Current Events > What's the status of major Warcraft (1-3) characters in WoW?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Was there like a time-travelling reset or was that a fever dream I had?

Is Gul'dan alive again?
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If there is a God, WarCraft IV will open with some random NPC waking up to reveal the entirety of WoW was a fever dream
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Went to an alternate Draenor, beat the shit out of Garrosh there, and then alternate Gul'dan came to our timeline to mess things up.
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I didnt play a whole lot of WoD, but I think that they went into an alternate timeline and fucked with a lot of the old Draenor orcs. They were being dicks so we killed them all and then we came back.

WoD was by far the stupidest expansion ever. Thats saying a lot considering we had an entire expansion about Kung fu pandas.
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an alternate dimension Gul'Dan is brought back to the main timeline in the Warlords of Draenor expac through some time travel BS, but he's dead now.

Sylvanas is the Warchief of the Horde, she is pretty much the only Warcraft 3 OG still alive on the Horde side.

Thrall is MIA being a dad or some shit, probably won't come back so he's as good as dead

Vol'Jin is dead

Cairne Bloodhoof is dead

Varian Wrynn is dead, Anduin is King of Stormwind now

Arthas is dead

Magni Bronzebeard turned into diamonds and is now the speaker of Azeroth

Malfurion is still around, Tyrande too

Jaina is still there and now passionately hates the Horde
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Romulox28 posted...

Jaina is still there and now passionately hates the Horde

And is now a Boat Mage!
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LightHawKnight posted...

Romulox28 posted...

Jaina is still there and now passionately hates the Horde

And is now a Boat Mage!

And is (for now) the Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras
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Voljin is a LOA now or something more. We aren't sure but, he's back in BFA and trying to guide us.

also i think khadgar and the beyond the dark portal alliance crew are mostly still alive

medivh and garona are also alive

the number of individual personalities in Warcraft I and II could be counted on one hand though
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Romulox28 posted...

Malfurion is still around

is he really though
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_TheBlueMonk posted...

Romulox28 posted...

Malfurion is still around

is he really though

yea hes in stormwind now doing what he does best, being a whiny bitch. god i wish malfurion was dead, he is the most annoying character in the whole game imo
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Romulox28 posted...

_TheBlueMonk posted...

Romulox28 posted...

Malfurion is still around

is he really though

yea hes in stormwind now doing what he does best, being a whiny bitch. god i wish malfurion was dead, he is the most annoying character in the whole game imo

Have fun with him playing a role in 8.1.
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Nomadic View posted...

was by far the stupidest expansion ever. Thats saying a lot considering we had an entire expansion about Kung fu pandas.

You havent played BFA, it's worse than WoD. And MoP is one of the better expansions.
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CyricZ posted...

Was there like a time-travelling reset or was that a fever dream I had?

Is Gul'dan alive again?

They're all pretty much dead or deader than they were when you left them. Gul'dan was just killed. Only ones still "alive" are Jaina Proudmore, Sylvanas, Alleria, Turalyon, Muradin was revealed to have survived, Malfurion, Cenarius, Khadgar, and Danath. All of the orc, troll and tauren signatures are dead or missing. Illidan was killed, brought back, and then died again in a suicide attack against Sargeras.
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Tyranthraxus posted...

CyricZ posted...

Was there like a time-travelling reset or was that a fever dream I had?

Is Gul'dan alive again?

They're all pretty much dead or deader than they were when you left them. Gul'dan was just killed. Only ones still "alive" are Jaina Proudmore, Sylvanas, Alleria, Turalyon, Muradin was revealed to have survived, Malfurion, Cenarius, Khadgar, and Danath. All of the orc, troll and tauren signatures are dead or missing. Illidan was killed, brought back, and then died again in a suicide attack against Sargeras.

Illidan isnt dead
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Goats posted...

Rexxar is dead? Since when breloom?

Hes not. Neither is Illidan.
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RebelElite791 posted...

Goats posted...

Rexxar is dead? Since when breloom?

Hes not. Neither is Illidan.

