by Blizzard
BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT
Written by CHRIS METZEN, MATT BURNS, and ROBERT BROOKS
Additional Story ALEX AFRASIABI, CHRISTIE GOLDEN, JEFF GRUBB,
RICHARD A. KNAAK, DAVE KOSAK, MICKY NEILSON, BILL ROPER,
AARON S. ROSENBERG, JAMES WAUGH • Creative Direction and Design DOUG ALEXANDER,
LOGAN LUBERA • Editors CATE GARY, ROBERT SIMPSON
Lore SEAN COPELAND, EVELYN FREDERICKSEN, JUSTIN PARKER
Production RACHEL DE JONG, PHILLIP HILLENBRAND, BRIANNE LOFTIS, JEFFREY WONG • Licensing MATT BEECHER, BYRON PARNELL
Special thanks to: the World of Warcraft game team, Michael Bybee, Steve Danuser,
Frank Mummert, Tommy Newcomer, Ian Saterdalen, Max Ximenez
Maps, cosmology chart, borders, and spot art by JOSEPH LACROIX
Paintings by EMILY CHEN here • STANTON FENG here, here, here, here, here
ALEX HORLEY here, here, here, here, here
PETER C. LEE here, here, here, here, here, here, here
SEAN SEVESTRE here, here • ABE TARAKY here, here, here, here
WEI WANG here, here
DARK HORSE BOOKS
Publisher MIKE RICHARDSON • Editor DAVE MARSHALL • Assistant Editor RACHEL
ROBERTS • Designer DAVID NESTELLE • Digital Art Technician CHRIS HORN
World of Warcraft® Chronicle: Volume II
© 2017 Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved. World of Warcraft is a registered trademark of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. Dark Horse Comics® and the Dark Horse logo are trademarks of Dark Horse Comics, Inc., registered in various categories and countries. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of Dark Horse Comics, Inc.
Published by
Dark Horse Books
A division of Dark Horse Comics, Inc.
10956 SE Main Street
Milwaukie, OR 97222
DarkHorse.com
International Licensing: (503) 905-2377
Comic Shop Locator Service: (888) 266-4226
First Edition: March 2017
Digital ISBN 9781630087302
Ebook ISBN 9781616558468
v4.1
a
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
PART I
THE DOOM OF DRAENOR
Chapter I: Primordial Draenor
Chapter II: Children of Stone
Chapter III: Rise of the Horde
PART II
HORDE AND ALLIANCE
Chapter IV: The First War
Chapter V: The Second War
Chapter VI: Beyond the Dark Portal
Index
The universe was not crafted by loving hands; it was born from the clash of Light and Void.
The constant strife between these two primordial forces ignited a cataclysmic explosion of energy. From the fires of destruction, reality itself was forged and set into motion.
Echoes of the struggle between Light and Void suffused this new realm of existence. Opposing energies surged through the physical cosmos, which was called the Great Dark Beyond. Every star, world, and mote of magic reflected the universe’s destructive origins.
Nowhere was this more apparent than in the Twisting Nether. This astral dimension was bound to the Great Dark Beyond, but it was a fundamentally different realm. Volatile magics ran rampant throughout the Nether and kept it in a state of turmoil.
When mortal life arose in the universe, it inherited this tradition of conflict. The clash of opposing forces, wills, and ideologies became the one constant in the cosmos.
Some creatures who lived in the Great Dark Beyond stood as champions of order, hope, and life. The godlike titans embodied these traits. Their spirits—known as world-souls—took shape in the molten hearts of a handful of different worlds.
After many long ages of slumber, the colossal titans awoke in grand fashion—in the form of living, breathing worlds. The titans wandered the Great Dark Beyond to find and awaken sleeping world-souls. In the process, they used their considerable powers to shape and order the worlds they encountered.
Other forces stood in opposition to the titans, including sinister beings known as the void lords. The void lords saw great potential in the titans to serve as weapons of darkness. If even one of them fell to the void lords’ corruption, that titan could be used to bring about the end of the universe.
