World of Warcraft
In Part I, we left our heroes gathered in Honor Hold and marching into the darkness of Shadowmoon Valley. They had recovered the Skull of Gul’dan from Deathwing, but the clock was ticking. Ner’zhul, the Warchief of the Horde, had retreated to the Black Temple with the other artifacts. The Sons of Lothar had to stop him.
The Siege of Karabor and Ritual of 1,000 Portals
When the Alliance Expedition arrived at the Black Temple, they found an army willing to die to buy time. While Ner’zhul began his ritual at the summit, he left his most fanatical clans to hold the gates. Turalyon, wielding the broken sword of Lothar, led the charge. Alleria protected him from behind with her deadly arrows. Khadgar used his magic to blast through the fel-corrupted defenses, while Danath Trollbane and Kurdran Wildhammer fought back to back against waves of orcs and demons. But even as they breached the walls, the sky began to change.
At the top of the temple, Ner’zhul was looking at the stars. Using the immense power of the stolen artifacts, he began to tear holes in the fabric of reality. One by one, portals opened in the sky. Green, purple, red swirls of energy appeared, showing glimpses of alien worlds.
But Ner’zhul had made a fatal miscalculation. Draenor’s ley lines, the magical veins of the planet were already damaged by years of abuse from fel magic. Ley lines couldn’t handle the stress of so many portals opening at once. The planet screamed with agony.
The Death of Draenor
The ground began to crack. Massive earthquakes shook the temple. The sky turned from a sickly red to a violent, swirling vortex of energy. Khadgar looked up and realized the horror of the situation. The magical stress was tearing the planet apart. Gravity began to fail. Giant chunks of the earth floated into the sky. Oceans drained into the void.
Ner’zhul, seeing the catastrophe, never looked back. He left his people behind to die and the portals open. He grabbed his chosen few followers and jumped into the nearest portal, escaping into the Twisting Nether (where he would eventually be caught by Kil’jaeden and tortured into becoming the Lich King).
The Ultimate Sacrifice
This is the moment that defines the Sons of Lothar. As the planet crumbled around them, Khadgar realized something horrifying. The Dark Portal, the gateway connecting Draenor to Azeroth was still open. If Draenor exploded while the link was active, the backlash of energy would not only destroy this world. The destructive energy would travel through the portal and shatter Azeroth as well. Dooming it to the same fate as Draenor. There was only one way to save their home. They had to close the Dark Portal, from this side.
They looked at each other. They knew what this meant. To save Azeroth, they had to trap themselves on a dying, exploding planet with no way home.
They didn’t blink twice. Khadgar used the Book of Medivh and the Skull of Gul’dan to perform a counter-spell. As the portal’s red glow faded and finally winked out, they were plunged into darkness. They had saved Azeroth, but they were stranded on a rock that was rapidly disintegrating into the Nether.
The Aftermath, Birth of Outland
Miraculously, they survived. The planet shattered instead of vaporizing into the Nether. The core remained, drifting in the Twisting Nether, surrounded by floating islands of what used to be continents. Draenor was gone. Outland was born. A shattered world, the one we go to, in The Burning Crusade expansion.
For the people of Azeroth, however, the story ended in silence. The portal closed. The heroes never returned. Assuming they had perished, King Terenas ordered the construction of the massive stone statues we see in Stormwind today. They were monuments to the dead. But as we found out years later with The Burning Crusade debut, they had actually survived.
Khadgar stayed in Shattrath to advise the Naaru, becoming the wise wizard we know today. Danath Trollbane remained the commander of Honor Hold, holding the line against the Fel Orcs for decades. Kurdran Wildhammer suffered a personal tragedy. His loyal gryphon, Sky’ree, eventually perished in the harsh lands of Outland. He led the Wildhammer stronghold in Shadowmoon Valley.
Turalyon and Alleria’s fate was the most unique. They disappeared into a portal to chase the Burning Legion across the cosmos. Due to the chaotic time flow of the Twisting Nether, they fought for a thousand years from their perspective, while only a few decades passed on Azeroth. They returned in Legion expansion as the leaders of the Army of the Light.
Personal Thoughts on Shattering of Draenor
The story of the Sons of Lothar is one of the ultimate “We do what we must” tales of WoW. They gave up their lives, their families, and their world to ensure that we could sleep without worry.
Next time you walk across the Valley of Heroes in Stormwind, stop for a second. Look up at the Alliance Expedition. They are the reason you are still playing the game, that Azeroth still exists. At some point, these heroes probably looked at their monuments of death and laughed as they passed through. It was probably weird looking at your own gravestone.