I forgot about Rexxar, but where is Illidan? The last we see of him is taking on Sargeras alone.
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Tyranthraxus posted...

RebelElite791 posted...

Goats posted...

Rexxar is dead? Since when breloom?

Hes not. Neither is Illidan.

I forgot about Rexxar, but where is Illidan? The last we see of him is taking on Sargeras alone.

He is Sargeras' jailer after the titans imprisoned him
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Well, he's Sargeras' "jailer." Pretty sure Aman'thul turned around when everyone left and said, "Dude, the fuck you still doing here, this guy just stabbed your planet, the hell you planning to do to him by yourself?"
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pegusus123456 posted...

Well, he's Sargeras' "jailer." Pretty sure Aman'thul turned around when everyone left and said, "Dude, the fuck you still doing here, this guy just stabbed your planet, the hell you planning to do to him by yourself?"

I think Sargeras is actually defeatable if you fight him at the Burning Throne because you're about as tall as he is instead of him being literally larger than your planet.
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Back home now, I'll do a quick write-up of all of 'em from cuz why not.

Humans

Jaina - After a new orcish warchief named Garrosh magic-nuked her city of Theramore, she got fed the fuck up with the Horde and now desires nothing more than to wipe them out. Someone else should probably sum up what happens to her in the latest expansion, I haven't played that much of my Alliance alt.

Muradin - "Killed" in WC3. In actuality, he survives but loses his memory. Becomes the leader of a local clan of frost dwarves until we discover him in WotLK. He helps attack Icecrown Citadel. Becomes a member of the Council of Three Hammers, ruling Ironforge with Moira (his niece) and Falstad after his brother turns into a diamond (long story). Done pretty much fuck-all.

Kael'thas - Works with Illidan for a time in Outland, but using fel magic to feed his mana addiction didn't do him any favors. With Illidan focusing on training demon hunters to take on the Legion and ignoring the blood elves at large, Kael'thas felt even more alienated which made him a perfect target for Kil'jaeden. The two of them made a deal: Kil'jaeden would sate the blood elf's addiction to magic and Kael'thas would use the (now restored) Sunwell to bring Kil'jaeden to Azeroth. Despite whooping his ass in Outland, he survives with the help of a demon doctor and makes his way back to Quel'thalas where we kill him for good.

Orcs:
Grom - Dies in WC3. We discover his son, Garrosh, is still alive in Outland though. Unfortunately, Garrosh turns out to be a massive warmonger and does some awful shit (see magic nuke with Jaina above), so we have to kill him.

Thrall - Leads the Horde until Deathwing's return to Azeroth shatters the world and sends the elements into turmoil. Deciding that being a shaman is more important than being warchief, he turns the reins over to Garrosh (big mistake). Meets an orc lady from Outland, kills Deathwing, has a few kids, basically retires. Comes out of retirement long enough to help defeat Garrosh, make Vol'jin warchief, go to Draenor and kill Garrosh for real this time. Tries to fight the Legion when they invade, but killing Garrosh for some reason fucked with his shaman powers so he steps down and gives Doomhammer to the shaman PC.

Cairne Bloodhoof - Does almost absolutely nothing until the Cataclysm where he is deeply unhappy about Garrosh becoming warchief. After some Deathwing cultists attack peaceful druids and make it look like Garrosh ordered it, Cairne challenges him to a special orc duel to the death where the winner becomes warchief. Garrosh is actually a mostly okay guy at this point, but part of the custom is that a shaman blesses your weapon. Magatha Grimtotem, a bad-lady tauren who's in opposition to Cairne, secretly poisons Garrosh's weapon. So despite Cairne being the better fighter, the poison slows him down enough that Garrosh is able to kill him.

Rokhan - ...who? He's become sort of the de facto leader of the trolls after Vol'jin's death, but that's only because he is the only troll character with any sort of significance.

Undead:
Arthas - Might surprise you to know that the Lich King tried to take over the world and we killed him. To his credit, he comes very close. He actually does kill us, but a paladin named Tirion Fordring manages to break Frostmourne with Da Light and the freed souls bind him long enough for his dad's ghost to rez us so we can finish him. Of note, there was some silly bullshit about there always needing to be a Lich King or the undead would swarm over everything, so a guy named Bolvar Fordragon put on the hat and became the new one.

