Hello everyone!
With hearthstone adding more scaley goodness in the form of Descent of Dragons as well
as the events in Battle for Azeroth...
I figured it could be fun to take a look back at the story of Nefarian...
Mostly known as the son of Deathwing, Neltharion the Earth-Warder.
Charged and empowered to protect the world of azeroth but its close connection to this
world infected by the old gods also made him volnerable to their corruption.
Maddness spread through his mind until it burst out of his body.
For millenia Deathwing no longer guarded the world, he became a threat.
A madness that has spread beyond, throughout nearly his entire dragonflight...including
Nefarian.
We should all be well acquainted with Nefarian, he is important in the lore of dragons for
more than simply being the son of the Worldbreaker.
After his father travels to Draenor to hide some dragon eggs, Nefarian contacted the orcs
of blackrock mountain and managed to manipulate them into letting him use the mountain for
his own purposes.
Nefarian set up a secret base he built for one particular purpose: Following his father’s
wishes to renew the black dragonflight and making them more powerful than before.
We learn through Kalecgos that no single dragon alive can kill a dragon aspect, they are more
powerful than any one dragon could hope to be, but what if you combined the blood of
all five dragonflights into one?
Nefarian had been conducting vile experiments in secrecy in Blackrock Mountain and these
vile experiments had just begun to produce results.
Chromatic dragons, had started being born, first they saw failure, then only a few survived,
then a few more.
Nefarian, victory within his grasp, tasked his minions on ensuring the next clutch of
eggs would produce enough chromatic dragons to rebuild the black dragonflight and start
a whole new generation.
Nefarian and his minions had not gone unnoticed however, the Firelord Ragnaros commanded the
lower section of blackrock mountain and though they both served the Old Gods they were not
truly allies.
Although Nefarian and Ragnaros had a tenuous truce there were others who tired of sharing
the mountain.
The Dark Iron dwarves were enslaved under Ragnaros, and Moira Thaurrisan, Queen of the
dark-iron dwarves, wanted freedom for her people.
She wanted Ragnaros gone from Blackrock and fortunately the Firelord’s sworn enemies
the Hydraxian Waterlords, along with some bold adventurers worked together to cleave
Ragnaros away from the mountain.
“Now is the time for the dark iron to emerge from the shadows”
Now that the lower part of Blackrock was liberated she turned her eyes upon the top of the mountain
and the last remnants of the Black Dragonflight who resided there.
Her spies sent out rumours that the orcs of this so called dark had allied with the black
dragonflight.
Moira’s whispers reached Orgrimmar and Thrall sent out heroes of the horde to deal with
the threat.
Knowing that we had to take care of it was one thing, but gaining access to the upper
spires of blackrock mountain and eventually blackwing lair was a whole different problem.
Luckily we did not stand alone in this.
The red dragon Vaelastrasz had quite a bone to pick with the blackdragonflight.
Their millenia of corruption lead to so much destruction and tragedy, not to mention the
enslavement of the red dragon queen alexstraza by the hands of the Horde.
Vaelan wanted their threat gone and not only helped us forge a key for UBRS.
Inside the leader of this “dark horde” Dal’rend Blackhand faced the heroes of the
horde with one of the few of Nefarian’s chromatic dragons that had survived, this
one was named Gyth.
Quite a challenging fight and again Vael is there offering his aid to those who hold his
key.
An image of him shows up during the fight allowing us to bring down both Rend and Gyth
and either complete the attunement quest for Blackwing Lair or just go straight into the
raid.
Inside we find out that Vaelastrasz went in ahead of us and finds himself outmached by
the dark powers wielded by Nefarian.
“Ah the heroes, you are persistant arent you?
Your ally here tried ot match his power against mine and paid the price.
Now he shall serve me by slaughtering you.
Get up little red worm and destroy them.
“ “Too late friends, nefarians corruption
has taken hold.
I can not control myself.
I beg you mortals, flee!
Flee before I lose all sense of control.
The blackfire rages within my heart.
I must release it.
Flame, death, destruction!
Cower mortals before the wrath of lord...no...i must fight this...Alexstraza help me...I must
fight.”
Giving us a portion of his powers before succumbing to the corruption, we put the poor red out
of his mystery and push further into the mountain.
Encountering many of nefarians gruesome experiments and allies until the lord himself has no choice
but to face us.
“Hhmhmhm let the bgames begin.”
One of the encounters that will forever live on in my memory as when Nefarian comes down
and no longer relies on his minions to do his dirty work, he will actually turn our
own powers against us.
Druids would be temprorarly stuck in Cat form, Mages would start wild polymorph all over
the place.
Paladins would bubble the dragon or shamans giving him buffed totems.
Priests direct heals would put a dot on their target while rogues would teleport and be
stunned close to nefarian.
Even the new classes added are not safe from his powers.
Death knights will death grip the entire raid, monks start to uncontrollably roll around
while demon hunters can no longer look through their blind folds, the screen turning black.
