by Blizzard
THE THRONE OF THE ELEMENTS
The Shadowmoon were the first to dedicate themselves to the elements, and they transformed Grond’s head into a crude temple. Soon, they spread their teachings to other orcs, and nearly every clan adopted the practice. Young orcs were raised from birth to be stalwart, steadfast allies of the elemental spirits. When they came of age, these fledgling shaman traveled to the Throne of the Elements to seek the spirits’ blessing. They entered trances to attune their minds to the elements. Some orcs were found worthy; others were not.
In the act of reaching beyond the veil of the physical world, a few orcs even found themselves communing with dark forces. These poor souls accidentally glimpsed a realm beyond Draenor—the realm of the Void. What the orcs saw drove them insane. The ones who survived were exiled from their clans and forced to live in seclusion in the caves beneath Nagrand. White skulls were tattooed on their faces, marking them as “dead” to their people.
Those orcs who were welcomed by the elements returned to their clans as respected spiritual leaders. Their counsel was highly valued, second only to the words of the clan chieftain. The bond between shaman crossed clan boundaries, allowing them to mediate arguments and solve conflicts peacefully.
The Shadowmoon clan began a biannual gathering of shaman called the Kosh’harg festival. Soon, this meeting grew to include all orcs. The Kosh’harg became a rare time when the clans could put aside their rivalries, share news, foster ties, and feast in friendship.
Despite the growth and migration of the ogre and orc peoples, no clan or empire ever dared to expand into the Spires of Arak. The broken ruins of the arakkoan civilization were thought to be cursed and haunted, and the winged creatures zealously guarded their holdings.
The arakkoa who still called the region home had become dark, troubled, and superstitious. Though they named themselves the “high arakkoa,” they were but a pale shadow of what their race had once been. The glory of the Apexis empire had long ago faded. Only fragments of its knowledge remained, much of it pieced together incorrectly.
A line of kings ruled over the high arakkoa, sharing power with the remnants of the Anhar order. The priesthood still worshipped Rukhmar, but her teachings had become twisted and distorted by time. The Apexis empire had treated Anzu’s sacrifice with reverence, preserving Sethekk Hollow and studying it carefully to learn its shadowy powers. That respect had long since disappeared.
The high arakkoa now used Sethekk Hollow as a place of punishment and execution. Any who disagreed with the Anhari priests were deemed heretics and cast into the region’s pools, which were still cursed from the blood of the wind serpent god, Sethe. Most of the unfortunate arakkoa who were thrown into Sethekk Hollow died. The others were deformed and rendered flightless by the dark energies that inundated the area. They became known as the Outcasts, and they were exiled from all high arakkoan settlements.
Confined to the ground, the Outcasts were forced to contend with a cunning predator in the region: the saberon. This intelligent feline race roamed throughout Draenor. After the fall of the Apexis empire, many saberon tribes had migrated to the Spires of Arak. They delighted in hunting Outcasts, who could not escape into the sky. For a time, only these cursed arakkoa were in danger from the saberon.
Then came a saberon tribe that made it a sport to bring down the arakkoa who could still fly. The Bloodmane tribe and its mighty leader, Pridelord Karash, had grown bored with preying on the Outcasts. Karash trained his followers in the use of nets, ropes, and harpoons. The Bloodmane targeted isolated high arakkoa scouts at first, honing their craft without warning those who lived atop the Spires of Arak.
Once he was confident in his tribe’s abilities, Karash declared war on the high arakkoa. Bloodmane fighters began ambushing large groups of the winged creatures, slaughtering them to the last. This threw the high arakkoa into disarray; for generations they had imagined themselves immune to threats from any “lower” creatures. The Anhari priests struggled to explain why Rukhmar had apparently withdrawn her favor, and the spires themselves came under siege.
