Hello everyone! The subject for todays lore
video takes us way back, deep into the origin lore described within the warcraft chronicles.
That means that those of you that still need to read the chronicles and want to be surprised
by it, be warned, there will be spoilers for the chronicles in this video. If you don’t
want any spoilers then let me just say thank you very much for watching so far and please
turn of the video right now...On top of that, if you haven’t picked up the chronicles for yourself
yet, I can highly recommend you to do so because the storylines and the information, it’s just extremely good. Anyways, for those that are sticking around, sit back, relax and let’s talk about how the warcraft universe came
to be... In the beginning before even the cosmos took
shape, there was Light and there was Void. The Light swelled across all existence in
the form of a boundless prismatic sea, yet as it expanded, some of its energies faded
and dimmed leaving behind pockets of cold nothigness. From the absence of Light in these
areas, a new power came to be, namely the Void. A dark and vampiric force driven to devour all
energy, twist creation inward to feed upon itself. It quickly grew and spread its influence,
moving against the flowing waves of Light. The tension between these two opposing yet
inseperable energies eventually ignited a series of catastrophic explosions, birthing
a whole new realm into existence. In that moment, where the Light and the Void crashed
with each other, the physical universe was born. The energies released in that moment raged
across the cosmos, brought life to primordial worlds without number. For many, many years
this universe expended on itself, a universe we now call the Great Dark Beyond. This is what
they call the physical universe, an infinite living realm with innumerable stars, worlds
and mortal civilizations. The most unstable of the energies released
in this explosion, they came together in an astral dimension that we call the Twisting Nether.
The Twisting Nether exists outside the borders of the physical universe, yet sometimes these volatile energies
would tear through the veil of the Great Dark, flooding into reality and warping creation. The birth of the cosmos also send shards of
Light throughout realitity, giving life to creatures of wondrous and terrrible diversity.
The most common form of life to appear were the elemental spirits, primordial beings of
fire, water, earth and air. You can find these creatures on nearly every physical world and
many of them reveled in the turmoil that came with the early ages of creation.
Occasionally, clouds of fractured Light gathered together and gave shape to beings of far greater
power, amongst them the beings we know as the Naaru. The Naaru looked out across the
immeasurable universe and they saw a realm of limitless possibilities. They vowed to
use their mastery over holy magic to spread hope and nurture life where ever they could
find it. Even more extraordinary than the naaru was
the creation of colossal titans. Their spirits, known as world-souls, formed deep within the
fiery core of a small number of worlds. For ages, these titans slumbered, their energies
suffusing the celestial bodies they inhabited. When the titans finally awoke, they did so
as living worlds. Cosmic winds howled across their gigantic forms, bodies shrouded in a
cloak of stardust, skin crisscrossed with silvery mountain peaks and oceans shimmering
with latent magic. With eyes that shone like brilliant stars, they observed the young cosmos
and became enraptured by its mysteries. Whereas the naaru made it their goal to safeguard
life, the titans went on a different journey. They wandered the distant corners of the Great
Dark, searching for others of their kind. This grand, far-reaching voyage would one
day alter the course of creation and shape the destiny of all living things. So this is how the universe came to be, Light
and Void clashing together, cosmic explosions and bam, the stage is set for every story
that we know of and every story that’s still to come. In the old origin story they described
the birth of the cosmos as unsure. Some said that it was created out of an cosmic explosion
while some believed that a single entitiy was responsible for its creation. Now we know how it happened. Now we know that, for certain, it was the cosmic explosion. So moving on from the creation of the universe, let's take a look at what the titans did. No one knows when or why the first titan woke
up, but legends hold that his name was Aman’thul. Though Aman’thul was alone at first, he
knew in his heart that more titans had to be outthere so explored the world of the Great
Dark beyond. It was a lonely journey at first, but in time he discovered other emerging world
souls. He nurtured these souls, woke them from their slumber and those that he did manage to
wake up, they joined him on his quest of waking up more of their kind. In time, Aman’thul
and his siblings became known as the Pantheon with Aman’thul being the Highfather. You also had Sargeras, defender of the pantheon. Aggramar, Lieutenant of the Great Sargeras.