But me back then, I played a hunter of course and Nefarian was not keen on the weapons we
were shooting him with.
Their durability would instantly be gone if he catches you holding a ranged weapon.
The trick was to swap out or unequip your weapon before his ability landed, but not
all were quick enough to do so, meaning you would have to do the melee of shame.
What a fight, not to mention that you had to drape yourself in the scales of his sister
to even survive the mountain.
“This cannot be.
I am the master here.
You mortals are nothing to my kind.
Do you hear?
NOTHING”
All the same, Nefarian and all his vile creations fell before the horde.
The champions taking his head back to orgrimmar as proof of their victory.
His body remained in Blackrock undisturbed until the events of Cataclysm.
Deathwing breaking out of the world and getting ready to serve his master the old gods.
Bring about the horu of twilight, allying with ragnaros returned and the twilight hammer
cult.
As their leader Cho’Gall set up in the Bastion of Twilight, a contingent of cultists arrived
in Blackrock Mountain.
They reanimated Nefarian with the power of void magic, with Deathwing tasking Nefarian
to continue on with his previous experiments.
Void magic must certainly be potent if it could raise a body long since dead who was
also very much headless.
Being raised from death does not seem to have phased Nefarian much, and miraculously, perhaps
through the liberal use of duct tape, his head had reanimated with him.
Warier than he had been previously Nefarian digs deeper into Blackrock mountain and establishes
a new base we know as Blackwing Descent.
Here he experiments on dragons from various flights in order to make the perfect chromatic
dragon.
“Mortals that fancy themselves heroes have entered the broken hall.
Ow i do hope this raid will amuse me more.”
The dark iron dwarves hung out in blackwing descent before, but now with the base reporpused,
nefarian makes it his own.
The omnotron defense system was once touted as the dark iron dwarves greatest technological
marvel.
When nefarian arrived in blackwing descent, he repurposed the run-down systems to annihilate
anyone intruding on his laboratories.
And Magmaw, the colossal lava worm was summoned from the firelands centuries ago by Ragnaros’
dark iron serviors.
Nefarian largely considers it a worrisome pest, but has grown fond of feeding the beast
his faileed experiments and servants...
Failed experiments, but notAtramedes also known as Experiment 25463-D. They tried to
enhance its senses while still a whelp.
The toxic salve applied to the broodling robbed him of sight, forcing him to rely on sound
and smell for survival.
A tragic story...if atramedes weren’t so evil.
While their failure might be explained with Maloriaks story.
Originally a human, Malory, a bright young alchemist until he was kidnapped by nefarian
and fused with the corpse of a dragonspawn.
The result – Maloriak – is a bumbling minion who possesses only a dull glimmer of
his former intelligence.
An advantage to us as these, as well threats like Chimaeron all go down.
“Congratulations!
Allow me to befit you a title befitting the amazing you just performed.”
Exploring the blackwing descent shows us what the son of Deathwing has accomplished.
Their greatest feat, through trial and error and in spite of his stupid, incompetent and
disappointing minions...that would be the resurrection of his sister Onyxia.
“Behold the brood mother onyxia, reborn.
Perhaps my finest work.”
The brave heroes once again defeat Nefarian and his reanimated sister Onyxia and leave
their skeletons deep within Blackrock.
In Battle for Azeroth servants of the Old God N’Zoth intend to resurrect Nefarian
and his sister to serve their master once more, the plan is thwarted by their pseudo
brother Wrathion, along with some brave adventurers who destroy the remains of the two dragons
and take the last of their black scales so that Wrathion may forge them a cloak to help
counter the vile impact of N’Zoth’s corruption.
“The black dragonflight will purge your master from azeroth.”
After the death of Nefarian for the second and hopefully the last time, the Twilight
Hammer cult were not ready to give up on the idea of a chromatic dragon and with the use
of a surge needle they managed to resurrect Chromatus, the pinnacle of all of Nefarian’s
work.
Nefarian had been slain before he could give life to his vile project but now Chromatus,
a vile creature with 5 heads, had been given life by the Twilight Hammer.
Chromatus is an interesting creature but he and his five heads are a story for another
time.
Safe to say that in the events Thrall: twilight of the aspects, they’re able to overcome
the dangers posed by this mighty chromatic dragon.
Complete destruction was not possible, so instead they imprisoned it within an arcane
prison.
For the story of Nefarian, with Wrathion using the remains of his fallen kin to aid us in
the war against n’zoth, their story is over for now.
Who knows what shadowlands might show us.
Nefarian is such a brilliant character with an awesome adventure attached that they decided
to move that into hearthostone.
“Blackrock mountain a hearthstone adventurrrrre”
In 2015 with the release of Hearthstone’s second adventure Blackrock Mountain, players
first heard about Nefarian.
Players who pre-ordered the adventure received a message from Lord Victor Nefarius, he wants
help from us to rid his mountain of that firey pest, Ragnaros.
He also tries to remind us that he is certainly not a dragon and any black dragons seen around
the mountain are up to nothing nefarious.
