World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1 (11 page)

A triumvirate of leaders ruled over the eredar, not by might or fear, but by contemplating the great questions of the cosmos and sharing the answers with their people. The mighty
Archimonde had a gift for finding the strengths in those around him. His bold demeanor inspired his followers, filling them with the confidence and the courage to face any challenge.
Kil’jaeden, the most brilliant of the rulers, was considered a prodigy even among the gifted eredar. Witty and cunning, he reveled in puzzling out the most confounding mysteries of the cosmos. Last there was
Velen, the spiritual heart of the triumvirate. He stood as a relentless champion of peace, whose wisdom could defuse any conflict.

Individually, each member of the triumvirate would have made an excellent leader. But it was together, with each of their strengths working in synergy, that they elevated their people to heights undreamt of.

The eredar’s great cohesion was the ideal solution to the Legion’s weaknesses. Yet to conscript them to his cause, Sargeras would have to corrupt them entirely. In the guise of a radiant and elegant being, he communed with the eredar triumvirate. Sargeras played to their desires, promising them knowledge and unimaginable power. He showed them worlds beyond count over which they might hold dominion, primitive places that the eredar could transform into sanctuaries of peace and intellectual thought.

Sargeras vowed to share with the eredar not only the most obscure secrets of existence, but also the final answer to what he believed was the fundamental flaw in creation. In return, the denizens of Argus would devote themselves to Sargeras’s grand work … and help him remedy that flaw.

The offer awed both Archimonde and Kil’jaeden, who were honored to be part of this grand undertaking. Velen, however, was not convinced. He sensed something strange about the seemingly beautiful and all-knowing creature who had appeared to them.

Velen meditated using an ancient artifact gifted to his race by the holy
naaru long before his time—the
ata’mal crystal. Through the enchanted relic, he received a horrific vision of the eredar’s future if they sided with Sargeras. They would become horribly disfigured, transformed into demonic beings of depthless evil.

Velen warned his brothers of what he had seen, but they dismissed his insights and made it clear they intended to accept Sargeras’s offer. Fearing that Archimonde and Kil’jaeden would kill him if he continued to dissent, Velen feigned acceptance. Though he and Kil’jaeden were particularly close friends, Velen didn’t believe he could trust their bond to prevail over Sargeras’s enticing promises.

Velen despaired at the fate of his people. In this moment of desperation, the same beings who had granted him his vision of the eredar’s downfall reached out to him. One of the naaru,
K’ure, contacted the eredar leader and offered to shepherd him and his closest allies to safety. Filled with renewed hope, Velen sought out other eredar whom he believed he could trust.

As Sargeras arrived on Argus to corrupt the unsuspecting eredar, Velen and his followers made their daring escape. They gathered aboard a massive naaru dimensional fortress known as the
Genedar
and fled their homeworld forever. From that day forward, Velen and his followers would be known as the
draenei
, or “exiled ones.”

On Argus, Sargeras bent the other eredar to his unholy will. Fanatical fel whisperings surged through the minds of the world’s inhabitants, drowning out their ability to reason. Sargeras also infused the eredar with fel energies, twisting their forms to resemble hideous demons.

Sargeras found quick use for his new fel-corrupted converts. The eredar settled in as commanders within the Burning Legion. Kil’jaeden and Archimonde would stand as the most gifted and powerful among them.

Sargeras molded Kil’jaeden’s innate cunning and intellect to suit the Legion’s designs. Known thereafter as “the Deceiver,” Kil’jaeden was charged with using his wits to beguile the mortal civilizations of the physical universe and transform them into agents of the Burning Legion.

Sargeras also saw Archimonde’s talent in motivating his people as an invaluable tool to strengthen the Burning Crusade. Archimonde, henceforth known as “the Defiler,” would use his powerful will to drive the demonic masses to acts of extreme violence and barbarism. He would draw out and temper the furious strength in all those who served under him, remaking them into weapons of annihilation.

