Hello everyone!
I personally remember nathanos blightcaller as a bad ass quest during classic, but recently
he’s been elevated and given a much larger role in the story, but what was the road that
lead him there?
That’s what we’re going to find out!
Nathanos was not always the undead as we see him today.
In life he was known as Nathanos Marris, the first and only human ranger lord in excistense
trained by the high elves themselves.
There were quite a few that weren’t too happy with a human amongst their ranks, Kael’thas
sunstrider, Lor’themar Theron, Halduron brightwing, all of them had spoken out against
him, questioned if he should be allowed to be amongst them, but all their complaints
were ignored by Sylvanas Windrunner, ranger-general of silvermoon.
Too her, Nathanos was one of the most gifted rangers she ever had the pleasure of training
and like her sisters Alleria and Vereesa, she too felt affection for a human.
But make no mistake, his appointment as ranger lord was truly based on skill.
His accomplishments were unprecendted, a tactical genius, resposible for alliance victories
spanning a decade of conflict.
But that success streak would come to an end when the plague spread across the lands of
Lordaeron and young prince Arthas Menethil walked the path of damnation into service
of the Lich King.
The kingdom that his father had ruled for seventy years was ground into dust in a matter
of days.
Sylvanas tried to protect her home and loved ones, but was no match for Arthas and Frostmourne.
She gave her life, but the prince would not let her rest.
Raised as a banshee she was forced to follow his command.
Nathanos tried to hold the line at the marris stead, the house where he had lived most all
his life but with Stratholme already fallen, the little farm stood little chance.
Ramstein the gorger, you might know him as one of the bosses in stratholme, the abomination
took his life.
Next thing he knew, Nathanos woke as a scourge, his mind bend to the will of the Lich King
as well.
For quite some time he and Sylvanas and so many other resurrected undead lost themselves,
became the very thing they had fought against.
Yet Sylvanas would not stay bound to Arthas.
She would find the oppertunity to break free, recover her body and try to claim revenge.
Sadly for her, those plans didn’t work out that well.
Arthas was saved and called to Northrend where he would merge with the Lich King, leaving
behind the kingdom they had brought to ruin.
Now liberated, Sylvanas made her plans of claiming the vengeance she desired.
Most like her, the fallen undead that were Forsaken and able to free their minds found
their way to the banshee queen while others were called into her service...
The world swam through a thick, smoky haze.
There was no reason, no sense.
Only hatred.
A hatred rooted deep in the corners of his mind, its tendrils twisting, vinelike, through
his fetid core.
The man he'd been was murdered, his blood now salting the farmlands he had once called
home.
This creature might inhabit the dead man's body, but it possessed no will of its own.
It didn't need one.
It existed only to serve the Lich King.
He turned back to the ground where the half-consumed corpse of his latest victim lay.
A warm rush of strength flowed into his body as he ripped a mouthful of flesh from her
throat.
He remembered the ecstasy that had gripped him as her screams grew quiet, the terror
that froze in her dead eyes as he devoured her.
Craving that sensation again, he tore off another bite.
Had days or years passed since he'd been raised?
It mattered not at all.
Time was the burden of mortals, and the master's gift had freed him from it.
A singular purpose now drove his every action, a compulsion to spread the plague of undeath
through the fallen kingdom of Lordaeron.
To ravage the very lands his human soul had loved.
Were there room for aught but malice in his heart, he would have laughed long and loud
at the irony.
He stopped feasting and waited.
He waited because it was his master's will that he do so.
A moment passed before he sensed it.
The unholy magic that had reanimated his own lifeless body now caused hers to stir.
He watched in rapturous wonder as the corpse that had been his victim arose a Scourge,
as driven to end life as he was.
She looked at him, the fear gone from her undead eyes, replaced by smoldering rage.
She might have been smiling were her ruined jaw not dangling by scant strips of flesh.
He might have smiled back but for the shock of arrows that came crashing into her skull.
The body of his new companion crumpled into a heap, headless and twitching.