It’s pretty much bringing our adventures in blackrock mountain to heartstone.
Lord Victor Nefarius is acting as our enthusiastic narrator through the adventure, apparently
here in Hearthstone Nefarian and Ragnaros are terrible neighbours and the son of Deathwing
wants his mountain to do his experiments in peace.
He watches as you work your way through Blackrock Depths, and then through Molten core.
He’s very excited about the upcoming demise of the firelord and even tells you once you’ve
defeated Garr to skip some of his remaining rocks across Ragnaros’ lava pool.
Once you’ve worked your way through and killed Ragnaros he is ecstatic and exclaims
that finally the mountain is mine, mine!
Lord Victor can get a little tiring and once we’ve killed Ragnaros, well….
Why not clear out the rest of the mountain?
Deciding to step foot in his half of the mountain has him pretty confused and he can’t seem
to imagine that you’d be foolish enough to try and turn against our ever so encouraging
and sociopathic guide.
Once you take on Highlord Omokk he will tell you to just go home, there aren’t any Ragnaroses
here, you should be celebrating and you should definitely not be here.
It isn’t just Lord Victor who is confused, General Drakkisath will heartbreakingly ask
us why we’re attacking him and tells us “why?!
Tell me why!
Please?
I liked you!”.
“A mistake.”Lord Victor still hasn’t quite grasped that he isn’t the only one
capable of deceiving people and insists that we are on the wrong side of his mountain.
Pushing him even further and killing Rend Blackhand, he pushes all guises of being a
sweet uncorrupt guy out of the window and tells us we’re messing with the wrong dragon.
Entering into Blackwing Lair, the fourth wing of the adventure, really gets under his scales,
which is all the more reason to do it.
First we defeat Razorgore and scramble all the eggs he was stockpiling.
He gets some sick glee as we are forced to kill Vaelastrasz, a red dragon he has corrupted,
“Youve killed one of the good guys.
Does this make you sad?” and when we face Chromaggus he tells us he
is perfect and his greatest achievement, only to turn around and say he was his weakest
minion when we kill the two headed monster.
Lord Victor Nefarious really does not being made to look a fool.
Finally, we get to meet our graceful guide face to face.
Lord Victor Nefarius.
In the worst secret identity reveal we’ve ever seen he then transforms into his dragon
form and tells us “Muhahaha behold!
The true power of Nefarian.
Infinite mana, armored dragonscales.”
Ragnaros, not wanting to stay dead, offers to help us for the sole purpose of annoying
Nefarian, which is fine by us.
As we defeat Nefarian he tells us he will return, and as we just got aid from a seemingly
“not quite dead” Ragnaros we more than believe him.
At least this time he won’t need his head taping back together.
No sooner had we killed Nefarian then he returns, this time looking a little more mouldy.
“This time you wont be so lucky.”
Regardless of his new look, Nefarian is confident and cocky as we enter the last wing of the
adventure, the Hidden Laboratory, even thanking us as we kill his Omnotron Defence System
as we’ve just saved him the repair bill.
He is unimpressed as we kill his chief ,and apparently only alchemist, Maloriak, and as
we kill the last obstacle in our way, the blind dragon Atramedes, he tells us “You
killed a blind dragon, you should be ashamed.”
Coming face to face with Nefarian in the next room gives us a good idea of why he’s so
cocky, that reason coming in the form of a newly resurrected Onyxia.
“I will rain destruction upon you from above.
Gaze now upon my ultimate creation.
Rise sister, rise Onyxia!”
‘ROAR!”
As we defeat Onyxia, Nefarian hangs in the air and shoots fireballs at us with immense
joy.
Killing his sister will dampen his fun however and he will land, tell us
“I have tried to be a acomadating host but you simply will not die.
Time to throw all pretence aside and just KILL YOU!”
and then we kill him.
Again..
It wouldn’t be fun if that was the end of Nefarian.
This time when he resurrects he appears straight into our card deck, and hopefully we can avoid
having him die just to resurrect….again.
“Warlock, you play with magic beyond your understanding.”
Nefarian isn’t the type to just stay in the card deck and enjoy a nice game of Hearthstone
however and later in 2015 he popped his scaley head back up in the Showdown at Blackrock
Mountain tavern brawl.
Here Nefarian and Ragnaros who have both been very efficient in denying death, are facing
down once and for all.
Apparently the arm wrestle they are shown having in the selection screen didn’t settle
things and we start the game as either Ragnaros or Nefarian.
Playing as Nefarian we have 30 health and 30 armor, and his hero ability Wild Magic
adds any card from any class to our hand, with that card costing 0.
It seems for the moment at least, that Nefarian is going to accept whichever result he ended
up with and he has been happily sitting in our card decks since 2015.
That’s where his story ends for now, but who knows who he’ll have a disagreement
with or who he’ll want to throw fireballs next.
Better get the duct tape ready just in case.
Which brings us to the end of Nefarian’s story...
It’s always great diving into some delicious dragon lore, should really do the story of
Deathwing at some point but 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!