Continued in next post
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Kel'thuzad - Doesn't do too much. He's a boss in the Naxxrammas raid. We kill him. Someone steals his phylactery and gives it back to the Scourge, so Arthas rezzes him. We kill him again. Blizzard's hinted that we were dumb enough not to check the phylactery again, so it's possible he's still alive somewhere.

Anub'arak - Does even less.

Mal'ganis - Turns out demons don't die unless you kill them in the Twisting Nether. He's pretty mad at Arthas, so he infiltrates a fanatical group of humans called the Scarlet Crusade and convinces them to sail to Northrend. Because the Scarlet Crusade doesn't really discriminate (eg, they kill people just in case the might turn undead), we actually "kill" Mal'ganis before he gets anywhere close to Arthas.

Sylvanas - Ooh, boy. Alright, there's nothing to major for a while. She leads the Forsaken and tasks her apothecaries with creating their own plague, one that will kill both the living and the Scourge. They finally succeed in WotLK, creating the Forsaken Blight. Unfortunately, her head apothecary decides to team up with Varimathras and immediately attacks the Lich King, the Alliance, and the Horde with this new Blight. The Alliance and the Horde independently attack the Undercity (Forsaken capital in Lordaeron), the former taking out Varimathras and the latter taking out the apothecary.

After we kill the Lich King, she decides that she has nothing left to live for. She was living solely to see Arthas dead, so she goes to the top of Icecrown to make sure and then flings herself off. Bad choice as she discovers that the afterlife - or at least her afterlife - is a cold, nightmarish hell. Luckily, a powerful group of nine undead beings called the val'kyr (based on Valkyries) are not interested in serving the new Lich King. They agree to bring her back to life. Now utterly fucking terrified of dying, she begins bolstering the Forsaken by using the val'kyr to raise new undead.

Garrosh orders the Forsaken to capture Gilneas. Despite being explicitly told not to, Sylvanas bathes that place in Forsaken Blight and raises the corpses for fun. Sadly, one of these corpses turns out to think this is a shitty deal and shoots her in the back at one point. Now the val'kyr can raise normal undead by the droves, but they only have so much power. To bring Sylvanas back at Icecrown, one of them has to take her place in the afterlife. And when she's killed again, three of them have to take her place. One of them was killed by the Alliance later on, so she only has three of them left. Given that they can bring her back to life, she is very interested in getting more.

She helps the attack on Garrosh, but doesn't do much until Legion. The previous warchief, Vol'jin, is killed by a demon. The "spirits" tell him to choose Sylvanas as his successor. At some point, she learns that the vrykul (human precursors; think viking species) in the Broken Isles worship beings that can create new val'kyr. She leaves her forces to hunt the McGuffin while she makes a deal with the vrykul devil for a magic lantern that will allow her to enslave Eyir, the demigod that creates new val'kyr. Genn Greymane, king of Gilneas, stops her because he just fucking hates Sylvanas.

In the latest expansion, she decides to capture the night elf capital tree of Teldrassil and kill Malfurion for reasons I won't go into here. After shenanigans, her plans change and she burns the tree to the ground. The Alliance retaliates by attacking the Undercity. The Horde gives it their best shot, but they're eventually forced back and Sylvanas salts the earth by covering every inch of the place in Forsaken Blight so the Alliance can't use it. She's also pissing off a lot of her fellow Horde leaders because...well, she's always been a psychopath and now she's in charge, so you do the math.

Continued in next post
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Night elves:

Maiev - Didn't die in TFT, but Illidan did imprison her. Akama gets sick of Illidan after a while and the two of them conspire to take him out. She imprisons his body and all of the demon hunters. Later did some dumb, murderous shit after that which Blizzard may as well have made non-canon for all the attention they paid to it. Eventually decides to let the demon hunters out when the Legion attacks. Helps Illidan attack the Tomb of Sargeras, the source of this Legion invasion, and they just make dickish comments to each other. Doesn't do much other than that.

