Hello everyone! Blizzard has announced a new hearthstone adventure focused around blackrock
mountain and one of you asked me if I could tell the story behind the mountain. I thought
this was a great idea since the area has played a massive roll in several stories of warcraft
so sit back, relax and I hope you’ll enjoy the story.
Lets begin with talking about the creation of the mountain since it wasn’t always there.
It was created by accident and the story behind it is told within the war of three hammers,
which took place around 230 years ago. Once the 3 dwarven clans, bronzebeard, Wildhammer
and Dark Iron they all lived in relative peace within the mountains of Ironforge. They were
are all ruled by one king, Modimus Anvilmar, but a civil war erupted when their king passed
away. All three clans tried to conquer each other over dominance of Ironforge, but the
victor was the Bronzebeard clan. They banished the other two clans to which the Wildhammers
moved to build their new city of Grim Batol while the Dark Iron Dwarves moved away to
build their city called Thaurissan within the Redridge Mountains. The city was named
after their leader and for a time the clans actually did pretty well for themselves but
the dark iron dwarves were unable to swallow their defeat. Their leader Thaurissan lead
an assault upon Ironforge itself while his sorceress wife Modgud lead the charge upon
Grim Batol. They came very close to taking the cities, but eventually both armies failed.
Thaurissan was able to retreat back to his own city, but his wife lost her life at Grim Batol
and from that moment on the place was cursed. The combined armies of Grim batol and Ironforge, Wildhammer and Bronzebeard clans,
they combined their might and they were intent on taking out Thaurissan and the dark iron dwarves.
Before they could reach them though tragedy struck, Thaurissan wanted to summon a supernatural
minion that would ensure his victory over the other clans, but instead he called upon
the ancient powers sleeping beneath the world. To his shock, and ultimately his doom, the
creature that emerged was more terrible than any nightmare he could have imagined.
Ragnaros: "BY FIRE BE PURGED"
Thaurissan accidently had summoned Ragnaros the Firelord from the elemental plane. The
force of him entering the world scorched the land, shattered the Redirdge Mountains and
created the raging volcano at the center of the devastation, the mountain we now call
blackrock mountain. The Dark Iron Dwarves would be enslaved by the firelord while the
wildhammer and bronzebeard dwarves returned home. They saw the devastation and wanted
nothing to do with that and upon returning home, the wildhammers found out that killing Modgud
had left an evil stain upon their fortress which made it uninhabitable. The bronzebeard
clan offered them a home within the borders of ironforge, but the wildhammers decided
to move to the Hinterlands where they would build their city of Aerie Peak and create
a bond with the local gryphons.
So at this point blackrock mountain and the area as we see it around it was created and
many dark iron dwarves, including their king and the seven who helped him with his spell
lost their lives. Those that survived were enslaved to ragnaros but they still held their
own king which eventually became Dagran Thaurissan descendant from the original Thaurissan.
The dark iron dwarves wouldn’t be the only ones to create a home within the mountains
since many years later the horde would invade azeroth and they made blackrock mountain their
main base of operations. The hordes warchief used to be Blackhand of the blackrock clan
but his second in command called Orgrim Doomhammer had found out that blackhand was just
a puppet of Gul’dan and that Gul’dan did not care about the Horde. All Gul’dan wanted was
more power and he would use his people so doomhammer did what had to be done, took out
his warchief and took control of the Horde. As you might have already realised, Blackrock mountain and the blackrock clan
share the same name, but this was just a coincidence. The mountain was not named after the clan
or vice versa, but the orcs did see this as a good omen. When Orgrim spoke to his troops,
rallied them before they would try to conquer all of azeroth, the mountain started to rumble.
It almost seemed to encourage them and again they took this as a good sign.
