Hello everyone! While covering the story of Ardenweald and the night fae campaign, I’ve had
the request if I could dive deeper into the story of the drust. Where they come from, what we know
about them, what they’re trying to accomplish and that’s what we’re going to do today!
The drust as a species are Vrykul or they used to be and they turned into
what we know as the drust. Once upon a time, the whole land split apart.
Something about the well of eternity imploding and you got all these scattered, seperated vrykul
clans. While the ones in for example Northrend would eventually become the humans, the tribes
that hung out in Kul Tiras became the Drust. Their magic, the powers that they wield has
been described as a more macabre version of druid magic or druidic death magic. A good
example of what that means can be found during the Kul Tiran recruitment quest:
“This land is generous, and strong, and its heart thrums beneath us!”
“The balance...does not move...easily...” “But where there is death, there is also life!
An inescapable cycle, as sure as the sea is vast!
No creature can thwart it for long. Back foul magic! Ahh...the cycle...continues...”
So while most druidic magic tends to focus on the life scale, growing roots out of the
ground or make pretty mushrooms pop up, there’s also the part of death which the Drust embraced.
Further empowered by a domain called Thros – the Blighted lands, Runes and sacrifial rituals are
part of their jam. Quite adapt at enchanting the minds of their enemies. When the Drust
wished to do so, they would often do so subtly by leaving small tokens around their targets. Curious
objects, when focused on by the holder, would summon a haunting vision of a dancing spectre.
This spectre would entrance all who watched it, rendering them docile and easy to dispatch.
Tomes were often kept by the strongest of the Drust, preserving the incantations of their magics
and serving as conduits for harnessing their power. Trying to translate the ancient language
within is not a good idea as they scholares that have tried found themselves going mad. The
afterlife, souls, are also part of their arsenal. As the drust became more skilled at trappign souls
within objects, so did they become more adept at creating constructs of death in which to trap the
souls. Revenants are amongst the fiercest of these creatures. Stripped of memory and any semblance of
self, their bodies constructed from pieces that can no longer decompose, these creatures never
tire and will hunt their prey for all eternity. And when a soul is called from the afterlife,
it is free to roam the material realm if it is not restrained within moments of its arrival.
The Drust created prisons for these souls for later use in their dark rituals, during
which time the soul would suffer within Thros, and become a twisted version of what it once had been.
We’ll talk about Thros in a little bit. So these vrykul drust were hanging out in the lands we call
Kul Tiras. Not just Drustvar either, all over the place, there’s even vrykul relics to be found all
the way over on Mechagon island. Holding a piece of land in Warcraft means you got to fight for it.
A stone can be found showing multiple conflicts or one great battle with many scenes. In the oldest
they’re fighting beings that look like themselves or great beasts. In others they fight much smaller
beings that resemble gnomes in stature. In another the Drust are driving some Naga back into the
seas. Where the carving is most recent the Drust are fighting men and women bearing anchor sigils.
A battle that took place around 2700 years before the dark portal even opened up.
In those times some of the boldest sailors amongst the people of Gilneas decided to set sail into
the open waters surrounding their city. In time, they discovered a large island
to the south that was rich with metal ores and other valuable
natural resources. Some of the sailors decided to stay on this island and created kul Tiras.
Soon enough they discovered that they were not the only ones that wanted to call these lands home.
When they first settled, their people encountered a savage group of warmongering barbarians,
the Drust with Drustvar being their ancestral home. It was from this location that they
launched endless raids into the kul tiran fledgeling hamlets. The Kul Tirans tried to
go for peace when they landed, or so history tells us, but the Drust lead by Gorak Tul,
immediately chose war, glorifying the slaughter. Something that not all of the Drust were down
with. The spirit of Sef Iwen was alive when the mainlanders first landed on their shores.
Gorak Tul was threatened by their presence and ordered these raids against their villages. She
wanted nothing to do with it. As a Thornspeaker, a guardian of the wilds, she knew that they could
live in harmoy if they tried. Tul was furious and decided to make an example out of her.
“You can fight these invaders or you can hide in the woods forever. Which is it?” Thinking that he
was simply going to banish her, she chose to hide in the woods. Instead...he tore her soul from her
body, leaving just enough of a connection that she couldn’t stray too far from it.
The war carried on for countless of years until the ancestors of House Waycrest decided that
something had to be done. When peace turned out to not be an option, the kul tirans started to fight
back. The Waycrest’s were always a hearty folk, proud and strong, but the drust magic proved to
be quite a problem. Their druidic powers were wielded for dark rituals and massive damage.
