Yet the cost of keeping Immol’thar restrained required more and more power. Nearly nine thousand years after the Sundering, the demon’s prison crossed a dangerous threshold. It began consuming so much energy that the Shen’dralar were left with none to siphon for themselves. Almost overnight, Tortheldrin’s seemingly ingenious plan unraveled, and his access to the demon’s magic was gone.
THE HIGHBORNE CITY OF ELDRE’THALAS (LATER KNOWN AS DIRE MAUL)
Not only had the Shen’dralar lost their immortality once again, but they had also grown hopelessly addicted to Immol’thar’s potent energies. Desperate to regain his power, Tortheldrin plotted with his closest allies and murdered the other Shen’dralar in cold blood.
Tortheldrin’s treacherous plan worked. Having thinned the population, the remaining elves could draw on Immol’thar’s power indefinitely.
With the Shen’dralar’s numbers diminished, Tortheldrin and his followers abandoned much of their once-glorious city. The greater part of Eldre’Thalas fell into darkness and disrepair. Soon, other creatures from the surrounding jungles moved in to stake their claim to the crumbling elven refuge.
As Tortheldrin and his followers retreated deeper into Eldre’Thalas, the kingdom of Arathor began to split apart. The once-small trading outposts and cities that had been established after the Troll Wars had grown into mighty city-states of their own. Eventually, Strom saw its influence over these regions slip away.
The island bastion of Kul Tiras continued its traditions of trading and shipping. The city-state boasted a massive navy—the greatest in all of Arathor. Its most daring captains explored the coasts of the Eastern Kingdoms, returning with exotic goods and tales of strange lands in the remote corners of the continent.
Kul Tiras’s shipping and fishing economy eclipsed the maritime power of its northern neighbor: Gilneas. Unable to compete with Kul Tiras’s burgeoning navy, Gilneas focused on bolstering its land-based armies and mercantile capabilities. The military of Gilneas became one of the most powerful in Arathor, equaled only by the city-state of Alterac, which held dominion over much of the northlands.
Gilneas and Alterac often combined their forces and led grand expeditions to secure the borders of Arathor. South of Strom, in Khaz Modan, they discovered the dwarves and the gnomes. The expeditionary forces marveled at the wondrous feats of construction and engineering that were Ironforge and Gnomeregan. The humans became quick friends with both races, especially the dwarves, who also shared their love of battle, storytelling, and strong ale. The three cultures engaged in rigorous trade, exchanging knowledge of smithing, mining, engineering, and even arcane magic.
Over the years, Strom’s power continued to wane. Bound by rocky, mountainous terrain and lacking natural resources, Strom could not compete with the economies of the other city-states. Eventually, many of Strom’s noble families departed to the fertile valleys and pastures of the north. There, they founded a city-state and named it after the surrounding region: Lordaeron. The nobles used their wealth to buy up large plots of land, some of which had been developed by earlier settlers. These areas included the Agamand Mills and the farmsteads owned by the Balnir and Solliden families.
LORDAERON AND THE HOLY LIGHT
After the Troll Wars, a number of human priests began having faint visions and dreams of angelic beings, geometric forms that thrummed with living light. Although they did not know it, the priests had actually communed with the naaru in the Great Dark Beyond. Through this connection, the naaru guided the hearts of some humans and introduced them to the Holy Light.
From their tenuous encounters with the naaru, the priests learned to harness the extraordinary healing effects of the Light. They also formed a religious movement founded on the tenets of justice, peace, and altruistic works. Popular among common folk, this movement flourished.
Lordaeron was also home to deeply religious ascetics who believed in the Light, a cosmic power they claimed infused every living thing in existence. Many sick and elderly people traveled to religious communes in Lordaeron, hoping to find a cure for their ailments. Others made pilgrimages to the city-state in search of wisdom and enlightenment. Lordaeron’s borders quickly expanded, and it matured into a proper kingdom. The noble families eventually renamed the heart of their flourishing nation Capital City.