The end of everything.
Time and time again, the void lords’ subtle attempts to corrupt the titans failed. Influencing full-grown titans was impossible, but what about before they had awakened? Such was the tactic the void lords pursued. They bent all of their malice and dark intent toward corrupting a slumbering world-soul. They knew it was only a matter of time before they succeeded.
The noble titans had no knowledge of the void lords’ plans. In their quest to find sleeping world-souls, they had come into conflict with other dark creatures. These beings rallied under the banners of destruction, turmoil, and death. They came in many different forms, and they spoke many different tongues. Yet the titans knew them by one name: demons.
Demons had originated from the broken wastes of the Twisting Nether. Many of them reveled in the powers of fel magic, which was fueled by the destruction of life. The demons tore their way into the physical universe and wrought havoc on the titans’ ordered worlds.
Two titans went to war with the troublesome demons. Their names were Sargeras and Aggramar, and they were the greatest warriors the universe would ever know. As they hunted demons across the stars, they witnessed worlds dying and entire civilizations burning to ash. Seeing these unspeakable horrors only fueled Sargeras and Aggramar’s belief that what they were doing was right.
Yet Sargeras’s conviction had its limits. In the end, it wasn’t demons that broke his will.
It was something far worse.
While hunting demons by himself, Sargeras discovered the void lords’ plans to corrupt a slumbering world-soul. Doubt flooded his spirit. Had the void lords already succeeded? Even if they had not, Sargeras knew that stopping them was impossible. The titans could not keep watch over the entire universe all at once.
As Sargeras pondered how to stop the void lords, he came to a troubling conclusion. Existence itself was flawed. The only way to spare the universe from the void lords was by burning away all creation. It was drastic, yes, but necessary. Though it pained Sargeras to imagine it, even a dead universe was preferable to one controlled by the powers of the Void. His only solace was the knowledge that since life had arisen in the cosmos once before, it could do so again.
Sargeras brought his findings to Aggramar and the rest of the titan Pantheon, and he proposed his drastic solution. It was not received well. The other titans admonished Sargeras for considering such a plan. Even Aggramar, his closest friend, stood against him, believing it was the Pantheon’s duty to safeguard life and maintain order in the universe.
In that moment, Sargeras lost all faith in the Pantheon. The other titans lacked the willpower to do what needed to be done, and he would waste no more time weathering their criticisms. The titan champion abandoned his allies and disappeared into the Great Dark.
The Pantheon was saddened by Sargeras’s departure, but that did not stop its members from their great search. They continued exploring the distant reaches of creation, seeking out slumbering titan spirits.
Meanwhile, Aggramar took on the burden of fighting demons alone. It was harrowing work, and he longed for the days of
fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with Sargeras. Aggramar’s hope was that one day his old friend would come to his senses and return to the fold.
Such a reunion would never come to pass. Sargeras had made his decision. He would cleanse the universe in fire to thwart the void lords’ plans. And he would not stop this quest—this Burning Crusade—until every star had gone dark and he stood over a universe of embers.
Despite Sargeras’s vast power, he could not prosecute his Burning Crusade alone. He needed loyal servants, ones that would embrace their role as agents of destruction. He needed the very things he had once sworn to destroy.
He needed demons.
Sargeras rallied the wicked creatures to his side, and he indulged in the terrible might of fel magic. The destructive energy enveloped his soul and scarred his noble form forever, but it also granted Sargeras power beyond anything he had ever known.
The corrupted titan gave some of this newfound power to his demonic acolytes, uniting them as one in the emerald fires of fel magic. He named his growing army the Burning Legion, and he unleashed it upon the unsuspecting universe.
In time, the Legion’s ranks would swell with new types of demons. World after world would fall to their relentless onslaught. Some mortal civilizations would willingly join the Legion to escape oblivion. Others would be forcibly corrupted.