Unfortunately for the horde, even though the signs were there, they would eventually lose
the war even after enslaving the dragon aspect Alexstraza and forcing her children to fight
for them. In front of blackrock mountain they made their final stand against the Alliance
of Lordaeron and even though Doomhammer was able to take out their leader Anduin Lothar,
he himself was knocked out by Turalyon. The orcs that surrendered were placed in interment
camps and put to hard labor while the alliance followed those that ran away all the way to
the dark portal. Rend and Maim Blackhand, sons of former warchief Blackhand tried to
make a stand against Turalyon, but they ran away once they found out that the paladin
had the upper hand. The alliance destroyed the dark portal while Rend and Maim secretly
returned to Blackrock Mountain and made it their home. They welcomed any orc that was
able to escape, they even liberated a few orcs from interment camps and they called
themselves the Dark Horde.
Two years later, when the original horde returned for their second invasion they didn’t come
to conquer azeroth, all they wanted were a few artifacts which they could use to open
more portals to different worlds and try to conquer those worlds. The death knight Teron’gor
had found out that Rend was leading the orcs that were left behind on azeroth and they
still had the red dragons under their control. They needed these dragons in order to accomplish
their mission so Teron’gor requested Rend’s aid and Rend flat out refused. He didn’t
see any reason to help the Horde considering that they were the ones who not only held
their ground against the alliance but also have grown over the years. This refusal came
as a blow to Teron’gor, but thankfully not all was lost. The black dragon aspect Deathwing
wanted the orcs to bring his black dragon eggs to Draenor and in exchange he would help
the orc with their mission. The deal was made but Deathwing is a master planner and manipulator
and he always had several little plans and schemes going on at the same time. He charged
his children Onyxia and Nefarian with different tasks. Onyxia was send to infiltrate Stormwind
and manipulate affairs form within while Nefarian was send into blackrock mountain and turn
the dark horde into allies. While there Neferian did not only bring the dark horde to his side, he also experimented
on creating a whole new dragonflight combining all colors into one, the so called chromatic dragonflight.
Now there were two factions fighting over dominance within the mountain as we have the
dwarves with Ragnaros on one side, Nefarian with the dark horde on the other side and both of them were a great threat to Azeroth.
This brings us to the events of classic World of Warcraft where we were send in to blackrock mountain to take care of business.
Many different storylines took place within this mountain and the area surrounding it,
so I can’t go over every little detail but I will talk about the major storylines.
First of all...the dark iron dwarfs and blackrock depths. Even though they were enslaved to
Ragnaros, they were still able to carry out their own plans. The leader of the dwarfs,
emperor Dagran Thaurissan had his people kidnap the daughter of King Magni Bronzebeard and
bring her back to their shadowforge City. Moira Bronzebeard was an only child and although
Magni loved his daughter, he never showed her any respect. He had always wanted a son the
rule the throne after him and he was disappointed that Moira was not a male heir. When Moira
arrived in Shadowforge City she was not treated as just any regular prisoner, Dagran showed
her respect, listened to her and despite claims of Dagran using magic to get her on his side,
in truth Moira fell in love, married Dagran and became pregnant. Magni send adventurers
into the depths to retrieve his daughter and after batteling our way through the vast city,
during the final encounter you actually had the option to either kill Moira or keep her
alive. Lorewise Moira was saved by the adventurers and she would later return with a fiery rage
in her heart. She hated those that had killed her beloved, she had given birth to his son
and when her father was turned into a crystal around the time of the cataclysm, Moira arrived
to claim her rightful place as heir to the throne. This eventually lead to the council
of three hammers as we see it today in which all 3 clans, Bronzebeard, Wildhammer and dark
Iron, are represented by a leader. Moira is working hard to prove that the dark iron dwarfs
are a valuable asset to the alliance in order to give her son a brighter future.
Moira: "In time, my son shall RULE the dark irons and perhaps all Ironforge as well."
Time will tell if Moira remains loyal and who knows what her son might do in the future when he finds out what adventurers did to his father...
Moira and the dwarves weren't the only ones affected by political games. Onyxia was send
by deathwing to infiltrate stormwind and she disguised herself as lady katrana prestor.