The king of the high arakkoa, Terokk, saw his people falling to despair and knew he needed to take drastic action. Before he committed his soldiers to battle, he launched raids by himself, diving into Bloodmane encampments and eviscerating their defenses before a single one of his subjects was put in danger. He single-handedly turned the tide of the war, inspiring other exceptional arakkoa fighters to follow him against suicidal odds.
After months of whittling away the Bloodmane, Terokk cornered Pridelord Karash and slew him, ending the source of the saberon’s tactical brilliance. The war had been won.
The high arakkoa celebrated their king as a living legend, some even declaring that he must be the reincarnation of Rukhmar herself. The Anhari priests grew nervous—until now, only they had been allowed to speak in the sun goddess’s name. Terokk used his widespread support to build a new city in the clouds. It was known as Skyreach, and it would call back to the accomplishments of the ancient Apexis. Terokk even instituted new laws restricting the authority of the Anhar order, declaring that high arakkoan society must be guided by a thirst for knowledge and wisdom, not by fear and superstition.
That prompted the Anhari to action. In the dead of night, the priests kidnapped Terokk and his daughter, Lithic, and cast them into Sethekk Hollow. The next day, the priests told their people that Rukhmar had withdrawn her favor from the king and cursed his bloodline. They called themselves the Adherents of Rukhmar, and they declared that they were to be the stewards of the high arakkoa’s future. Never again would there be an arakkoa king; the priests would jealously cling to control of their civilization until it ended in fire and bloodshed centuries later.
Meanwhile, Terokk struggled to endure his new life as an Outcast. He had survived the fall into the cursed pools, but Lithic had not. The ordeal had left Terokk physically and mentally twisted. Anguished, angry, and alone, he very nearly succumbed to his grief in Sethekk Hollow, but in the darkness, a voice urged him to move forward.
Terokk gathered the other Outcast arakkoa and sought out the source of the mysterious voice. In time, the fallen king understood that he was speaking to the dread raven god Anzu. This astonished the deformed arakkoa—Anzu was revered as a creature long dead, not a being who could still affect the world. The raven god taught Terokk and his followers the secrets of sorcery and shadow magic, giving rise to powerful Outcasts known as talonpriests.
Empowered by Anzu’s guidance, Terokk led the Outcasts to ancient Apexis ruins and built the city of Skettis on their bones. This small refuge served as an anchor for their territory. In time, they would assert dominion over the forests near the Spires of Arak, and their lands would become known as Terokkar Forest.
It was a dark, tormented existence. The curse of Sethekk Hollow tore at Terokk’s mind, bringing him to the brink of total insanity. He desperately sought a solution to his affliction, resorting to brutal methods to find any cure. When he began to sacrifice his own followers, the talonpriests sorrowfully subdued their leader. They sealed him away in the same realm of shadow where Anzu had once hidden, keeping him alive but protecting the Outcasts from his madness.
In the centuries to come, the Outcasts avoided the high arakkoa. Whenever the Adherents of Rukhmar cast out dissenters and heretics, the talonpriests welcomed them into their society. Slowly, the Outcasts grew in number, until their population rivaled that of the high arakkoa.
For generations, orc clans lived on the fringes of the Gorian Empire, trading blows over territorial disputes but never committing to all-out war with the ogres. For their part, the Gorians had little interest in (or fear of) the orcs. The ogres focused their efforts on claiming fragments of Apexis crystals and any other sources of power they could find in the world. Some orc clans sought out these artifacts, too, but only because of the lavish prices ogre merchants would pay for them.
Gorian sorcery had reached new heights of power and structure. The entire s
ystem of ogre rule and justice had been codified in support of magic and the wisdom of sorcerer kings, called imperators.
Ogres were amused by the orcs’ practice of shamanism, seeing the tradition as nothing more than quaint trickery to make the wind blow a little harder or a fire burn a little hotter. It wasn’t until ogres witnessed the might of an elder shaman—turning away a flash flood that would have destroyed an orc village—that they began to understand the true power of the elements.