And still others would be erased from existence forever.
Before the Burning Legion launched its crusade, a small world took shape in a distant corner of the Great Dark. This world would be known by many names in the coming ages. The mighty ogres would call it Dawgar, meaning “the Known Earth” in their brutish tongue. An intelligent avian race known as the arakkoa would later name it Rakshar, “the Sunstone.”
In modern times, the most common name for this world would be Draenor.
Draenor did not contain a slumbering world-soul, but it was remarkable in other ways. Nearly all worlds in existence were home to elemental spirits of fire, air, earth, and water. Sometimes, these primordial beings were highly destructive. They took on physical forms and waged war against each other, keeping their respective worlds in a state of constant upheaval.
Such was not the case on Draenor. An abundance of the fifth element—the Spirit of Life—had saturated the world. This force had a natural calming effect on the elemental spirits. It tempered their violent nature, and it even prevented them from taking on physical forms.
The fifth element had another, far more extraordinary effect on Draenor. It accelerated the growth of flora and fauna. It made the world into a cradle of vibrant, untamed life.
Creatures of every shape and size roamed the young world, vying for dominance. The strong preyed on the weak. The cunning preyed on the strong. Savagery became critical to survival.
Draenor’s greatest predators did not hunt with fang or claw. They hunted with root and thorn.
A carnivorous, invasive strain of plant had sprouted on Draenor. These life-forms were known as Sporemounds. Their tendril-like vines slithered over the earth and strangled every primitive beast that they could reach. As they grew, the Sporemounds consumed more and more and more. Their hunger and need to expand knew no end. They blossomed into living mountains of tangled brambles and noxious pods.
Wherever the Sporemounds’ tendrils crept over the earth, lush forests and swampy mires took root. Before long, a labyrinth of deep wilds stretched to the far corners of the world.
Not even Draenor’s elemental energies were safe from the Sporemounds. Their roots wormed deep underground in search of water. As they did, the invading plant life tapped into the fifth element that suffused Draenor’s stones and soil. Consuming this primordial energy ignited a crude communal sentience within the Sporemounds and the surrounding wilds. This newfound intelligence allowed Draenor’s plants to act as a single massive organism. The Sporemounds and all other vegetation became known collectively as the Evergrowth.
If any major threat arose, the Evergrowth could react in unison. Yet such threats were nonexistent. The Evergrowth dominated everything in sight, and nothing could hold it at bay.
While the Sporemounds flourished, Aggramar continued his hunt for demons. His grand mission eventually took him near Draenor, a world not yet discovered by the titans.
Aggramar lingered among the vast emptiness over Draenor, listening for the dreams of a world-soul at its core. He heard none. And yet the world still intrigued him. He had never seen a place of such voracious and diverse plant life, a place of such untamed savagery.
The more Aggramar observed the Evergrowth, the more he foresaw doom in Draenor’s future. If left unchecked, the plant life would consume everything on the world, even the elemental spirits. Once that happened, the Evergrowth would devour itself. Draenor would be left a dust-blown wasteland, devoid of even the most primitive life.
Though Aggramar was eager to continue his war against demons, he could not leave Draenor to such a fate. His natural affinity for order compelled him to take action.
The titan warrior did not want to exterminate Draenor’s plant life; he desired only to temper it. He knew that to do so, he would need to neutralize the Sporemounds. They were the heart of the Evergrowth’s power and the cause of its rampant expansion.
Aggramar considered destroying the Sporemounds himself, but his power was so great that he feared he would irreparably damage or even shatter Draenor. He also knew he could not stand guard over the world forever. Instead, he would create a mighty servant in his image to uproot the Sporemounds and then maintain balance over Draenor.
Aggramar swept his colossal hand over the world and wove its fire, air, earth, and water energies into a massive elemental storm. He channeled the roaring tempest into Draenor’s largest mountain. The energies blasted through the crust and sent shockwaves of force around the globe. Then the mountain itself groaned to life and stood up on two colossal legs. Raw elemental power crackled over a craggy hide crisscrossed by veins of molten stone.
