World of Warcraft
Long before the ordered ages of Azeroth took shape, before dragonflights bore banners of color and purpose, the skies were ruled by beings called Proto-Dragons, both ancient and untamed. Among them moved a presence so vast and terrible that even memory itself recoiled from its truth. Remembered as the progenitor of dragonkind, he was not merely a creature of immense power, but a warning etched into the bones of the world. His rise and fall unfolded in an era when the future was uncertain and the line between guardian and destroyer had yet to be drawn. What survived of his story was carefully reshaped by those who endured him, concealed beneath rumor and reverence alike. Yet beneath the ice of Dragonblight and the silence of forgotten vaults, the truth of his path still lingers, vast and unquiet, waiting to be remembered. This is the story of Galakrond, the titanic terror that roamed the skies, even before men were even a thing.
The Progenitor Unbound
In the distant dawn of Azeroth, Galakrond hunted alongside his fellow proto-dragons, moving through the skies as a figure of awe rather than fear. He was once immense, yet not monstrous, bearing a form more akin to his kin than to the horror he would become. Over time, however, a profound transformation took hold. Drawing sustenance from tainted waters corrupted by the influence of Yogg-Saron, Galakrond began to change in body and spirit alike. His hunger grew insatiable, and his flesh responded to it with grotesque adaptation.
As Galakrond consumed the life essence of other proto-dragons, his body swelled to impossible proportions, surpassing even the combined might of those who would later become the Aspects. New limbs and eyes erupted from decaying flesh, and his once-living hide took on the pallor of undeath. Those he devoured did not find rest. Vomited forth and reshaped by his corrupted power, they rose again as the “not-living”, bound wholly to his will. With every feeding, Galakrond’s shadow lengthened across prehistoric Azeroth, and the skies themselves seemed to recoil from his passing.
The Age of Terror
The change did not go unnoticed. Proto-dragons who once flew beside Galakrond now scattered in fear, uncertain of what had driven him toward such abomination. Titan Keeper Tyr, charged with the ordering of the world, bore the weight of this failure, believing that Galakrond’s descent might have been prevented. Yet ignorance reigned among the living, and by the time understanding dawned, Galakrond had already become a terror without equal.
The first open signs of his madness came during a communal hunt, when Galakrond descended unannounced and claimed prey not meant for him. His presence alone shattered any pretense of balance, and soon after, he turned upon the hunters themselves. Cannibalism, once unthinkable among proto-dragons, became his defining act. Worse still, those he slew rose again, enslaved and infectious, spreading his corruption through fang and claw.
Some, like the proto-dragon Coros, sought survival through imitation, believing devotion might spare them. In secret, Coros betrayed his kin, revealing the movements of Talonixa, chosen leader of the living proto-dragons. Galakrond accepted the knowledge, and then devoured Coros and his followers regardless, revealing the emptiness of such bargains.
The Shattered Hosts
Armed with grim resolve, Talonixa altered the time and place of confrontation, yet Galakrond’s not-living forces proved adept at deception. Lured into position, the proto-dragon host was met with devastation as Galakrond erupted from the earth itself. The army broke beneath his assault, and Talonixa fell. Only the swift intervention of Malygos, Nozdormu, and Neltharion prevented total annihilation, allowing Ysera and Alexstrasza to escape as the battle dissolved into chaos.
Galakrond’s fury drew him into direct conflict with the future Aspects, a clash that might have ended them all were it not for Tyr. Striking with his hammer, the Keeper stunned the behemoth long enough to force a retreat. Yet the cost was severe. When battle resumed at a later time, Tyr’s Spark and hammer were torn from him, and Galakrond’s maw claimed both the artifact and the Keeper’s hand. Further mutated by the stolen power, Galakrond withdrew, unaware that his enemies still lived.
In the wake of this clash, Galakrond found his hunger unmet. The living had learned to hide, to scatter beyond his reach. In desperation, he turned upon his own not-living, consuming them while preserving enough to serve as scouts. Even in madness, calculation remained.
His Fall in Dragonblight
With Tyr incapacitated, the burden of ending Galakrond fell upon the proto-dragons alone. The final confrontation took place in what would later be known as Dragonblight, a land forever marked by his passing. There, the future Aspects launched a coordinated assault against Galakrond and his remaining servants.
It was Malygos who altered the course of the battle, forcing a massive boulder into Galakrond’s throat. Distracted and enraged, the behemoth lost control over the not-living, who turned upon one another. Malygos’s ice bound the lodged stone in place, and Neltharion’s forceful strike drove it deeper still. Unable to take care of the obstruction, Galakrond choked, his vast body collapsing beneath its own monstrous weight.
In the aftermath, the truth of Galakrond’s existence was deliberately obscured. The newly risen Aspects encouraged the belief that the titans had fashioned them from Galakrond’s remains, fearing that knowledge of his path might inspire others to follow it. Fragments of his claw and the fatal stone were later sealed away within Nal ks’kol in the Zaralek Cavern, guarded by the black dragonflight.
Echoes Through the Ages
Though dead, Galakrond’s influence did not fade. Millennia later, his bones drew the curious and the ambitious alike. A taunka named Buniq met her end near his remains, and a fragment of Galakrond’s corpse was claimed by Trag Highmountain, who sensed its latent power. Also in time, the Lich King sought to raise Galakrond into undeath, a plan undone only by the intervention of adventurers.
His boneyard served darker purposes during Deathwing’s assault on Wyrmrest Temple, and within Galakrond’s skeleton, the Spark of Tyr was rediscovered, revealing long-hidden truths to Kalecgos. Visions of the past stirred old duties among the former Aspects, even as whispers of Tyr’s presence lingered at Galakrond’s Rest.
Galakrond’s bloodline endured through Galakras (in the form of a boss in the Siege of Orgrimmar raid), and his image was preserved in stone and fresco, from Uldaman to the timeways themselves. Even in fractured timelines, his corpse remained, and his essence was claimed by Iridikron, proving that the progenitor’s shadow still stretches into the present age.
Personal Thoughts on Galakrond
Galakrond was not merely the first of dragonkind, but the embodiment of a path untaken, a reminder of what unbound hunger and corrupted purpose can become. His fall gave rise to the Aspects, shaping guardians from survivors. Though his name was buried beneath myth and deliberate falsehood, the world bears his imprint still, in scarred landscapes, guarded relics, and echoes within the timeways. Galakrond’s legacy endures not as a triumph, but as a warning, vast as the bones that yet still rest beneath the ice, and as enduring as the fear that once drove the skies themselves to flee. He also died from choking on a rock… Take from that what you will.