Malfurion - He's literally asleep for three expansions. Druids get their power from a place called the Emerald Dream, sort of a spiritual nature plane. Due to Old God corruption, the Dream had been taken by what was called the Nightmare and knocked Malfurion's ass out for a while. He manages to defeat the Nightmare Lord and wakes up in Cataclysm. In that expansion, he focuses on stopping the elemental lord of fire from burning down the regrown World Tree (same one from WC3). In Legion, the Nightmare Lord has returned and spread the Nightmare to a massive extent. He captures Malfurion for a little bit, but we free him and then defeat the Nightmare Lord and the Nightmare for good(?).

When the Horde attacks Teldrassil, he leads the defense. Because he's basically a god, he does a damn good job of holding them off, but the Horde eventually break through his defenses by sheer numbers. Sylvanas goes after him personally and the two of them fight it out. Malfurion is taken out by an axe to the back from an orc leader named Saurfang. Sylvanas is pretty happy about it and leaves Saurfang to finish him off, but Saurfang is an actual honorable orc. He's so ashamed that he attacked from behind that goes blue screen long enough for Tyrande to show up and save her husband.

Tyrande - Doesn't do much for the first few expansions. Gets kind of shit on because the story focused a LOT on her relationship with Malfurion, not so much her being the military and religious leader of her people. So you can basically copy/paste what I said above about Malfurion and add "Tyrande helped" to most of it. Aside from that, she was solely responsible for turning the Nightborne, a magically powerful offshoot of night elves, towards the Horde instead of the Alliance solely by being a massive bitch to their leader.

Illidan - I haven't read the book which heavily retconned what he did in WoW's first expansion, so I don't know the details. Basically, he trained a bunch of new demon hunters and they began attacking Legion worlds. The Legion lures Azeroth forces to Outland and we begin attacking Illidan's forces basically because he's not giving a shit what they're doing and they're all doing bad shit. We kill him, but it turns out he's become so demonic that he also doesn't die. Maiev and the Wardens lock his body away while his spirit is lost. Waaaaay later in Legion, we actually help those demon hunters restore his soul to his body. He helps us attack the Tomb of Sargeras, but instead of just closing the portal, he creates a brand new one which essentially puts Azeroth and the Legion's main stronghold right next to each other in space. We counterattack and invade the Legion's world, eventually freeing the Titan Pantheon. They use their combined power to imprison Sargeras, leader of the Legion. Illidan decides to stay behind because he's...going to be so helpful.

Also worth noting that he leaves a message for Tyrande and Malfurion. Because Illidan's sort of a massive asshole, both of them kind of roll their eyes at his self-indulgent bullshit goodbyes.

(I should probably mention that I don't really like Illidan).
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pegusus123456 posted...

Kael'thas - Works with Illidan for a time in Outland, but using fel magic to feed his mana addiction didn't do him any favors. With Illidan focusing on training demon hunters to take on the Legion and ignoring the blood elves at large, Kael'thas felt even more alienated which made him a perfect target for Kil'jaeden. The two of them made a deal: Kil'jaeden would sate the blood elf's addiction to magic and Kael'thas would use the (now restored) Sunwell to bring Kil'jaeden to Azeroth. Despite whooping his ass in Outland, he survives with the help of a demon doctor and makes his way back to Quel'thalas where we kill him for good.

aka the biggest character assassination in all of warcraft
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And wth, the WC2 heroes just because it should be quicker.

Bladefist - Stays in Outland, teams up with Illidan, leads the fel orcs. We kill him.

Zul'jin - Decides to take advantage of the elves' troubles to try and take back the land. Isn't super happy that the Horde let the elves join, so declares war on both factions. We kill him. Noteworthy for having one of the cooler trailers in WoW:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmndxoF74qQ" data-time="

Gul'dan - The one you're familiar with is dead, but some silly time travel/alternate dimension shenanigans meant that an alternate Gul'dan was brought to our world by the Legion. Opens a Legion portal in the Tomb of Sargeras, steals Illidan's body to use to create a new Avatar of Sargeras, kills Varian Wrynn, and is ultimately killed in his attempt to turn Illidan's body into an Avatar.