Eonar, the life-binder. Khaz’goroth, shaper and forger of worlds. Norgannon, keeper of
celestial magics and lore and finally golganneth, lord of the skies and roaring oceans. The titans knew that they were incredibly
powerful so they set a code of temperance for themselves, to control their power and
actions towards the civilizations they encounterd. We always knew that the mission of the titans
was to bring order to the universe, but that was apperantly not their goal, that was just
their method. Their goal was to find and awaken more of their kind by searching from planet
to planet. Each world they encounterd, they used techniques to check if there was a world
soul present. First they would pacify the world’s raging elemental population, then
they would reshape the world and finally they would seed it with life. In doing so, the
Pantheon hoped to call forth the world- soul inside and help bring it to maturity, but most of
the time they encounterd planets with no world soul inside. That didn’t change the Pantheon’s
methods though and even the worlds without a spirit inside fell under their protection.
To keep the planets safe and in order, the titans empowered the primitive life forms on the
planet to uphold the integrity of their ordered world, to make sure that their work was not
undone. They also placed colossal machines in the surface of the worlds. Through these
machines the titans could monitor what they've done, monitor these worlds and, if need be, purge them of life incase
their evolution lead them to disorder. To help the Pantheon with keeping an eye on
things, as you can imagine if you're going from planet to planet to bring order to the planets, you might not always be able to check on the work that you've done so Aman'thul called upon a mysterious race known as the constellar. These celestial beings observed the many worlds ordered by the titans, keeping an eye out for any sign
of instability. When necessary, the constellar could activitate a fail-safe procedure to
remove life from the planet in the hopes of resetting its evolutionary process.
You might remember this storyline from way back when during Wrath of the Lich King. In Ulduar we fought with a constellar called
Algalon the Observer. Algalon scanned our planet and he found it to be corrupted It is in the universe's best interest to re-originate this planet should my analysis find systemic corruption. Do not interfere. The planet was apperantly in need of a reset so Elgalon
was about to send out a code which would activate the device in Uldum and purge the planet of
all life. Thankfully we were able to smack some sense into the celestial being and Algalon gave us a different reply code which not only stopped the purge, it also gave Rhonin a very beautiful speech: Citizens of Dalaran! Raise your eyes to the skies and observe! For years the titans explored the universe
searching for more and more of their kind, but as they went along, fewer and fewer world souls were discovered. They
kept going on though, pushing on knowning that even with the many years behind them, they’d
only explored a very small corner of creation. Yet as the titans worked on bringing life
and order to the universe, another force was also hard at work in the distant reaches of
the Great Dark. From the moment that Light and Void clashed together, the moment the
cosmos came to be, dark spirits within the Void known as void lords, sought to twist
reality into a realm of eternal torment. They had long watched the titans go about their
business and they were envious of their power. They sought to corrupt one of these world-shaping
titans into an instrument of their will. They pushed to manifest into the physical universe, they
were able to warp some of the unsuspecting denizens of creation, yet they were unable
to corrupt the titans. The void lords were not discouraged though. They figured that if they couldn’t corrupt a
fully grown titan, then they’d just have to attack it in its most volnerable state,
while it was still slumbering. They pooled their power together and of course like the
titans, the void lords also didn’t know which planet contained a slumbering titan soul.
To cover all their bases, from the Void they send beings known as Old Gods to infect and
corrupt as many of the worlds as they could. They hoped that atleast a few of their minions
would land on a planet containing a titan spirit. The old gods contaminated mortal worlds
and everything else that they touched and although the pantheon knew that the void energies existed, they had no idea of the void lords or the old gods. Their attention was
consumed by another dark force born from the twisting nether. Remember that this is a realm
where Light and Void bleed together, engulfing it in constant strife. From it the demons
came, enslaved to unbridled hate and malice, they hungered for nothing less than the destruction
of all life in the universe. The demons came in many forms like two-headed void hounds,
abyssals and infernals, the pitlords and the nathrezim. They clawed their way into the
physical universe, terrorizing mortal civilizations and bringing ruin to world after world. Especially
the Nathrezim relished in infiltrating worlds, corrupting them from within and watch as
societies devolved and crumbled. The nathrezim would then corrupt their populations, twisting
innocents into new and horrific breeds of demon.