Under the eredar’s leadership, the ranks of the Burning Legion swelled with new demonic races, gathered from the
Twisting Nether and the worlds of the Great Dark. Archimonde empowered the monstrous pit lords and conscripted them to serve as living siege engines. They would inspire dread in all those they faced. The mo’arg, a highly resourceful and industrious race of demons, became the Legion’s armorers. They would forge fel-infused weaponry and constructs to besiege the worlds of the cosmos. Kil’jaeden also brought in the devious succubi to infiltrate prospective worlds for conquest and gather intelligence about their civilizations. The brutal doomguard, demon warriors of unsurpassed strength and cruelty, fought as the Legion’s shock troops. The zealous shivarra became the Legion’s foremost mystics and advisors. They fostered a fanatical loyalty to Sargeras.

F
LIGHT OF THE
D
RAENEI

Velen’s rejection of Sargeras’s grand vision and his subsequent escape enraged Kil’jaeden. Even though the draenei had vanished without a trace, the Deceiver vowed never to stop hunting them, bent on vengeance for what he saw as Velen’s betrayal
.

SARGERAS AND THE BURNING LEGION

These wicked creatures, among many others, bolstered the might of the Burning Legion. Pleased with his burgeoning forces, Sargeras launched the demons into the Great Dark, renewing his Burning Crusade against creation.

In the ages to come, the Legion would scour countless other worlds and civilizations from existence.

M
eanwhile, unbeknownst to Sargeras, the last embers of the
Pantheon’s power clung to life. Although Sargeras had destroyed the
titans’ physical forms,
Norgannon’s grand spellwork had preserved their souls. The disembodied titan spirits hurtled through the Great Dark toward the world of Azeroth and its keepers. There, the Pantheon hoped they could locate physical forms to inhabit. If they could not find such vessels, the titans feared their weakened spirits would soon fade into oblivion.

Upon reaching Azeroth, the depleted spirits slammed into the keepers, who had been crafted by the Pantheon’s own hands. The keepers were immediately overwhelmed as the titans’ powers flared in their minds. They witnessed fragmented memories of distant worlds, of lifetimes never lived and wonders never seen. But just as quickly as the influx of power had come, it dimmed.

The keepers, still retaining their original personalities, puzzled over the strange phenomenon. They knew they had been gifted with a portion of the Pantheon’s power, but they were unaware that the last remnants of their beloved makers had been infused in their very bodies. The bewildered servants called out to the Pantheon for answers, but they received no reply. The deep silence troubled the keepers, and they sank into a long period of confusion and unease.

The Old God
Yogg-Saron, imprisoned beneath
Ulduar, sensed these fluctuating emotions. In the eons since the Ordering of Azeroth, a sharp awareness had begun to stir within the entity. Yogg-Saron had devised a plan to weaken its jailors and escape imprisonment. It would corrupt the
Forge of Wills, tainting its creation matrix with a strange malady known as the
curse of flesh. Any
titan-forged created by the machine thereafter would fall victim to this affliction. Some would even spread it to previous generations of titan-forged. The curse of flesh would gradually transform many of these infected servants into mortal beings of flesh and blood—beings who the cunning Old God knew could be easily killed.

To implement this plan, Yogg-Saron turned to Keeper
Loken. Out of Ulduar’s guardians, Loken had been the most troubled by the Pantheon’s silence. Yogg-Saron assailed the keeper through fevered dreams, stoking the cold fires of his despair. Yet even in his disturbed state, Loken resisted the whisperings in his mind. Ultimately, his downfall would come from a much subtler place.

As Loken drifted deeper and deeper into despair, he sought comfort from a
vrykul named
Sif, the mate of his brother, Keeper
Thorim. Loken often met with Sif in private, telling her of his darkest fears. In time, a forbidden love blossomed between the two titan-forged.

Yogg-Saron latched onto Loken’s love for Sif and twisted it into a dangerous obsession. The relationship quickly soured due to Loken’s increasingly compulsive behavior. More and more, he talked of openly professing their love for each other, an act that Sif vehemently opposed. She knew that if Thorim discovered the affair, it would shatter the keepers’ unity.

KEEPER THORIM DISCOVERS THE BODY OF HIS WIFE, SIF

Ultimately, she broke all ties with Loken, demanding that he leave her in peace. The thought of losing Sif drove Loken to madness. In a fit of anger and jealousy, he lashed out at his love and killed her.