Rather than seeking to learn this power with the same humility and awe that the orcs had, the ogres decided to take it by force. The Gorian leader of this time, Imperator Molok, sent an army into orc territory and claimed the Throne of the Elements for his empire. The incursion enraged the orc shaman, but the clans themselves were not yet stirred to action. The Gorians had not engaged in wanton slaughter; they had simply driven away the orcs.
The ogres eagerly dissected the Throne of the Elements with their arcane spellwork, examining every inch of the site. Unbeknownst to the ogres, this land was the final resting place of Grond, the massive giant empowered by the titan Aggramar.
The Gorian sorcerers never could have imagined the mix of raw titan and elemental power that still lingered in the ancient giant’s remains, and their careless experiments were disastrous. One fateful day, the dissonance between the ogres’ magic and Grond’s residual energies ignited an explosion. The temple the orcs had carved out of the giant’s skull was blown apart and destroyed. The blast killed every Gorian sorcerer inside the structure and left behind only some standing stones that remain to this day.
This act threw the elements out of balance, leading to far-reaching effects. Huge storms lashed across the world, and Draenor’s native spirits descended into turmoil.
And yet, the Gorians sent more sorcerers to replace the ones who had been killed. Imperator Molok was not deterred in the slightest. He now had proof of the true power of the elements, and he was determined to claim it for himself.
The tormented elementals cried out to the orc shaman for help. Finally, the clans were moved to act.
At the next Kosh’harg festival, there was no celebration or revelry, only mourning for what had happened to the Throne of the Elements. The clans’ shaman struggled together to calm Draenor’s native spirits and bring them back into balance, to no avail. Not only were destructive storms raging across the world, but the elementals had been rattled. Within a few seasons, every clan would undoubtedly suffer a famine the likes of which had never been seen, one that might not ever end.
The Shadowmoon clan’s elder shaman, Nelgarm, made an impassioned plea to all of the clans to act. The elements were calling for help. The reckless ogre sorcerers were still meddling with the sacred Throne of the Elements. The world itself was on the verge of suffering irreversible harm.
The clans agreed to join together, and Nelgarm called upon the elements to bless this unity with their protection. The orcs marched to war as a single people.
The clans first descended on the Throne of the Elements. Utterly surprised by the attack, the Gorian sorcerers retreated with little bloodshed. Yet Imperator Molok was quick to retaliate. The armies of the Gorian Empire moved en masse, attacking and slaughtering every orc encampment they could find. Total war engulfed Draenor. Now all orcs were targets. Every village and dwelling, every male, female, and child, had to be prepared to fight.
The Gorians imagined that this merciless tactic would strike terror into the hearts of their enemies. They certainly were not expecting the clans to rise to the challenge. Small, mobile groups of orc raiders slowly dismantled the Gorian Empire’s network of fortresses and trading outposts, pushing the ogre armies back to their capital city: Goria.
ORC CLANS RALLY FOR WAR
Goria’s fortifications were significant, and the orcs saw no reason to waste countless lives breaking them down. They kept their distance on the hills surrounding the ogre city, content to starve out their enemy. The Gorians believed they could outlast any siege; they had ships and an ocean port, which the orcs could only threaten with help from the distressed elemental spirits. Due to the tumultuous state of the elements, the shaman were not as effective in calling on their powers as they once had been.
But as the months passed, the ogres found themselves unable to maintain their empire. They had been wrong in thinking that they could solely rely on trade via the ocean to support their city. It simply wasn’t enough. The ogres needed access to their network of land-based trade routes, which the orcs had severed. Imperator Molok and his sorcerers revisited their Apexis crystals, searching for a way to break the siege. In time, they discovered the ancient arakkoan legend about the Curse of Sethe, and they began experimenting with ways to induce a similar affliction among the orcs.
They succeeded. A new affliction called the “red pox” spread like wildfire through the orcs’ encampments. This wasting disease was highly contagious, lasted for months, and killed many of the infected. The orcs found their number of healthy combatants dwindling rapidly. After consulting the elements, Nelgarm and his fellow shaman learned that this was not a natural disease; it was an unseen attack from the ogres.
