Nomad is the host of the Soul Warsminigame and an immensely powerful magician. When players first arrive on the island, they will encounter Nomad and his imp minion Zimberfizz. Nomad will offer players a free tour of the battlefield along with a short explanation, or a book that explains fighting in Soul Wars.
Nomad built the Soul Obelisk and used it to gain immense power from souls by channelling their energy into a throne of his making in secret. It was believed he did this to prepare to usurp his former master, the evil MahjarratLucien, which has since been confirmed by Mod Mark, although Nomad has nothing to do with the Mahjarrat quest series. However, Zimberfizz soon found out he was up to something suspicious and recruited an adventurer to check out Nomad's tent. It turned out to cover an underground, immense temple and Nomad is seen conversing with a group of elite dark knights before easily killing them.
He warns the adventurer not to go any farther, but they do anyway and in the end, confront Nomad on his throne. A battle breaks out in which Nomad initially has the upper hand with extremely powerful attacks, but he is eventually defeated by the adventurer. He says "You... you have doomed this world." and falls to the ground. The adventurer and Zimberfizz then examine the body to conclude that Nomad is dead, after which the imp takes over the role of Soul Wars host. However, as they leave, Nomad stands up and teleports to an unknown location. After the eighteenth Ritual of Rejuvenation, Lucien is terminated by a trio of Dragonkin, leaving Nomad's further goals a mystery.
With a combat level of 699, he has the second highest combat level 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.
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. Here is the developer's response: "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!" [1] This is very ironic, seeing how Nomad is considered to be made very easy since the release of the Evolution of Combat.
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.
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 Livestream from 4 November2012.
After the release of the Evolution of Combat, many of Nomad's attacks became bugged:
His flame vortices would hit an extremely high amount of 10,000.
His normal attacks would hit less as a player's health depleted. At 10 HP, his maximum hit was 1. This has been fixed.
Soul Blast would always miss. This has since been fixed.
Disintegrate would never kill the player, and no longer based the damage on one's maximum health. This has been fixed.
He would repeat "Pathetic!" constantly. This has been fixed.
Magic attacks against him had a max hit of 750. This damage cap has been removed.