Now destroying all life goes against the titans mission of bringing order and awakening more
world souls and bringing life to the universe, so as the demons caught their attention, the pantheon send out their mightiest
warrior, the noble sargeras, to deal with them. Without hesitation, the great-hearted
titan set out and pledged he would not rest until he had cleansed the universe of all
demonic influence. For ages, Sargeras traveled to the worlds
under attack, fighting to spare the mortal inhabitants from the invading demons. Some
demons had learned how use fel magic, but Sargeras noticed that others had the ability
to wield Void Energies originating from the Void Lords. These Void Lords were far more powerful than even the demons were and their presence deeply troubled Sargeras. He wondered
what the powers of the Void were planning to do and what their existence could mean for the
universe, yet despite all of that he carried on with fighting against the demons until he noticed
something strange. In his many battles, he started to encounter demons that he had battled
and vanquished before. After he had defeated them in the physical world, their spirit simply
returned to the Twisting Nether where they could recover and return to fight another day. Killing them was only possible within the twisting nether, or in areas of the Great Dark so saturated with
that volatile realm’s energies. Sargeras didn’t know this yet, all he knew was that
his current tactics were ineffective so instead of doing what he’d been doing, Sargeras
decided to build the demons a prison to contain them. With the aid of his fellow titan Aggramar,
who was send by the pantheon to help sargeras with his mission,Sargeras learned how to manipulate
and shape energies from the Nether. He used this knowledge to forge a prison within
the Nether, known as Mardum, the Plane of Banishment. It would act as an impregnable
pocket dimension from which nothing could escape. No longer would demons be reborn after
defeat, now they would be contained within this prison where they would languish for
all eternity. Aggramar and Sargeras fought shoulder to shoulder, a bullwark against the
ravaging demonic onslaught. Although Aggramar was inexperienced in battle, he proved
a very quick study. Over time he earned Sargeras’s admiration and he became the titan warrior’s
trusted lieutenant. Their prison would soon overflow with demons, bringing peace to the
cosmos. Demonic incursions would remain a constant threat to the great dark, but they
did become increasingly rare. The titan’s worlds prospered and life in all of its complexity,
flourished. With the remaining pantheon bringing order and searching for more souls, sargeras
and aggramar held the line, until the day came that Sargeras found out just how dark the Great Dark could
be... To cover more ground, Sargeras and Aggramar decided to split up thinking that they could
protect more worlds that way and, if the need be, they could call upon eachother in times of dire need. Sargeras
discovered a world infected by the old gods, and not just any world, a world with a slumbering
titan inside. He heard the world-soul dreaming within its core, but these were not the joyous
dreams Sargeras recognized from other world – souls. They were dark and horrificed nightmares.
The Old Gods’tendrils had burrowed deep, enveloping the slumbering titan’s spirit
in shadow. Some of the nathrezim had also dicovered this world and they were chilling
with the old gods on the planet, basking in their dark power. Sargeras captured these dreadlords and ruthlessly
interogated them, trying to discover what the hell was going on. The broken demon told the champion what they had learned about the old gods and the intentions of the void lords. If the powers
of the void were succesfull in corruption a slumbering titan, it would awaken as an unspeakable
dark creature. No power in creation, not even that of the Pantheon, could stand against it. In time,
the warped titan would consume all matter and energy in the universe, bringing every
mote of existence under the void lord’s will. Sargeras, the undefeated champion of
the titans, in that moment he knew fear for the first time. He realised that the void lords, like the
pantheon, had been searching for titans or nascent titan spirits, each with their own plan in mind. Even worse, the
realisiation dawned on him that this corrupted titan could never be allowed to wake up. With
sorrow in his heart he used his blade to split the world in two. The explosion consumed the
Old Gods and their energies, but it also killed the nascent titan. The situation was bad and Sargeras immediatly
returned to the pantheon as he summoned Aggramar to his side. He explained to his fellow titans
what exactly he had learned, what he had done to stop it and the pantheon was stunned. They couldn’t
believe that Sargeras had taken such a rash action, killing one of their kind. They thought
that with their aid, they could have purged the world – soul of its corruption. Their
champion tried to convince them that what he had done was necesarry, but none amongst
them except for Aggramar had seen the void or the demons. A heated argument followed
in which Sargeras expressed his growing fear that existence itself was already flawed-
an idea that he had come to terms with following his encounter with the Old Gods. Only by burning
away all of creation could the titans stand a chance of stopping the void lord’s. In sargeras’s mind, even a lifeless universe was better than one dominated by
the Void. Life had taken root in the cosmos once before, perhaps after they scoured it of
its corruption, life would take root once again.
His ideas horrified the pantheon. Especially Eonar, the life-binder, reminding Sargeras
that they had sworn to protect the living things whenever possible. Nothing could be so dire
as to purge all life from the universe. Even Aggramar, his trusted lieutenant, stood against
his mentor, arguing that there must be another way to defeat the void lords. He tried to
convince Sargeras to abandon this dark plan and reason out another solution, but it was
far too late. Sargeras knew that they would never see reason and if they would not help him
expel the void lord’s corruption, then he would do it himself. It would be the last
time that the titans of the Pantheon would see Sargeras as one of their own. Comparing this story to what we knew before
about Sargeras and the Pantheon, we can see that the origin story has not changed a whole lot.