Uncertainty took hold in the clan chieftains as they realized that the siege was now doomed to fail—too many orcs would die before Goria succumbed. And with so many warriors ill, a frontal assault against the city was no longer possible. Time was running out.
Nelgarm and the other orc shaman decided to take a very dangerous step to secure victory: they beseeched the elements to annihilate Goria. Never before had shaman made such a violent request. Yet both the orcs and the elemental spirits understood that Imperator Molok would resume meddling with the Throne of the Elements if the clans failed.
The shaman gathered outside Goria’s mighty walls and witnessed the true fury of the spirits. What happened next would never be forgotten.
A roaring storm churned above the city. The ground groaned and trembled. Over the course of hours, lightning and earthquakes brought down every wall and every building inside Goria. Fire enveloped the ruins, sealing off the escape routes and burning the ships in the capital’s harbor. When there was nothing left but ash and rubble, the earth itself wrenched open like a giant maw, and Imperator Molok and the remains of his great city were swallowed whole.
Untold thousands of ogres died that day. The elementals let none survive. Only whispers of the event would reach the other Gorian cities and outposts, but those whispers would be enough to discourage any further tampering with the elements.
The orcs stood victorious but not jubilant. They had suffered tremendous losses, and they had witnessed a destructive power they never wanted to see again. Nelgarm and the other shaman were particularly frightened by the elementals’ wrath. They said that the need for a unified army had passed and that the clans should go their separate ways.
There was little argument. The clans returned to their lands, but life had changed forever. The red pox never truly disappeared. Every few generations, an outbreak would wreak havoc among the clans.
The Gorian Empire never recovered. The ogres’ remaining fortresses—particularly Highmaul and Bladespire Hold—secured their own territories. They would gradually become more akin to individual city-states than a unified nation. The Gorians sought no retribution for the loss of their capital, for they feared what else it would cost them.
With Goria itself gone, ogre territory was far more vulnerable. Many orc clans seized chunks of their enemy’s land by force. More and more, orcs surpassed ogres to become the most advanced, dominant race in the world.
That would soon change.
Ages before the fall of Goria, events transpired that would one day change the orc race’s future…
Far from Draenor, Sargeras and his Burning Legion defeated the titan Pantheon. Now nothing could oppose the demons and their quest to destroy all life in the universe. Yet Sargeras needed new allies to continue his work. His ranks of demons were wild, difficult to control. He required lieute
nants and tacticians who could help him guide the unruly Legion, and he found them among a highly intelligent race called the eredar.
Led by three wise rulers—Archimonde, Kil’jaeden, and Velen—the eredar had turned their world, Argus, into a paradise that held knowledge and philosophy in high esteem. When Sargeras corrupted these beings, most of them willingly accepted their fate. They reveled in the opportunity to act as the Legion’s commanders, and they brought the demonic army into line.
A number of eredar resisted. Velen was the sole leader who did not give himself over to Sargeras. He led other dissidents on a daring escape from Argus—an escape that was only possible with the help of beings known as the naaru. These creatures of the Holy Light were sworn protectors of the cosmos and its inhabitants, and they had foreseen the eredar’s corruption.
For thousands of years, Velen and most of the draenei—or “exiled ones,” in the eredar tongue—fled from the Legion, seeking a refuge in the cosmos. They traveled between the physical universe and the Twisting Nether aboard a dimensional fortress called the Genedar. This naaru-powered vessel could transport the draenei across vast distances.
It had been a dangerous journey. Velen’s draenei had successfully evaded almost all contact with the Legion, and the demons had little luck in tracking them. With three naaru aiding the renegades—K’ure, K’ara, and D’ore—the draenei could sense the approach of their hunters. Every time that happened, the exiles would pull up stakes and disappear into the stars.
Velen knew that his people would never have a chance to resist the Legion with force until they found a world to settle. Until then, the Genedar was the draenei’s only true home.