Not long after the lords of Strom went north, the last living descendants of King Thoradin also left Arathor. Led by a member of Thoradin’s line named Faldir, they set off by sea and ventured far to the south, enticed by rumors of a lush, unplumbed land where they could make a new beginning.
The stories proved true. Thoradin’s descendants settled the land and founded the kingdom of Stormwind. Nestled among cliffs and boasting a natural protected harbor, this city-state established itself as a major power in the region.
Strom was left in the hands of a few ruling families too stubborn to abandon the old capital. Among them were the descendants of Ignaeus Trollbane, a general who had become a legend during the Troll Wars. Over the years, these families rebuilt Strom’s crumbling infrastructure and renamed their capital Stromgarde. The city, however, would never regain its former glory.
Indeed, Thoradin’s dream of a unified people was dying. Over generations, the various city-states became increasingly distant and insular. Rivalries emerged as these nations turned inward, concerned with their own well-being and less inclined to offer aid to each other.
MAP OF HUMAN TERRITORIES IN THE EASTERN KINGDOMS
For thousands of years, the nomadic tauren wandered Kalimdor’s lush forests, living in harmony with nature and the elements. Of the many lands the tribes roamed, one in particular became sacred ground for all tauren shaman. It was called Mashan’she, or “the Loom of the Earth Mother,” named in honor of the mythical deity who they believed had created the world. This verdant grassland sat along Kalimdor’s western coast, wedged between the jungles of Feralas and the Stonetalon Mountains.
Drawn by faint elemental whisperings, the tauren shaman grew convinced that the Earth Mother herself dwelled somewhere beneath the meadows. They spent decades attempting to wake her by communing with the region’s elementals and conducting celebratory rituals.
The shaman eventually succeeded, but they soon discovered that the whispers they had heard did not come from a benevolent Earth Mother. They were echoes of something far darker—something from Azeroth’s violent elemental past. From the depths of a massive cavern below the grasslands emerged a colossal earth elemental: Princess Theradras, a descendant of the elemental ruler Therazane.
In ages past, the keepers had imprisoned most of the elementals in another plane of existence. Yet some, like Theradras, had eluded this banishment. She had hidden beneath the earth, eventually falling into a deep slumber. The millennia of sleep had slowly weakened Theradras’s mighty form.
The newly awakened Theradras reached out to the verdant surroundings and consumed their energies. Invigorating power flooded through the elemental, regenerating her craggy form. Theradras’s siphoning left enormous tracts of land desiccated. Plant life across Mashan’she withered and died. The horrified tauren, now forced to scavenge for sustenance, would later rename the barren plains Desolace.
The sudden and violent death of such vast intertwined ecosystems sent ripples throughout Azeroth and beyond. Many of the mortal druids and spirits in the Emerald Dream reeled from the staggering loss of life. One of Cenarius’s woodland sons, Zaetar, emerged from the Dream to investigate.
Much like his father, Zaetar walked the physical world in the form of a majestic half-stag. Supple vines and verdant leaves circled his limbs and great antlers. Wherever his hooves touched the soil, dozens of saplings would sprout. In time, they would bloom into lush forest groves.
Zaetar’s investigation led him into the damp caverns beneath Desolace, where he discovered Theradras. Though he set his mind to imprisoning the strange creature, he soon grew enchanted with the princess. The stolen life energies that radiated from Theradras entice
d Zaetar, and he became enthralled by her beauty.
Theradras also found Zaetar beautiful, and she resolved to do whatever she could to win his undying love. The elemental princess was keenly aware of the influence she held over Zaetar, and she used this to her advantage. Theradras claimed that she had meant no harm to the land and that she was seeking ways to restore the region to its former beauty. Together, she urged, perhaps they could succeed.
Zaetar abandoned his earlier quest and became Theradras’s mate. He knew it was against nature, but he could not deny the love that bloomed in his heart. From this forbidden union, an aberrant race was born. They were called the centaur, and their barbarism would come to terrorize the lands of Kalimdor.
What the centaur lacked in elegance and beauty, they made up for in strength. Their horse-like lower bodies afforded them great speed, while their burly humanoid torsos gave them incredible physical power. Yet the centaur’s penchant for brutality overshadowed all of their other traits.