Yet despite that example that was set, more thornspeakers decided to step away from Gorak Tul.
Deciding to join the kul tirans instead and teach their ancient ways to those who heard the call of
the wilds. Druids amongst the kul tiran, guardians of balance, the keepers of the cycle of nature,
of life and of death. These new powers added to their ranks was great, but still not enough.
Ultimatly, it was their scholars that turned the tide. They discovered weaknessess in the Drust
magic like Silver weapons being really effective or liquid fire to burn them away. All that
knowledge was then put together into a treatise on weapons and tactics that could be used to
defeat the barbarians. The Order of Embers was the name given to those who took this knowledge, took
up the fight against the Drust. Using what the scholars learned, they were able to counter the
Drust magic at each turn and ensure their victory in the war. They even pushed the great Gorak Tul
into retreat. When he ran out of living warriors, he created a new army out of stone constructs,
but not even that was enough to turn the tide of battle. Arom Waycrest, leading the final assault,
stabbed Gorak Tul, but while history and stories say that he killed the Drust leader,
Tul did not actually die. Wounded and broken to be certain, but not dead. He and his followers
had retreated into Thros – The Blighted lands where they were now trapped. Biding their time
to regain their strength and figure out a way to return to the physical world.
That oppertunity came many years later from the same house that once vanquished him.
Stricken with grief due to her ailing husband Arthur, Lady Meredith Waycrest called out to
any power that could save him. From the blighted lands, Gorak Tul answered her cry and promised
that death would never part the couple, for a price. Through Lady Waycrest the dark magic of
the drust spread across Drustvar once more. Their so called Heartsbane coven corrupted,
controlled, ripped out hearts, bound spirits, animated constructs, crops were destroyed,
they even turned butchers into pigs and corrupted roland to keep making sausages. What had become
ancient legends, supersticion amongst the people of Drustvar, now returned in full force. Of course
their main objective was to bring back Gorak Thul. The ritual they performed at Gol Inath,
massive hollowed out tree at the center of the Crimson Forest. Even in their ancient days the
drust worshiped this tree of death, this entrance into Thros, but not all went according to their
plans. Heroes of the Alliance would team up with Lucile Waycrest, daughter of Arthur and Meredith.
Together they slowly but surely uncovered what was going on in the land, reignite the order of embers
and fight back at the corruption. While unable to stop Gorak Tul from returning, they did eventually
figure out that it was her own parents that were behind this. So we ventured into Waycrest
Manor where we confronted the madness that has transformed this place into a mansion of horror.
“lADY WAYCREST WAS MERELY A VESSEL OF MY POWER. bY DESTROYING HER,
YOUVE OPENED THE DOORWAY INTO YOUR WORLD. nOW YOUR NIGHTMARE IS MERELY BEGINNING.”
Her parents are put down and gorak tul falls to our might...
“Death cannot hold meeeeee.
Fools....you have merely ...defeated...a vessel...I await you...In the Blighted lands...
“We’ve done it. Gorak Thul has been banished.”
But not vanquished. This was only a vessel with the real thing still waiting for us in Thros.
A little while later that confrontation actually happened as we helped Katherine Proudmoore track
down and save her exiled daughter Jaina. They send her off to Fate’s end, an island off the coast of
Stormsong. From there Gorak Tul got his hands on her as the herald of Thros lets us know. Finding
a way into the blighted lands is not going to be easy, but luckily we have
Ulfar Thornspeaker on our side. They’re the last of the Drust thornspeakers which,
considering how long the drust have been gone, makes them really really old. At first they don’t
want to help. Messing with Thros is not a good idea, but when the Shade of Gorak Tul attacks,
they realise that the pathway is already open. To get into the blighted lands, we’re going
to embrace the ancient old magics of the drust and create an effigy.
With it we open the gateway at great tree Gol Inath, to save katherine’s daughter.
“The blighted lands...this place certainly lives up to its name...”
“It’s all my fault...” “Jaina?!”
Here we are, the fabled blighted lands but what exactly this place? Well,
in the same interview where they explained the vrykul origin of the
drust. An interview done by the Lost Codex during Blizzcon 2018,
linked in the description down below, they also spoke about what this domain of Thros actually is.
What is thros? we know last year they described it as a spirit realm where the drust took refuge.
