potion crafting, but also the martial techniques that had been T'zwari's practice for most of her life. It was under her watchful and critical eye that Yokumba created his first ankh'er'ah, a enchanted weapon (often a dagger) wielded by the Shadow Hunters of a thousand years ago.