Upon seeing the centaur, Zaetar immediately recognized the depths of his sin. Though he tried to connect with his offspring, he could not bear their presence. The centaur recognized the loathing in their father’s eyes, and it drove them into a blind rage. The savage horse-men lashed out, striking Zaetar down.
Zaetar’s death shattered Theradras’s heart. The elemental princess chastised the centaur for the senseless murder, and they grew forlorn at realizing they had hurt their beloved mother. They begged her forgiveness and promised that from that day forward, they would honor and revere their late father. Theradras later entombed Zaetar’s spirit in the great cavern where she had once slumbered. The centaur would name this site Maraudon, and ever after they would treat it as holy ground.
The centaur quickly proliferated, and they fanned out across Desolace. They unleashed their wrath on the hapless tauren who inhabited the area, forcing them to abandon their homes. Yet Theradras’s barbarous children did not stop in Desolace. In the centuries that followed, marauding bands of centaur would hunt down Kalimdor’s tauren, igniting a long and dark period of war between the two races.
Since the last war against the troll empire, the descendants of the aqir had stayed hidden in their subterranean domains. Only the mantid of Pandaria remained an active threat. Nearly all of Azeroth’s races had forgotten the ruthless potential of the insectoid colonies that lurked beneath the earth.
One of these colonies, the qiraji, had taken root in the ancient fortress of Ahn’Qiraj. The keepers had originally built the enormous stronghold to imprison the Old God C’Thun. There, within Ahn’Qiraj’s lifeless sandstone corridors, the insectoids had lain dormant.
Though Azshara and her night elf empire had once known of the fortress, its existence had become lost to time. Few living creatures dwelled near Ahn’Qiraj. This was due in part to the vast and inhospitable desert of Silithus, which stretched out from the stronghold’s towering obelisks.
Ahn’Qiraj wasn’t rediscovered by the elves until Archdruid Fandral Staghelm initiated a quest to regrow the land of Silithus. He dispatched his warrior son, Valstann, and a group of his most trusted druids to perform this task. They trudged across the scalding dunes, searching for hidden water reservoirs that they could use to transform the region into a lush forest. Valstann and his comrades eventually stumbled across Ahn’Qiraj. Although some of the druids cautioned against entering the fortress, Fandral’s son forged ahead. His presence in the cold, dead halls inadvertently roused the dormant qiraji back to life.
From its prison beneath Ahn’Qiraj, C’Thun also became aware of the awakened qiraji. The Old God drove the insectoids into a murderous frenzy. The highest castes of qiraji society began organizing their lesser minions, the most numerous of which were known as the silithid. These vicious insectoids came in many forms, and all obeyed the will of their qiraji overlords.
The discovery of the qiraji shocked Valstann and his druid companions. Upon retreating from Ahn’Qiraj, they established a small outpost in Silithus to keep watch over the insectoids. Before their eyes, the fortress swelled with greater and greater numbers of qiraji.
Then, without warning, a massive army spilled forth from the tunnels beneath Ahn’Qiraj. At the head of this swarming host were the qiraji. They directed their silithid minions to engulf the surrounding deserts and spread into other regions as well.
By this time, Valstann had called for help from his father. Fandral rallied a force of druids, Sentinels, priestesses, and keepers of the grove to deal with the qiraji threat. In the southern reaches of Kalimdor, the night elf host clashed with their vicious foes. At times they managed to drive the qiraji back toward the dunes of Silithus, only for the insectoids to mount a counterattack and regain the advantage. This ebb and flow continued for many months, leaving in its wake the broken corpses of elves and insectoids alike.
The War of the Shifting Sands had begun.
Fandral and his comrades established outposts across southern Kalimdor as they prosecuted their war. From these locations, they continued their brutal fight against the qiraji. Eventually, the tireless druids and their allies managed to push the qiraji back into the heart of Silithus itself.
Yet just as victory seemed within reach, the war took a dire turn. During a feint orchestrated by the qiraji, Valstann was captured and ripped apart before Fandral’s eyes.
