Nomad

Nomad is an immensely powerful warrior-mage and the host of the Soul Wars minigame that he created. He will offer free tours of the battlefield along with a short explanation of how the game works, or a book that explains fighting in Soul Wars. The game is just a facade, however, and part of the sorcerer's secret plans that he executes in a huge cave complex beneath Soul Wars Island. Nomad has an unfortunate imp minion called Zimberfizz.

With a combat level of 699, he has the one of the highest combat levels of any quest monster in the game. He may be re-fought as a class A boss in the Dominion Tower (after Nomad's Requiem) or twice consecutively in a special match. During Nomad's Elegy, he returns even stronger at level 799 and with 100,000 life points for each of his 4 phases. Another version of him is fought twice during Sliske's Endgame - once on his own, and another time alongside Linza the Disgraced and Gregorovic (the current titleholder).

History
Nomad used to live in Ghost Town with Zamorakian parents, but they were killed by Temple Knights, leaving Nomad orphaned. The resulting grief drove him insane. He eventually moved to Varrock, where the criminals on the streets took advantage of his weakness, causing him to increase his own strength and prey on the weak in turn. A mysterious mage called Oreb found him and brought him to the Ourania Runecrafting Altar, teaching him their research on souls. He learned more from this man and began to consider Oreb his Master. However, Nomad felt that Oreb's teachings were insufficient. He later killed Oreb, and aware that necromancy may be a way to avoid death, went to the Lumbridge Catacombs to speak with Dragith Nurn. Nurn, now a skeletal shell, refused to divulge his secrets. Nomad realised that Nurn was a dead end and returned to his research.

Eventually, Nomad learned of Lucien, a more powerful necromancer, and needed to get his attention. Nomad decided to become one of Lucien's rivals, knowing that he would get more attention then being one of his sycophants. Nomad stood against Lucien during the Mahjarrat's invasion of Varrock in 154, destroying Lucien's armies and catching his eye. Nomad joined Lucien, and worked with him in an attempt to gain power in the process. Despite this, Lucien refused to teach Nomad any of his secrets, forcing Nomad to find a new way to gain power to rival Lucien.

Nomad created Soul Obelisk, a powerful artefact featuring in the Soul Wars game, to gain immense power from souls by channelling their energy into a throne of his making in secret. He attempted to achieve this by harnessing the soul energy from the throne, supplied by the people playing Soul Wars on the surface. Lucien was eventually aware of Nomad's work, and sent agents to kill him. Nomad killed all of Lucien's agents, however.

By 169, Zimberfizz began to suspect something and recruited an adventurer to check out Nomad's tent. They entered it and discovered Nomad's temple, where they oversaw the man himself being threatened by a trio of elite dark warriors, whom he easily killed. Upon noticing the adventurer, Nomad warned them not to go any farther, but they did so anyway and, working their way through the temple, confronted Nomad on his throne.

Angry that the adventurer came despite his warnings, he was convinced that they were another assassin sent by Lucien. Even though the player can convince him that they are not an assassin, he refuses to let them leave since they had destroyed a lot of his work to find him and did not want anyone else to know about it. He initially had the upper hand in the battle with various extremely powerful attacks, but was eventually defeated by the adventurer, stating that "[they] have doomed this world" before falling to the floor.

After the adventurer told Zimberfizz that Nomad was dead, Zimberfizz initially did not believe it and the two returned to the throne room. The adventurer kicked Nomad to show that he was actually dead. Due to his "death", Zimberfizz became the new Soul Wars host and planned to bottle up the obelisk's souls to sell them. After the two leave, however, Nomad gets back up on his feet, revealing himself to be alive after the battle thanks to the power of the Soul Obelisk reviving him. He then teleported to an unknown location. Not long afterwards, Lucien himself was terminated by Dragonkin in the North.

After the death of Guthix and the dawn of the Sixth Age, he watched as the gods returned, and spoke with a Kinshra spymaster, calling him master to sate the spymaster's ego, and pretended to follow him. He disliked the new master, claiming him to be weak, and killed him. Nomad eventually learned of Guthix's divine energy. He was delighted with the energy of a god, and began to train Divination, eventually being proficient enough to harvest Incandescent wisps. Eventually, Death managed to track down Nomad at the Poison Wastes and captured him.

During the events of Dishonour among Thieves, Zamorak asks the adventurer to find Nomad, stating that Nomad had disposed of traitors in Zamorak's absence. The adventurer encounters Nomad being attacked by Death, who claims that Nomad has stolen souls that belong to the Underworld, and that he himself is supposed to be dead. The adventurer persuades Death to let Nomad go for now, since he is needed to take down Sliske. Death is uneasy with letting Nomad go, but trusts the adventurer's judgement as they had saved him before. Nomad and the rest of the heist team arrive in Sliske's lair. After the adventurer and Jerrod dispose of the initial guards, they eventually find a large door blocking them and the Stone of Jas. Nomad helps unlock the door by empowering one orb, while Enakhra drains the other to prevent the alarm from triggering. Nomad helps take out the elite wights that are hounding the rest of the heist team, who are busy fighting off shadow apparitions Sliske conjured. After the battle, Nomad reveals himself to be a traitor to the Zamorakian cause, and attempts to take the Stone of Jas, or at least a piece of it, throwing his spear at the adventurer.