He spun to face her attackers.
Three cloaked figures loomed before him.
Some part of him recognized their weapons and knew how deadly a bow could be, but those
memories were vague and fleeting.
He didn't care about the useless notions still lingering in the dead man's mind.
Hatred welled up, demanding to be unleashed.
As he tensed to leap forward, the middle target barked out an order.
In unison, the flanking pair took aim and sent a rain of heavy, blunted arrows thumping
into his legs.
He fell hard to the ground.
Each time he tried to rise, more arrows pummeled him back down.
Damnable creatures!
He did not pause to reason why the cloaked figures hadn't ended him as they had the woman.
He only longed to sink his teeth into the bits of flesh exposed between the pieces of
their dark armor.
When they rose as Scourge beside him, their bows would be unnecessary.
Hatred would become their weapon, as it had become his.
He sniffed the air to stoke his hunger, but the scent confused him.
His foes were neither humans nor elves.
They weren't living at all—they were as dead as he was.
Why would such creatures stop him from fulfilling the master's will?
The fear and frustration of a beaten animal gripped him as shot after shot kept him on
his knees.
"Nathanos!"
A female voice called out his name.
No.
That name was dead, left to fester upon the plagued soil of the Marris stead.
How dare this creature evoke its memory!
Rage roiled in his gut, hot and thrashing.
He would kill the interloper.
Feed upon her flesh.
Sate his hunger for death.
But something in the cloaked woman's voice held him fast.
His name had become a command, and with that single word, she reached down into the fury
that had taken the place of his soul and caught him tight in her grip.
No.
The hatred.
The master's will.
If these three would not serve, they would be destroyed!
"Nathanos!" she called again, this time in the wailing voice his master's banshees used
in battle.
The intensity of it startled him.
Had she been sent here by the Lich King's command?
"Nathanos!"
With the third sounding of his name, recognition skittered across his mind and chased the cloud
of fury away.
That voice.
Of course.
Sylvanas.
As she pulled back her hood, the sickly yellow light of the Plaguelands illuminated her elven
features.
Skin once fair and full of life had turned ashen.
Hair that had shone like spun gold looked dull, lusterless.
Her bracing blue-gray eyes now smoldered red.
A swell of sorrow choked his throat as he realized that Sylvanas, too, had fallen.
But his heartbreak gave way to awe at the terrible majesty her new form held.
In life, he'd always thought she had the bearing of a queen.
In undeath, she radiated the might of a goddess.
His eyes drifted down to the mottled skin of his gnarled fingers, stained deep red by
his recent kill.
A rush of shame banished the thrill of his reunion with Sylvanas.
The thought that she would see him like this, a decrepit, nightmarish mockery of his former
self, filled him with disgust.
Almost of its own volition, his forearm rose to hide his rotting face.
"Sylvanas," he rasped through parched lips.
His voice sounded foreign, and he realized it was the first word he'd spoken since his
death.
Conscription to the Lich King's service had never required him to speak—only to kill.
"I have come for you, Nathanos, to call you back to my side."
He was not worthy to stand with her.
To even look upon her.
Yet her strength, her power, enthralled him, compelling his arm to fall away so his eyes
could meet hers.
"You see what I... have become," he growled.
"Why would you want such a monster to serve you?"
Sylvanas waved her hand as if dismissing the bits of pulpy corpse strewn about the ground.
"I am building a new kingdom, Nathanos, made up of the Forsaken dead freed from the Lich
King's thrall.
You will become my champion, and together we will call down a blight of suffering upon
him.
Arthas will answer for his crimes!"
A wicked sneer twisted his fallow lips.
The insidious fog of control was gone, and he clenched his fists at the thought of taking
revenge upon his former master.
Anger and hatred still consumed his heart, but his will was again his own.
No.
Not his own.
It was hers, just as it had always been.
The dark rangers attending Sylvanas tensed as Nathanos rose to his feet.
He took a step forward, then bowed his head.
"I am yours, Dark Lady.