Cho'gall - An interesting one. He leaves the Broken Isles after the original Gul'dan is attacked and flees west, lured by the whispers of the Old Gods (think Lovecraft and the big monster that Anub'arak and Arthas fight at the end of the underground levels in the Frozen Throne Undead campaign). Breaks the chains binding C'thun, allowing it to raise the insectoid army of silithid. Travels to Northrend and weakens the bindings of Yogg-Saron, allowing it to take quicker hold over the Keepers imprisoning it. Both of them being Old God minions, he teams up with Deathwing in Cataclysm. We defeat him.

Gorefiend - His spirit is trapped after WC2. He tricks the PC into freeing him in the Burning Crusade and either teams up with Illidan or is tolerated by him. We kill him again.

Deathwing - Takes a vacation in Deepholme, the elemental plane of Earth. When he breaks out back into Azeroth, he shatters the world and causes massive ecological issues. Sets out to bringing about the Hour of Twilight, a series of which will free the Old Gods and wipe out all life on the planet. We stop him.

Kurdran and Danath - Don't do much. They're around on Outland. Danath takes back Stromgarde in the latest expansion.

Khadgar - Is sort of a main quest giver in Outland, where his focus on the Burning Legion really starts. Basically leads the counter-invasion of silly alternate timeline Draenor, but then takes a backseat against the Iron Horde to (smartly) focus on Gul'dan. In Legion, he's the leader of the forces fighting the Legion on Azeroth, but takes a backseat when Illidan and Prophet Velen take control when they actually get to the Legion homeworld of Argus. Is now super bummed that the two factions are fighting each other after he worked so hard to get them to work together.
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It was quick before these two assholes.

Alleria and Turalyon - The elf lady does more than her husband.

Sent to a different area than the other human characters, they are contacted by a holy dreadlord who asks them to join the Army of the Light. This Army travels the universe, fighting against the Legion. They accept and Xe'ra, basically a living windchime made of Light and leader of the Army, infuses Turalyon with power, making him immortal. At one point, Alleria is touched by the Void, a shadowy power that's the antithesis of the Light. Believing it might help against the Legion, she asks Xe'ra about it and the wind chime shuts that shit down very fast. Alleria doesn't forget about it though and she later calls upon the Void to get her and her husband out of a tough spot; unfortunately, he is so infused with Light, that she causes him excruciating pain while she is infused with Void. She leaves him for a while and eventually meets an ethereal called Locus-Walker who teaches her about the Void. She cuts the lessons short when she sees a vision of her husband being near death and portals to him, saving his life. Despite Turalyon asking Xe'ra for mercy, Alleria's refusal to give up the Void leads to her being imprisoned.

When Azeroth's forces invade Argus, the Army's ship the Xenedar reveals itself to meet them...only to be immediately shot down by the Legion. Alleria is one of the survivors and she meets back up with Turalyon. All together now, we help them put Xe'ra back together. She'd sent a piece of herself to Azeroth with messages about the Army and how important it was to restore Illidan as she had some prophecy about him being the "child of light and shadow" that was destined to defeat the Legion. Well, put all back together, she tries to forcibly infuse Illidan with the Light and he blows her up. This pisses Turalyon off enough that he attacks Illidan, but Illidan says that the chosen one thing is some bs and they have to work together to beat the Legion.

Locus-Walker meets back up with Alleria shortly after that and continues teaching her about the void, culminating in Alleria absorbing the essence of a powerful void creature. This gives some nice bonuses, but the Void is also where those Lovecraftian Old Gods I mentioned above come from. So as you might expect, she also gets some insane whisperings and horrible urgers in the back of her mind all the time. Luckily, she seems to be in control.

