Really? Chronicle depicts humanity arising pre-sundering so…
Thats not possible since the Vrykul and their deformed children(Humans) fled Northrend to the Eastern Kingdoms to escape King Ymiron’s wrath, iirc
Really? Curious. I had always read that section as taking before the War of the Ancients as it was listed before it in the book itself iirc.
Eh, enslaved Vrykul work too. Probably better labour force as well.
Mystery cracked; the highborne bred the vrykul for show and domestication, eventually producing the ideal cute pets from the fierce stock; smaller and better socialised with finer fur responding well to brushing.
This new breed called Humans lost their origin to myth and legend as the kaldorei empire collapsed, Ymiron’s exile of the weak emerging as the dominant narrative promoted to wash away the humiliation of once being “Best in Show”
No, of course I’m not serious.
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They were afflicted with the curse of flesh 15,000 years before the First War. The War of the Ancients takes place 10,000 years prior to the First War, during which the Sundering occurs. So proto-humans had been around for roughly 5000 years by the time the Sundering happens.
So most likely they are referring to the lands that would become Northrend and the Tirisfal Glades / Eastern Kingdoms rather than the continents on their own.
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“The Lord of the Burning Legion was both powerful and subtle, and worked to corrupt the early magic-users, the Kaldorei. He succeeded, for a dark shadow fell upon their hearts, and they enslaved other races, the nascent humans as well as others, in order to build their empire.”
From The Last Guardian
Humans are not pug-vrykul, they’re not…
shudder
And a “certain time” afterwards the “weak offspring” was born. There’s no definite timespan, just that the Vrykul who disagreed send their offspring away towards where Tyr’s tomb was located.
(And Tyr fled from Loken with mechagnomes, earthen and vrykul!).
I don’t think vrykul live 5000~ years naturally, and we know from in-game quests that roughly 15,000 years ago was when the vrykul went into hibernation and disappeared from the world.
Chronicle 1 also says vrykul clans were dominating northern Kalimdor and that the Dragonflayer Clan led by king Ymiron would grow to be one of the mightiest before the Curse of Flesh cursed the vrykul further. To quote directly from it.
Under King Ymiron, the Dragonflayer clan finally gained the upper hand against its foes. In a coordinated offensive, the vrykul attacked and drove the jalgar into Kalimdor’s lush central forests.
Yet on the heels of this victory, tragedy struck. The curse of flesh took another turn. Dragonflayer women began giving birth to small, malformed children—a development that spread fear and superstition among the clan. Some of the vrykul even blamed Ymiron for the affliction, but the king had his own belief about who was responsible. In his mind, the mythical keepers were behind the curse of flesh.
The mechagnomes don’t begin to suffer from the Curse of Flesh until roughly 3,000 years before the First War, the Earthen don’t begin to suffer from the Curse of Flesh until after Tyr has died, but we don’t know the exact date, and the vrykul following Tyr are explicitly stated to be suffering from the Curse of Flesh.
Huh. So proto-humans have been running around for a long time during the heyday of the Kaldorei Empire?
I didn’t expect that. I always thought that the vrykul exodus thing happened after the Sundering, not before. I stand corrected.
Considering how just about everything TLG said about the kaldorei was later retconned into oblivion (as it was released before WC3 introduced night elves as we know them now), I’d be cautious about using it as a source. Point taken, though.
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Did they?
Because this is all the novel says about the Kaldorei and it summarises War of the Ancients verbatim before Warcraft 3 or the Well of Eternity trilogy even came out
“A well of magic, the source, an opening into other dimensions, a shimmering doorway into the lands beyond the Great Dark, beyond the walls of the world. The first peoples to cast spells encamped around the well and distilled its raw power into magic. They were called the Kaldorei then. What they are called now, I cannot say.”
Medivh looked at Khadgar, but the younger mage kept his silence now.
Medivh resumed. “The Kaldorei grew powerful from their use of magic, but they did not understand its nature. They did not understand that there were other, powerful forces in the Great Dark Beyond, moving in the space between worlds, that hungered after magic and were very interested in any who tamed it and refined it to their own ends. These malign forces were abomination and juggernauts and nightmares from hundreds of worlds, but we call them simply demons.
They sought to invade any world where magic was mastered and grown, and destroy it, keeping the energies for themselves alone. And the greatest of them, the master of the Burning Legion, was a demon named Sargeras.”
Khadgar thought of the vision with Aegwynn and suppressed a shudder.
If Medivh noticed the young mage’s reaction he did not say anything. “The Lord of the Burning Legion was both powerful and subtle, and worked to corrupt the early magic-users, the Kaldorei. He succeeded, for a dark shadow fell upon their hearts, and they enslaved other races, the nascent humans as well as others, in order to build their empire.”
Medivh sighed, “Now in this time of the enslaving Kaldorei, there were those with greater vision than their brethren, who were willing both to speak out against the Kaldorei and to pay the price for their vision. These brave individuals, both Kaldorei and other races as well, saw the hearts of the ruling Kaldorei grow cold and dark, and the demonic power grow.”
“So it came to pass that the Kaldorei were corrupted by Sargeras such that they nearly damned this world at its birth. The Kaldorei ignored those who spoke out against them, and opened the way for the most powerful of demons, Sargeras and his lot, to invade. Only by the heroic actions of a few was the shimmering doorway through the Great Dark shut, exiling Sargeras and his followers. But the victory was at great cost. The Well of Eternity exploded when the doorway was shut down, and the resulting explosion ripped the heart out of this world, destroying the Kaldorei lands and the very continent it rested upon. Those that shut the door were never seen again by living eyes.”
“Kalimdor!” said Khadgar, interrupting despite himself.
And then there’s a passage few paragraphs later where Medivh points out that the descendants of those who survived the Sundering taught magic to humanity when they were on the verge of discovering magic for themselves and the elves stepped in to teach them properly to ensure humans wouldn’t blindly walk in the footsteps of their ancestors and break the world like the ruling Kaldorei had.
With the novel’s 20 year anniversary coming up this year, it holds up remarkably well with little to no retcons to speak of, and the very minimal few that you can more or less count on one hand are all biased character opinions citing in-universe theories.
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Which is clearly wrong, seeing as the Kaldorei Empire was already built by the time Sargeras even discovered them.
If I were to speculate, I think the thing with the humans being around pre-sundering is just another instance of Blizzard not caring & or forgetting their own previous lore.
Which doesn’t necessarily mean there couldn’t have been more to build. Capture other races and use them as labour as the empire expands and cities rise.
Humans being around pre-Sundering has always been a thing.
Oh, then my bad!
Even so, the timeline does not add up. There is hardly any time between Sargeras making contact and the War of the Ancients starting. There also hasn’t been any indication of kaldorei enslaving humans (or anyone at all) since that quote.
You never really know whether to take that piece of lore as canon or as gospel.
It’s never been referenced by anyone, until that quote.
I can’t even remember if Chronicles elaborated / confirmed that lore.
I know it did confirm the Pandaren / Night Elf friendship in the early days of the Empire and how Azshara and the Highborne’s recklessness caused the Pandaren to distance themselves to the South.
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And yet, that is sort of what the humans did with their magic.
Is there a Cataclysm that shattered the continents that the humans caused that I’m missing?
No.
Apart from that one TLG quote, I know of no lore mentions of night elves ever keeping slaves.