Who is Jastor Gallywix, the final boss of Liberation of Undermine?

The latest raid in The War Within is Liberation of Undermine, which sees our band of plucky heroes taking a stand alongside much of Goblinkind in order to topple their long-time oppressor, Jastor Gallywix. He’s pulled out every card from his sleeves in order to slow us down, but we eventually climb to the tip top of the glittering Gallagio in order to face off against our abundantly-chinned foe once and for all.

But just who is this Gallywix character? Where did he come from, what motivates him, and why is he working for our latest archenemy, Xal’atath? Let’s take a look at the life and times of this notably greedy Goblin. After all, “You don’t become Trade Prince by making empty threats.”

Gallywix’s ruthless origins

From the very start, Jastor Gallywix knew that he’d need to adopt a flexible set of morals if he was going to thrive on his home island of Kezan. You can hear it told in his own words in the short story Trade Secrets of a Trade Prince. It’s a tale of ambition, greed, power, lost love, and (since it involves Goblins) a large number of explosions.

Born into the Drudgetown slum on the island of Kezan, Gallywix has his first transformative moment at the tender age of ten. With an absentee pirate mother, he is left to fend for himself with his tinker-minded father who constantly melts various load-bearing features of their home. When members of the local Copper Street Gang arrive for their regular shake-down of Jastor’s dad, they make the mistake of nabbing a cookie on the way out the door. Jastor’s cookie.

Gallywix decides right then and there to abandon his plan to set sail from Kezan in search of a life of piracy. He rigs a payment to the gang with explosives, blowing their leader sky-high while cementing his reputation for erasing anyone who crosses him. Rather than let the next thug in line take over the gang, Gallywix organizes the local businesses into the Copper Street Conglomerate. With a knack for consolidating wealth and power, his star quickly rises until he becomes one of the wealthiest Goblins on Kezan.

Never being an individual who was comfortable finishing second place in anything (unless there was a clerical error with the assignment of prize money), Gallywix set his sites on the mantle of leader of the Bilgewater Cartel. The reigning Trade Prince, Maldy, had seen his support erode out from under him in recent years. Gallywix executed a hostile takeover of the cartel through a series of deals, buyouts, and well-placed goons. He spends the next few decades overseeing operations on the island, with particular attention to the Kaja’mite mining operations.

Gallywix in World of Warcraft

Jastor’s first in-game appearance in World of Warcraft is also our first visit to his native Kezan. Goblins were added as a playable race in Cataclysm, and their starting zone is none other than the island itself. When Deathwing shows up to perform a little molten feng shui on the surface of Azeroth, the volcanic Mount Kajaro erupts violently enough to necessitate a total Goblin evacuation of Kezan. Not one to pass on an opportunity to enact surge pricing when demand skyrockets, Gallywix sells passage on his yacht — the only ship remaining in Bilgewater Harbor — for the low price of whatever life savings the refugees have in their pockets.

Things go a little sideways when the yacht is shipwrecked in a Horde-Alliance naval battle, with the survivors washing up on the Lost Isles. Gallywix wastes no time in using the fine print of the tickets he sold to conscript the refugees into a brand new Kaja’mite mining operation. Aspiring Goblin adventurers eventually team up with castaway orcs, including the Horde leader Thrall himself, to confront and depose Gallywix.

Always one to give second chances, Thrall allows Gallywix to remain Trade Prince of the Bilgewater Cartel as they are accepted as full-fledged members of the Horde. They are given an area of Azshara, and Jastor wastes no time in having the Gallywix Pleasure Palace constructed on top of a mountain (which he humbly has carved in a likeness of his own sneering face).  He can be found there for the next few expansions, enjoying the finer things in Goblin life in relative luxury.

You see a huge sword, I see an opportunity

Gallywix’s leadership of the Bilgewater Cartel continues through the next few expansions of Horde leadership changes and rebellions. He seems, for the most part, too focused on things like the monetary value of rare Pandaren artifacts to meddle too deeply in politics. His next big scheme arises when Sargeras manages to impale the planet on the pointy end of his comically large sword: when this happened, the strange mineral on Gallywix’s staff, which had been dug out from below Kezan long ago turns from dull red to gold and took on remarkable properties.

Gallywix immediately sends crews of Goblins to the site of the cosmic stabbing in Silithus in order to mine and experiment with the new ore, Azerite, which gains him favor in the eyes of the new Horde Warchief, Sylvanas Windrunner. With most of the Battle for Azeroth expansion spent focused on this mineral macguffin, Gallywix’s main contributions are funding the Horde’s war effort and backing the development of high-powered Azerite weaponry. He does not pass on the opportunity to have a personal war machine constructed, Gallywix’s Mech of Death. Much of the action he sees in this Azerite-powered armor involves a fierce rivalry with Gelbin Mekkatorque, the Gnome leader, which reaches a blazing crescendo in the Battle of Dazar’alor raid.

While we watch the Horde splintering into factions, Gallywix is one of the only figureheads to remain loyal to Sylvanas. But reading the writing on the wall is Gallywix’a speciality, so he’s nowhere to be found when Sylvanas exposes her true motivations and abandons the Horde. Monte Gazlowe takes over as Trade Prince of Bilgewater Cartel as the Fourth War comes to an end with an uneasy peace and a new Horde power structure that, for the first time since the Cataclysm, does not involve Jastor Gallywix.

You want this town? You’ll have to take it from me

We get a glimpse of Gallywix in Shadowlands sitting down for some negotiations with the brokers of Cartel Xy in Tazavesh, but he is otherwise absent from our radar for an extended period of time. Those individuals who think Jastor has retired to a quiet life of grenade golf (including Gazlowe himself) are shocked to discover that he has not been idle over the last few years. His interest in Azerite is mirrored in the opportunity presented with the latest powerful natural resource oozing out of Azeroth’s interior: Black Blood.

In order to jump-start his newest mining operation, Gallywix takes a job from Xal’atath herself. After the conclusion of the first chapter of The War Within, our void-mantled antagonist suffers a setback when her shadow energy device, the Dark Heart, is fractured by a well-aimed arrow courtesy of Alleria Windrunner. Since the Goblins assisted in the creation of the Dark Heart thousands of years ago, Xal’atath turns to Gallywix and offers enough Black Blood for him to muscle his way into control of Undermine in return for his services in repairing the Dark Heart.

That’s where the story picks up with our first journey to the Goblin capital city in patch 11.1. Story Mode for the Liberation of Undermine is now open, so even if you aren’t on the cutting edge of the raiding curve you’ll be able to see how our confrontation in the Gallagio plays out. Hopefully some insight into the inner working of Jastor Gallywix’s mind will give you an edge as you go toe-to-toe with his mercenaries, hired goons, and eventually his chrome-plated war suit.