The two of them travel back to Azeroth after the Legion's defeated and rejoin the Alliance. Alleria goes to speak to the blood elves about leaving the Horde and to visit the Sunwell. Unfortunately, the Sunwell was restored using the Light; her mere presence there disrupts it and the blood elves have to fight off void creatures that are brought forth. She also meets up with Sylvanas. It doesn't go well since Sylvanas is now, y'know, an evil bitch. Matters aren't helped by the void urging Alleria to "MURDER HER MURDER HER SAVE YOURSELF AND MURDER HER SAVE THE WORLD AND MURDER HER."

She helps recruit the dumb fanfiction void elves into the Alliance and is also pretty pissed about Sylvanas burning down the night elves' tree, stating that she should have killed her when they last met. Similarly, Turalyon helps the Lightforged from the Army of the Light join the Alliance.

Both of them in general are fairly prejudiced against the Horde, even independent of Sylvanas' fire shenanigans, because they haven't been around. So when they hear Horde, they still think of the demon-led, bloodthirsty savages from WC1 and WC2. Turalyon scoffs at the very idea of a paladin being in the Horde, for instance.

And I couldn't find a place to fit this in, but time works differently in the Nether where the two of them fought. So even though it's only been thirty or so years since WC2, it's been about a thousand years from their perspective.
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pegusus123456 posted...

Alleria and Turalyon - The elf lady does more than her orc husband.

wot
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Whoops, I'll fix that.
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Romulox28 posted...

Thrall is MIA being a dad or some shit, probably won't come back so he's as good as dead

Of course Thrall is going to come back at some point. They are keeping it in their back pocket for future content.
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Sativa_Rose posted...

Romulox28 posted...

Thrall is MIA being a dad or some shit, probably won't come back so he's as good as dead

Of course Thrall is going to come back at some point. They are keeping it in their back pocket for future content.

Debatable. Chris Metzen is his VA and he retired.

Funnily enough though, orcs are mature at age 12, so it won't be too long before Thrall's kids are fully grown.
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Spooking posted...

Is that giant, fat rock lady in Deepholm ever going to be a raid boss? When I first did that zone I could have swore she was going to be a boss at some point. But nope

Nah. In fact, the shaman questline in Legion involves you getting the help of her and the other Elemental Lords to fight the Legion.

Therazane wasn't really evil, she just wasn't super happy about mortals being in Deepholme considering that the last ones helped Deathwing fuck up the place.

Spooking posted...

Also, what about Deathwing's son? I remember him becoming more evil as MoP came out with more patches. He ever do anything?

Not a goddamn thing. He's mentioned in Warlords of Draenor as passing through Admiral Taylor's garrison shortly before the entire garrison is wiped out and a necromancer raises the bodies, but it's not really clear whether he had anything to do with it or if he was just passing through. In fact, he warns Taylor not to trust the guy that turns out to be the necromancer. He does make a very small cameo in his whelp form at the end of the legendary ring questline, but it's literally just him sitting on a lamppost.

He was originally intended to appear in the Highmountain zone in Legion, disguising himself as a Highmountain tauren sage. The zone ended with him uncovering a cache of uncorrupted black dragon eggs. This questline was heavily rewritten and he was replaced with Ebonhorn, a black dragon that was purified ten thousand years ago and been serving the Highmountain clan ever since. His only actual appearance in Legion is a minigame scenario where you travel forward in time to figure out what's killing the bronze dragon Chromie before her time.

In BFA, you can find a black dragon scale quest item which indicates that it came from a younger black dragon - interesting considering they've supposedly all been wiped out. You try to take it to Wrathion, but you instead find one of his bodyguards. She tells you that he's searching for the Dragon Isles.
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Thanks for all the info. This seems like a massive clusterfuck. :)
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Eh, it doesn't help when I've regurgitated a summary of a bunch of mostly disconnected events that happened over the last ten years without a lot of context (Garrosh, for instance, impacts a lot of these characters and I skimmed over him).
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CyricZ posted...

Thanks for all the info. This seems like a massive clusterfuck. :)

well its purpose is selling content/WoW expansions for raids so it makes sense that it doesnt make any actual sense

i remember playing guild wars and completely tuning out from the plot really early on
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