If the player throws the spear back at Nomad, it will hit him and he will not get a piece of the Stone. Angry, he calls the World Guardian a mercenary. If the player dodges or blocks the spear, he will grab a piece of the Stone, awed by his power and becomes stronger. He then taunts the team on how Zamorak cowers in his hideout, making others do his dirty work for him. Zamorak then appears, angry at Nomad's deception and knocks him to the ground. Before the god can deliver the final blow, however, Nomad teleports out to an unknown location.

During Nomad's Elegy, Nomad attempted to siphon all the dead souls of Gielinor to create a god in the Grim Underworld, with his allies Legio Septimus and the "true" Order of Ascension. However, his schemes were thwarted again by the same Adventurer who defeated him at his throne room with the help of Death, Icthlarin, Zanik, Jessika or Korasi (depending who was killed by Wizard Grayzag in The Void Stares Back), Xenia, and Hazelmere. At the end of the quest, the player is given the choice to kill Nomad. If the player decides to kill him, the camera will pan away as the player executes him with his own spear. If the player lets him live, he will ask why he is being shown mercy despite his actions, but shortly after he says that, Sliske appears and teleports Nomad away against his will. Regardless if he is killed or not, Sliske will take Nomad with him for unknown purposes.

Due to Nomad's heavy consumption of souls, his memories are still lingering in Icthlarin's castle, which the player may fight. However, the memory has become considerably stronger, which Icthlarin warns the player about before they re-enter his castle. Upon being defeated, the memory will grant the player access to its bounty, and to return again next week to face its wrath again. Additionally, a Sinister Stranger leaves behind memories of Nomad, starting the Tale Tales of Nomad delving into Nomad's history through his memories.

Powers and abilities
Nomad is an extremely powerful warrior-mage who siphons souls from the Soul Obelisk to increase his power. He is also very skilled in several areas, as he built the Soul Obelisk and the temple underneath his tent himself. Zimberfizz states that Nomad "certainly knows his ways around Slayer monsters" and caught Zimberfizz with a magic box.

Nomad is capable of using a wide variety of magic, as he uses various teleports to both escape and drag his opponents to him. His knowledge of magics allows him to make clones of himself which are capable of inflicting damage despite not being real. He can charge up powerful attacks such as Disintegrate and Soul Blast. The result of him absorbing countless souls via the Soul Obelisk grants Nomad great power, as he is capable of killing Sliske's Elite Wights in one hit. Nomad can also use his staff as a melee and ranged weapon, shown during Dishonor Among Thieves where he throws it at the player and in Nomad's Elegy where he uses it as a fast melee weapon. He is also capable of resurrecting the dead, although it is unknown to what extent.

Nomad can also absorb souls to increase his power and life expectancy, as Death tells the player that Nomad's soul was due a "long time ago" and that the warrior-mage had taken countless souls from him. This is also shown in between Nomad's Requiem and Elegy, where his combat has increased significantly due to him absorbing many souls.

Trivia

 * It was joked on the fourth day of Cryptic Clue Fest IV, that Nomad is actually a scheming dwarf called Honeydew inside a mechanical suit and that he built the Soul Obelisk with an iron pickaxe.
 * A bug existed that allowed Nomad to be killed without retaliating or using any of his special attacks by using a spirit kyatt. This allowed many low-levelled players that would not have been able to defeat Nomad normally to complete the quest. This has since been fixed.
 * Some medium-level Quest Cape owners were disappointed upon release, as Nomad is very difficult to beat even with high combat stats. This has sparked some debate among the forums. Although there has been some complaint, Jagex has mentioned that they will not weaken Nomad. The developers responded: "Too hard? Nomad is too easy! I wanted him to be much harder! Nomad himself will give you all the hints you need to defeat him while you battle him, so pay close attention to what is happening during the fight!"  Following the release of the Evolution of Combat, Nomad was inadvertently made considerably easier than he was before.
 * With a combat level of 699, Nomad was the highest levelled attackable quest monster in the game at the time of his release (the Spirit Beast was higher although unattackable). His level was reduced to a mere 200 due to the Evolution of Combat. With the release of The World Wakes, Nomad lost this title to Kree'arra and General Graardor, who both have a combat level of 210. Despite this, the fight against Nomad is generally regarded as being much more difficult. Some time after the release of Legacy Mode, his combat level was changed back to 699, making him once again the highest-levelled attackable quest monster. With the release of Nomad's Elegy, he is more powerful at a combat level 799.
 * Before the graphical update in association with the quest Nomad's Requiem, he looked exactly like an elite dark mage - this supported the idea that Nomad's master was Lucien (considering he had an army of Elite Dark warriors, mages and rangers). The idea of Nomad's master being Lucien was confirmed by Mod Mark in the official RuneScape lore Q&A from 4 November 2012.
 * Nomad has become much stronger since the events in Nomad's Requiem; in Dishonour among Thieves, he consistently hits 15,000 against Elite Wights when the player controls him. However, as the wights only have 15,000 life points, it is possible that Nomad is even more powerful.
 * Nomad has at least 71 Hunter, as he caught Zimberfizz with a Magic box.