Aggramar named his creation Grond. He would serve as the titan warrior’s hand on Draenor.
At Aggramar’s command, Grond set out to divide and conquer the Evergrowth. The walking mountain lumbered over the world, lakes of elemental fire trailing in his footsteps. Grond dredged out seas, carved valleys, and forged mountains to separate the Evergrowth. Then he marched toward the nearest Sporemound, which towered nearly as high as the giant.
The Sporemound’s gnarled roots exploded from the earth to entangle Grond and bar his way. The giant smashed through them with ease. Grond stabbed his jagged fingers into the Sporemound, and then he tore it from the world’s surface with a single mighty heave.
The other Sporemounds shivered in agony at the destruction of their kin. Mere roots and vines would not topple Grond. The Sporemounds needed a new weapon. They needed to adapt.
Each Sporemound drained the surrounding forests and jungles of life essence, leaving behind only withered tracts of land. Infused with these energies, the Sporemounds arose to walk the world.
There were three Sporemounds in total, and each embodied a different region of the Evergrowth’s domain. The first was called Zang. Swampy mires and mushroom thickets glistened across its hide. The second, Botaan, was covered with primal forestlands. The last of the Sporemounds was known as Naanu, and it wore a fleece of dense jungles.
As one the Sporemounds moved against Grond, and Draenor buckled under the weight of warring giants.
From the skies over Draenor, Aggramar watched the Sporemounds converge on Grond. Zang, Botaan, and Naanu were determined to preserve the Evergrowth at any cost. They called upon their primal fury, and they lashed Grond with tendrils hard enough to crack diamond. Massive boulders crumbled away from the elemental giant’s skin. The stones crashed to the ground with enough force to carve out valleys and shatter mountaintops.
Through their communal sentience, the Sporemounds moved in perfect unison. They nearly overwhelmed Grond, and he teetered on the verge of collapse.
Bu
t it was only for a moment. Like Aggramar, Grond possessed a will that was forged of steel. He would not give up until he had brought balance to Draenor.
Elemental storms howled to life over Grond’s body as he gathered his strength and launched himself at the Sporemounds. He pummeled them with fists that carried the weight of mountains. Each blow sheared away pieces of the verdant giants. Broken roots and seeds tumbled from the Sporemounds and fell to the earth.
Grond was relentless, but the Sporemounds gave no ground. They endured the elemental giant’s wrath and continued their fight for dominion over the world. The tide of battle shifted between each side, and the world’s crust trembled and cracked beneath their feet.
Though the Sporemounds were resilient, they could not hold out forever against Grond’s attacks. Zang suffered the most from the elemental giant. It was the smallest of the Sporemounds and the first to fall before Grond’s onslaught.
Grond took hold of Zang and tore the monstrous creature in half. The Sporemound’s shredded corpse toppled to the world’s surface with a deafening thunderclap. In the ages to come, the rotting body would transform into a fungal region known as the Zangar Sea.
Grond pressed his attack against Naanu and crushed the other giant between his unyielding hands. The lifeless Sporemound collapsed to the ground. Its broken husk would slowly sink into the earth and become a region called Tanaan Jungle.
Two Sporemounds had fallen to Grond, but the long battles had chipped away at his mighty form. He was a shadow of his former self, riddled with cracks and fissures.
Botaan sensed its enemy’s weakened state, but it needed power to defeat Grond. The Sporemound leeched the dwindling life essence from the bodies of Naanu and Zang, drawing the energies into itself and growing to a monstrous size.
GROND BATTLES THE FINAL SPOREMOUND
Even with its new strength, Botaan was cautious. It evaded Grond’s direct assaults, all the while entangling its foe in thousands of small vines. The thorny tendrils coiled around Grond and gradually burrowed into the cracks and wounds on his skin.