Gorak Tul describes it as a prison that he sort of breaks out. is it sort of a realm
like the legion where you kill a demon in the twisting nether theyre dead permanently
or is it something we’ve never seen before. No we’ve seen before and it’s interesting.
Areas in this world are descfribed by the creatures that inhabit them by their own
perspective. If you don’t know what the nightmare or the dream or some felscape in the nether is,
if you don’t have that knowledge...what would you call it? If you’re just an oridinary drust citizen
or a kul tiran that likes to fish. You make up your own mythos for those places and that’s why
you start to get a different understanding for the drust themselves. It’s a land of the damned or of
the dead where I hear these crazed whispers that compell me to do these various things.
If you kinda unpack the lore, we’re not going to create 50 different pocket realms. That becomes
complicated, difficult to explain. What I do like is when you take a set or sub set of creatures/
enemies, they’ve existed on their own where they invoke the nightmare itself to come out,
to defeat or strike down their enemies. To call to the dark gods and the dark gods answer in
our game. And when you do, you better expect someone to come at your door hey you called?
Now its time to pay up. We wil ltake our pound of flesh, or 5 as it stands.
So yeah it’s a place that exists already, we know it as the Nightmare. But do all the denizens of
this area know it that way? Not necesarly and they don’t need to. The end result is the same.
It’s a horrific nightmare a land of death, decay and nigthmare.
So Thros the blighted lands is the name used by the Drust to describe the Emerald Nightmare.
The corruption of the emerald dream, that infection by the old gods of this ethereal
realm of spirits and untamed nature that exists alongside the world of azeroth. The green Dragon
Aspect Ysera was the dreams guardian and this domain is connected to Ardenweald.
Ardenweald being the autumn and winter to the Emerald Dreams Spring and Summer.
That whole cycle of rebirth they show us while questing in Ardenweald.
“Come daughter. We’ll find our way out of here.” “None of you will escape!”
“Mother, look out! MOTHER!” BAWOESJ
“You challenged the wrong family, fiend!”
“Your hollow victory...means nothing...
The drust...will never...relent...” “And Kul Tiras will never yield.”
Gorak Tul has been taken care of but he wasn’t wrong about the Drust not giving up. Even during
battle for azeroth we wondered what the blighted lands could mean for the future of the story
and in the Shadowlands we see the Drust make their return. In Ardenweald they’re hit hard
with the anima drought that’s effecting all of the Shadowlands. They need to make hard choices as too
which groves, which of their seeds continue their cycle of rebirth and which wither away forever.
The gorm are getting so hungry that they’re eating away at the boarder of their domain.
An oppertunity for the Drust to go on the attack which is apperantly not the first
time either that they’ve clashed with the forces of Ardenweald. In one of the earliest
side quests we uncover a fallen grove where the inhabitants are wearing strange masks,
masks that make them servants to the drust. In a journal it’s described how the gorm
matriarch has grown out of control. An entire landmass broke off the edge of the world.
They’re in desperate need of aid, but with all the other things going on in the ardenweald,
none were able to help. Then they found it, the answer to their patrayers. While patroling the
edoge of the village to see if any new pieces had become unstable, they stubmled across a strange
object. A stone, clearly not of Ardenweald, radiating with a strange power. With it
perhaps they can pacify the gorm, or even defeat them! They might even save all of ardenweald,
but the effects are clear, servants to the drust. And more across Ardenweald would be taken by the
masks. Once turned there is no coming back and what are the drust now lead by Gorak Zhar trying
to accomplish? Well, their whole connection to Thros has them cursed to exist outside the cycle
of Life and Death and they want to circumvent their fate using Ardenweald’s mechanisms of
Rebirth. All the death and destruction that followed made them no friends to the Winterqueen.
In an awesome display of her power, she kicked them all out again at the Grove of Awakening.
Ending the drust threat for the moment, but who knows how many of them are still out there.
Thros the Blighted lands and the drust themselves could make for an amazing future patch. We’ve
dealt with the realm of death at the moment, but there’s the other side of this cycle...life....
If they decide to stick with the answer given in the interview, meaning that thros is a part
of the emerald nightmare....Going back into the emerald dream/emerald nightmare story wouldn’t
be theworse thing in my opinion. They touched upon it in the expansion Legion but could explore it so
much more. Or they could decide to turn Thros into something else entirely... Time is going to tell.
For now you’re up to speed on the story of the Drust
so thank you very much for watching everyone!
Subscribe if you like my videos, leave a like if you enjoyed this aaand until next time....see ya!