In the past I believe the very origin story was that the nathrazim (I mean Eredar), had corrupted Sargeras, but they had retconned that storyline in order to introduce the draenei and their origin story. It then became that the
darkness of the universe slowly got to their champion, slowly got to sargeras, and now we know that it’s the void lord’s
and their plans that are to blame. I personally really like it, where as the titans were first said
to just bring order to the universe, now we know that they were searching for more titans.
Where as Sargeras was said to fall to the darkness of the universe, his dispair and
doubt that the pantheon was unable to talk him out of, now we know that he was shaking
in his boots for what would happen if the void lord’s succeed. He would rather see
the universe empty of all life then be corrupted by the void lords and as the pantheon would
not help him with this mission, he sought out help elsewere from a prison created by his own hands. How ever that’s a story I’ll save for next time since we’ve been going on for long enough and we still have plenty of things to talk about. There are two things that I want to mention
before we end the video. First of all, a piece of information that
was given to us during the warlock green fire questline. In this questline we join Kanrethad
and Jubeka as they interegate a doomguard and ask about his origin. The doomguard says
“before Sargeras freed us, we were the titan’s hounds. Forever enslaved to police the use
of arcane magics. Sacrificial magic was considered the greatest violation of life and we were
attuned to instantly punish those who delved into such ... delicious sorcery”.
Considering that the chronicles describe the titans unaware of the demons, I don’t believe
this part of the lore is still canon. The demons that Sargeras and Aggramar encounterd were
imprisoned within Mardum and the rest of the Pantheon were not familiar with the demons
or the void lords. That's why I say that this is no longer canon, but who knows perhaps they can give a spin to it ... The second thing is a question some of you
asked me which is, what are the void lords? and sadly I don’t have a clear answer. We
have seen beings categorized as void lords before. 1 prime example would be Dimensius the All-Devouring. This being is responsible for the destruction of the ethereal’s home world called K’aresh.
How the Voidlord found K'aresh is still hotly debated among the surviving ethereals, but
the effects of his coming were unmistakable: he opened countless gateways into the Void
and the Twisting Nether around the planet, bathing K'aresh in arcane and dark energies.
One of the mortal races hastily attempted to construct magical barriers around its cities,
but although the dark energies were blocked, the unimpeded flood of arcane energy tore
away the mortals' corporeal shells and infused their souls with energy to transform
them into ethereals. This altered state proved to be a blessing in disguise, however, as
their enhanced minds and magical abilities allowed the ethereals to fight Dimensius and
his limited forces to a standstill. Over the years, however, Dimensius eventually grew
powerful enough to summon armies of fellow void creatures, forcing the ethereals to flee
into the Twisting Nether. We eventually teamed up with the Ethereals
during the Burning Crusade and we kicked the crap out of Dimensius. Because of the last
part, I can’t imagine that the void lords responsible for the old gods and sargeras
shaking in his boots, that these are the same as the voidlord that was taken out by us. If I had to guess,
I’d say that Dimensius is part of the power that the void lords were able to push into
the physical world. “They pushed to manifest into the physical universe, were able to warp
some of the unsuspecting denizens of creation, yet they were unable to corrupt the titans.”
That makes the most sense to me, that Dimensius and other beings we’ve seen in the category
of Void are just a very small, a very minor bit of power that the void lords possess, but keep
in mind, this is just my interpretation. That’s really all I wanted to add to this, now
I’m not sure yet how I’m going to do the rest of the story, I want to talk about the
ordering of azeroth, i want to talk about sargeras’s story but I also want to cover
the upcoming Illidan novel. I’m not entirely sure yet how it’s all going
to be released, but you can be sure that it’s coming! For now, thank you very much for watching everyone.
I really hope you enjoyed the story so far and if you want to read it for yourself, if you want more details, pick up the warcraft chronicles since it’s really, really good. Subscribe if you like my videos and until next time guys...see ya! See your world through my eyes: A universe so vast as to be immeasurable - incomprehensible even to your greatest minds. I have seen worlds bathed in the Makers' flames. Their denizens fading without so much as a whimper. Entire planetary systems born and razed in the time that it takes your mortal hearts to beat once. Yet all throughout, my own heart, devoid of emotion... of empathy. I... have... felt... NOTHING! A million, million lives wasted. Had they all held within them your tenacity? Had they all loved life as you do? Perhaps it is your imperfection that which grants you free will. That allows you to persevere against all cosmically calculated odds. You prevailed where the Titans' own perfect creations have failed.