For all my days."
And so Nathanos Marris became Nathanos Blightcaller, champion of the banshee queen, eternally loyal
and devoted to her.
He recruited heroes to fight in the plaguelands and get him some vengeance by butchering Ramstein
in stratholme.
The alliance also investigates the marris stead but their best field agents ended up
dead so we have to figure out what is going on.
At first they assume that Blightcaller is the one responsible, is perhaps even the one
who murdered Nathanos Marris but soon enough they figure out that the Blightcaller is Nathanos
and Order must be restored.
Massive raid parties grouped up in the plaguelands and took on their former ally, now turned
undead but the Blightcaller was clever and played possum so that his enemies believed
him to be gone for good.
Nothing could be further from the truth and now within the undercity, he would train new
generations of rangers to bolster the forsaken troops.
Being undead meant that their former lives were over, yet not all strings to that life
were cut.
Nathanos had collected relics from the battle of Darrowshire and hid them away at his home.
He also had heroes collect the Quel’Thalas Registry which contains an entry from Sylvanas
herself about admitting him amongst their ranks.
The effects of Arthas and the scourge lead to the high elves becoming the blood elves,
but not all of them agreed with their new way of life.
Not all of them were down with draining magic from objects and creatures, they were exiled
and found their way to the Quel’lithien lodge.
It was there where a copy of the registry could be found and the blightcaller told the
members of the Horde, the imbeciles to leave as much strife and grief as possible in their
wake.
Too leave them suffering and suffer they did.
“We come in the name of the champion of the banshee queen”, they said when they
arrived.
“You have something that belongs to him”.
They took it by force and slaughtered any of the rangers in the lodge that they could
find, a tale that Lor’themar Theron only much later found out about and he was shocked
to hear about it.
Despite being the one to exile them, he never wanted them dead.
He just couldn’t lead a kingdom devided and he wondered if Sylvanas knew about this
attack and if she did...does she care?
Doubtful as the banshee queen was more focused on the coming war in Northrend and taking
on the Lich King.
Arthas had taken everything from her and with his defeat, she felt like her mission was
accomplished and it was time to embrace eternal bliss.
By dropping herself from the top of icecrown to the saronite spikes down below she ended
her life but did not find the peace of death, instead she ended up in a realm of eternal
torment.
She might have still been there was it not for the valkyr, who offered her a deal.
They would take her place in hell and even allow her to resurrect more forsaken, in return
they would be free from bolvar, the new lich king’s control.
The bargain was made and the banshee queen returned after witnissing the fires of hell.
Only to Nathanos had she entrusted the tale of that day, of what had happened to her.
Though she refused to say the words, he knew her well enough to recognize when true fear
gripped her heart.
Her ultimate fate put a fear into a sylvanas, a fear of death which pushes her to do anything
and eveything it takes to stay off that fate for as long as she can.
And yet, if his queen had been lost, there would be no reason for Nathanos to continue
this mockery of a life.
If she were condemned to an eternity of torment in the darkness, at least he could end his
own existence and endure damnation at her side.
But his queen had other plans, wanted to keep on going for as long as they could and with
the coming of the Legion, she needed her champion to be strong.
The power of the Val'kyr will preserve her body for ages to come, but his once-human
form, like those of her other Forsaken, will not enjoy such longevity.
He could tell that the strength in his hand had waned.
There was enough sin and sinew remaining to grasp a bow, and to teach even the clumsiest
of his pupils how to nock an arrow.
But his undead flesh continued its inevitable decay, and there would come a day when his
hand would be rendered useless or rot away altogether.
That’s where the val’kyr come in.
Arthas once forced them to raise death knights for
his army.
That was a much more potent ritual than the one with which they now transform fresh corpses
into Forsaken.
Not only that, they can also use their powers to reshape his body and make it stronger and
more enduring.
He wondered if the val’kyr could do this for all of their people, but Sylvanas told
him no.
Without the Lich King's energies feeding them, she believes it will require a portion of
their own essence to succeed."
