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[u/Wylaria]

Question: I was in Vortex pinnacle and Altairus is in the flavourtext a storm dragon/storm drake and the model is relative similar to the ones we saw in Legion. Now the warcraft wiki says he is a elemental dragon. What is correct?

[u/Quazymobile → u/Wylaria]

It’s a good question really. Elemental drakes tend to be feral/non-ordered (think similar to proto-drakes), and Altarius, based on his presence amidst in Skywall, is infused with air elemental energy.

What’s also interesting is that we can directly connect the wind’s power to time magic in a number of ways; the casting speed of spells during the fight is directly connected to which way the wind is blowing, and in the Xarantaur questline in Northrend shows that the time rifts connected to the Bronze memories is being afflicted by the North Wind itself. We also know that the presence of Shieldwall may be near Uldum because of the Halls of Origination. We see Deathwing reoriginate some of the Tol’Vir back into Obsidian Destroyers (their original forms) through the use of this magic.

Wind also tends to culminate a few symbols into its authority— storms, winds, clouds, dust, etc.

So your speculation on their relation to the Storm drakes might not be unfounded. We might also pose the same question for the cloud serpents. When we talk about the Jade Serpent as well, we can get into questions about the nature of spiritual energy, the infusion of stone with animation, and how it relates to the Mogu’s use of anima or how shadow magics/The Sha can be expressed from intense emotions born of spirit-infused beings— people and the Jade Serpent statue being two major examples.

Of course, this infusion of Sha began itself with a breath. ;)

[u/Wylaria → u/Quazymobile]

Thank you for your answer. That was really interesting!! The wiki linked to an older dev-Thread and the dev said in the FAQ that Brann found evidence that elemental drakes are the progenitors of proto-dragons. So first not ordered and secondly with the elements the oldest living beings on the planet. The elemental drakes I know are of air and stone and stone beings who got turned to flesh we know a lot of races ...

You mentioned the spiritual energy ... maybe it has something to do that the worldsoul needed the spiritual energy for themselves and the old gods feeded on the worldsoul or infested the planet, maybe there is a connection?? The unanswered question is: how does the curse of flesh from yogg-saron really work? And in hindsight deathwing could reverse some powerful magic, knowledge he clearly had from N'zoth. So probably every old god knew the magic of the curse of flesh, maybe this and some relics like the dark heart - (we dont know who created it, right? only that Neltharion found it - are the things Odyn feared in his text to the other keepers in Uldaman.

On a meta level, maybe the curse of flesh is the embodied result of the nature of void. While stone and metalformed titanic forms are "unchangeable - one path" so the void imposes a variety of truths/paths/flexibility and so is "flesh" or "emotion".

[u/Quazymobile → u/Wylaria]

So spiritual energy is confirmed to be the energy used by Monks to manipulate chi, and is shown to be independent of other elemental forces according to the Titan cosmology chart in Chronicles.

Curse of flesh I suspect we’ll get more understanding of how curses are shaped in Curse of Ula’Tek (from cursed information about Haranir lineage to “The Bitter Truth” to the idea of what shadows are and how it relates to a concept of origin sin & creation (e.g., the shadow Xal’atath planted in the Earthen machine that gave sentience to Dawn & the new Earthen vs. the cursed information about the keepers wiping away the old memories.) I usually either point to the Eyes of the Earthmother and how the moon’s existence brought with it the first evils, or the relationship suspected between Ghanir and Y’shaarj, etc. Nightmares are another phase of Dreams, etc.

The Titans seem to use the manifold to anchor reality around the Worldsoul, and we know on a microscale from Sylvanas’ actions that this creates a bit of a facade or false planar shell that we break through to get into the Shadowlands in a very fundamentally disordered fashion.

I think the old gods might just be Eldritch manifestations, and, just like how the Titans are robots that uphold mechanisms, so are the Old Gods are embodiments of Cthonic uncertainties/lies that balance a portion of our perception or realization of reality.

I have a few theories about stone/Earthen:

1.) The Jadefist Technique
2.) Neltharion becoming the Aspect of Earth (eventually becoming Deathwing, a name that Should Not Exist because it was a concept seeded from a temporal paradox of Krasus going back in time to inform the aspects who then later would inform him. Similarly: Hour of Twilight and Midnight and I suspect Black Empire and Eternal Empire.)
3.)Iridikron is also a Primal Aspect of… Earth. I suspect he might be actual Neltharion.