Valstann’s death shattered the archdruid and sowed uncertainty throughout the night elves’ ranks. The qiraji seized the opportunity and swarmed out of Silithus once again, pushing into the eastern deserts of Tanaris. In their fervor, they assaulted the sanctum of the bronze dragonflight: the Caverns of Time.
The qiraji’s reckless attack spurred the bronze flight into action. Led by Anachronos, they enlisted the help of the red, green, and blue dragonflights. The mighty dragons joined the night elves and helped drive the qiraji armies back behind the walls of Ahn’Qiraj.
But even with the mighty dragons joining the war, the qiraji were too numerous to vanquish entirely. Fandral feared that the war would never end. Thousands of elves had already perished at the claws of the insectoids, and he was loath to sacrifice more of his people. Ultimately, he and the dragons devised a means to end the war immediately. They would lock the insectoids inside Ahn’Qiraj itself.
The night elves and dragons gathered before Ahn’Qiraj to complete this task. Fandral called on his druids to focus their powers as one. Along with Anachronos, the elves summoned a great barricade to close off Ahn’Qiraj. Outside the cursed city, the dry earth split wide, and a magical barrier of stone and colossal roots emerged. This impenetrable Scarab Wall towered high over the barren landscape, effectively sealing the qiraji within their city forever.
THE SCARAB WALL AND THE SCARAB GONG
As a final act, Anachronos forged two mystical artifacts: the Scarab Gong and the Scepter of the Shifting Sands. The dragon entrusted the scepter to Fandral. Should the need ever arise to enter Ahn’Qiraj again, he could use this artifact to open the Scarab Wall.
Fandral found no solace in ending the qiraji threat, for Valstann’s death still tormented his heart. In his rage, he shattered the Scepter of the Shifting Sands, and the pieces became lost for the next thousand years.
As the years passed in Dalaran, new Guardians of Tirisfal came and went. Some retired in peace; others fell during their tireless war against the Burning Legion’s agents. Nevertheless, Dalaran remained safe under the Guardian’s watchful eye.
One of the last Guardians to serve was a brilliant magus named Scavell. At the end of his century of commitment, he found no suitable candidate to take his place. The Council of Tirisfal, worried about what could happen in the years or decades it might take to find another Guardian, requested that Scavell remain in his position. The human mage was reluctant, but he ultimately agreed. After all, the century of service was only a tradition, not a law. The relationship between Scavell and the council was relatively strong; together, they continued to protect the world from the Legion’s predations.
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Years passed before Scavell finally found a group of apprentices who might succeed him. Among them was a human woman named Aegwynn, who quickly distinguished herself as the most skilled and dedicated of the prospects. The Council of Tirisfal eventually bestowed the honor of Guardianship upon her with Scavell’s blessing. She immediately began banishing the forces of darkness.
Aegwynn was a brilliant Guardian, but she was also stubborn and bullheaded in her relations with the Council of Tirisfal. Her deep-seated mistrust of authority figures often put her at odds with the elder magi. Ignoring their recommendations and advice, Aegwynn forged her own path during her long years as Guardian. Yet the Council of Tirisfal was not troubled by her demeanor. The magi knew that Aegwynn was a sorceress without equal, a prodigy capable of wielding massive amounts of arcane energy. Her effectiveness as Guardian outweighed her unpredictability and penchant for disobedience.
Near the end of her century of stewardship, Aegwynn sensed something dark stirring in the icy lands of Northrend. She traveled to the distant continent and discovered a pack of demons that were hunting errant blue dragons, feeding on their potent arcane energies. Although mighty, the dragons could not withstand the Legion’s cunning and power.
Aegwynn immediately journeyed to the tower of Wyrmrest Temple, the hallowed shrine of all dragons. She called on the majestic creatures to make good on their sacred pact to protect the world from evil. Led by Alexstrasza the Life-Binder, several of the dragonflights agreed to fight at the Guardian’s side. Together, they staged an ambush near the gigantic skeletal remains of Galakrond.
AEGWYNN CLASHES WITH THE AVATAR OF SARGERAS IN NORTHREND
World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1 Page 16