She turned toward him.
"But it is my desire, so it will be done."
He stepped closer to the Banshee Queen and watched her expression.
He told himself it was for the delight of provoking her again.
But that was a lie.
He wanted something more.
"If the Val'kyr can only do this once... why choose me?"Was it pain that flashed in her
eyes?
If so, it lasted only an instant, replaced by resolve and a will of unbending iron.
"I told you.
The Legion threatens to consume us all.
I require my champion at my side."
It was doubtless petty, this satisfaction that he sought.
But something raced within him whenever she addressed him by that title.
"Then tell this creature to hurry up," Nathanos snarled.
"I have rangers to train.".
The ritual required fuel to work, fuel in the form of his cousin who had known them
both in life and had managed to survive the scourge.
Now, captured by the Forsaken he was strapped down and used to empower her champion.
Nathanos’s world exploded in a cacophony of fire and pain...so much pain... but the
results were definatly worth it.
He swung his legs off the side of the stone ritual table.
A slight gasp escaped his lips as he stood, steadying himself on limbs that didn't quite
feel his own.
Like a child unwrapping a gift, he yanked the glove from his left hand and stared in
awe as he flexed his fingers.
There was no protruding bone.
No dangling flesh or torn muscles.
Not a living hand, but it was whole and strong.
A hand worthy of the queen's champion, Nathanos decided.
He reached up and touched his cheek.
Instead of the desiccated, paper-thin skin that had hung loosely from his skull, he found
plumper flesh.
His fingertips explored a jawline adorned with wiry whiskers.
Nathanos marveled at the sensation.
It felt almost like touching a human.
Almost.
Now Sylvanas might have played it off as just needing her champion to be strong, but others
that pay attention, like Dark Ranger Anya, could tell that there was more at play here.
In life, Sylvanas had defied a kingdom to
name him ranger lord.
In death she scouter the plaguelands to reclaim him from the scourge.
And today she drew upon her most precious resource to restore his strength.
Think upon these things, Blightcaller, and tell me how someone so cunning can be blind
to the simplest of truths.
Nathanos glared hard at her, his jaw clenched tight.
Within moments, the bemusement retreated from her face.
Foolish ranger!
The queen did not entertain such trifling notions.
Nor did he.
Whatever emotion his mortal heart might have held, now it had room only for rage and contempt.
He was Nathanos Blightcaller, Champion of the Banshee Queen.
He almost smiled at the thought of the chaos he would unleash upon her foes.
That was what he told himself and perhaps before the ritual that was a truth.
In the past he had lingered at his farm on orders from his queen, luring her enemies
to the slaughter.
He'd taken special delight in tormenting the high elf rangers of the northern foothills,
the very Farstriders he'd once served alongside and commanded.
Their haughty outrage bled away as they died, or twisted into a garish grimace upon those
raised into undeath.
And through all of it, no matter how noble the hero or how close a friend his victim
might have been, Nathanos felt neither pity nor remorse.
He felt nothing.
He had done his duty, one to which he was well suited.
His victories had earned the Dark Lady's favor.
There was nothing else he could ever conceive of wanting.
Yet now after the ritual they walked to the armory to get him a new outfit befitting of
his station and there the glinting of lamplight on polished metal drew his eye to a cluttered
armor rack.
He moved a few pieces aside to reveal a finely wrought breastplate that was clean and well-maintained.
His thoughts drifted back to the ritual, to the empty altar next to his.
To a choice.
For the briefest of moments, he felt the touch of something foreign, unsettling.
A sensation absent since the day he died.
A weakness of mortality that had imperceptibly stalked him and had, at long last, found his
throat.
Nathanos felt regret...
but with the Legion at their doorstep the story takes us to the broken shore where the
champion of the banshee queen does everything in his power to make her wishes and commands
come true.
However, that part of the story we’ll save for next week.
For now thank you very much for watching everyone!
Subscribe if you like my videos, leave a like if you enjoyed this one aaaand until next
time...see ya!