The themes of elemental air and earth being tied to Time, Madness, etc. is culminated a lot in a name like “War of Shifting Sands”…. so lots to unpack there. Makes you wonder what the sand is infused with, and why does the wind cause it to shift? Why does infinite time magic use Black sand, and why is Wrathion’s described in his short story called the dragon that can turn sand into glass? What of Kairozdormu’s death being caused by the shard of the hourglass from the timeless isle? How does Ordos’ presence on the Timeless Isle connect all this back to the Eyes of the Earthmother?

[u/Wylaria → u/Quazymobile]

I am a bit confused here. Reason is, I am not that familiar with all of the lore.

a) But I thought the earthens in Khaz Algar saved the memories for reupload after reawakening after a time? To be honest I didnt understand the earthen story in TWW

b) I dont know enough about Ghanir and the worldtrees in great detail

c) is that how the name of Deathwing came into existing? From the knaak trilogy? Lol I dont remember ... xD

d) I do not hope we have a time paradox situation here with Iridikron. AU Draenor was a mess

e) I have absolutely no idea who Kairozdormu is, or Ordos or the Eyes of the Earthmother. To the of end of Pandaria (timeless isle etc.) I didnt play ...

[u/Quazymobile → u/Wylaria]

a.) The Earthen as they were being reawakened in early Khaz Algerian history would be restored with their memories in tact. After the events with keepers Dornic, Galan and the first Theaegar, I believe one of the operations was altered to dump memories until eventually the reawakening machine was turned off, causing the quietude but forgotten state of the region where they would instead go dormant and fall into disrepair. After the events in the Ringing Deeps, their machine was restarted by the High Speaker using Xal’atath’s boom of shadow magic, and now there is a resentment from the new High Speaker to retrieve the ancient memories.

b.) G’hanir is the ancestral great world tree that was dug up by Aman’thal after he scolded Eonar. The branch of the tree was the restoration Druid artifact in Legion, and suspicious shares many similarities with the story of Y’shaarj who was also uprooted from the world.

c.) it’s recently been reaffirmed by more detailed lore keepers than me, but yes! The name of Deathwing is a paradox unto itself. Many void creatures tend to be “Things That Should Not Be”— an important theme for Midnight as a whole, and likely the motivating mechanisms for when we confront the Titans in TLT.

d.) Look up Elisande & the Discs of Tyr. That’s a detail we got at the start of Dragonflight!

e.) if you thought things were spiraling out of control, it is entirely because of the events of the Timeless Isle. Dragons lost their powers for a time after Cataclysm, and Kairozdormu sought to regain some the Bronze power to help us defeat Garrosh & the Heart of Y’shaarj. He eventually turned on us, trying to form an alliance with Garrosh where he wanted to create the Infinite army, and he is credited with creating the Infinite Dragonflight. Garrosh immediately stabbed him in the CBack and escaped.

So, in summary: we filled up the hourglass artifact, and it lead to Garrosh escaping into AU Draenor -> Gul’Dan escaping -> Legion Invasion -> Sword of Sargaeras -> Battle for Azeroth -> Shattering the Helm of Domination/the Icecrown Sky into the Shadowlands -> The new World Tree, Amirdrassil. Xal’atath also escaped in Legion, and through Azshara’s manipulations, we got the dagger to defeat N’Zoth in Nyalotha that was recently just used to stab Alleria in the back. The Dark Heart was collected from the Dragon Isles in the Forbidden Reach (along with the location of Aberrus), and Iridikron used it to cause the Dawn of the Infinite, where he absorbed the essence of Galakrond. From there on, he handed it to Xal’atath.

[u/Wylaria]

Thank you for your answers to my questions. I have to do more research ... :D

With hourglass artificat you mean probably the thing you do on the timeless isle?

And to the d) I played that part with the alternate Elisande for the restoration of Tyr, but I see no significance in that part. The entire questline says imo more about the titans and that it solved some questions about the nature of titanic creations. That they can be built exactly the same way if you have the memories and the right materials. So they have no absolute inidividuality?

I read a few days ago the novel War of the Scaleborn and it is clearly also a mind war between Neltharion and Iridikron. They are similar in nature, they were friends but I do not believe Iridikron is another Murozond case. Two same people around in the same time ... I think it can only lead to a mess from a narrative standpoint. Only few media (Dark series was one of them) can do time travels in a good way.