From within she manipulated events which lead to the stonemasons guild rioting in the streets,
the death of Varian’s wife Tiffin, the creation of the defias brotherhood and the kidnapping
of Varian himself. Onyxia had the plan in mind to split Varian in two, one weak willed
Varian that she could manipulate from behind the curtains and one strong willed Varian
that she would simply kill and dispose of. Despite her best efforts her plans were interrupted
and the strong willed Varian managed to escape. The weak willed one was later ransomed back
to Stormwind and resumed leading the city, but people noticed a change in their king.
He was affectionate towards lady Prestor and Anduin had concerns so he asked people to
investigate. In game this resulted in adventurers going into blackrock depths and rescuing Marshal
Reginald Windsor from his prison. Windsor had discovered Prestors secret, that she was
actually Onyxia in disguise but before he could make his report, he was ambushed by
a dark iron raiding party and imprisoned. This lead to one of the most annoying escort
quests in the history of the game, but eventually they managed to liberate him and bring him
back to the city where he exposed onyxia for who she truly was only to lose his life to
the blackdragon herself. Lorewise, things happened a little different. In the comics the honor of liberating and escorting him is given
to the strong willed varian and his friends. They were the ones who entered blackrock depths,
who liberated the marshal, exposed Onyxia and in response Onyxia killed the marshal
and kidnapped Anduin to her lair. Both the weak willed and the strong willed varian decided
to work together in saving their son and in their confrontation onyxia blasted them both
restoring Varian to one single being. Both in game and in the comics Onyxia was
slain and they proudly presented her head to the people by hanging it in the capital city.
This left her brother inside Blackwing Lair together with the dark horde lead by Rend
since his brother Maim had been killed in a savage battle with the dark iron dwarfs.
Neferian’s experiments on the different flights drew attention and the red dragon
Vaelastrasz, son of Alexstrasza, has sworn to take down Nefarian. Back in the day in
order to enter upper blackrock spire, you had to get a ring which involved a pretty
big and difficult questline. Vaelastrasz was the one who helped you out with getting this
ring and if you had this item with you during the Rend encounter, then the image of Vaelastrasz
would actually show up and help you out. Once you were able to enter ubrs and only 1 person
in the raid had to have the key then at the end you could attune yourself to enter blackwing
lair and take on nefarian himself. During the second encounter we see Vaelastrasz in
his dragonform trying to take on Nefarian all alone, but he’s no match for the blackdragons
power. He gets corrupted himself, turned against his former ally's and we’re forced to put him down.
That was just one of the many enemies we had to face within nefarians domain since he had
several races working for him, several black dragons guarding the lair and of course several
chromatic dragons more then willing to take us out. One by one they fell until the lord
of blackrock himself was all that remained.
Nefarian: "Let the games begin"
Even the mighty nefarian was beaten and the operations and experiments within blackwing
lair were stopped. The head of Nefarian, similar to his sister, it was taken back to the capital city, it was displayed for all the people to see that this mighty black dragon had fallen.
With the black dragonflight and the dark horde out of commission, we focused our attention
on the threat summoned by the dark iron dwarfs. I know that this was not the way that they released the raids but it was more fluent for the story...Anyways... . After a small attainment quest
which required us to go into blackrock depths and collect a core fragment, we were ready
to teleport into the molte core. The hydraxian waterlords, a faction of water elementals
and sworn enemies of the armies of Ragnaros helped us out with this task. Once enough
reputation was earned they gave us Aqual quintessence which was used to douse the runes within the
molten core and allowed us to take on Majordomo Executus. We were unable to kill Executus,
but he was kind enough to awaken his lord and his lord was more than willing to finish the job.
The firelord had risen and armies of heroes took on the flames and they actually managed
to defeat him. They were unable to completely destroy ragnaros since that would only be
possible within his elemental plane, the so called firelands. That didn’t happen until
many years later, but for now the threats within the blackrock mountain were taken care of...
The armies of ragnaros and nefarian, dwarfs, goblins, elementals, demons, dragons, orcs,
trolls all of it were taken on and taken out. It seemed like the story would end here, but
there’s nothing like a little revamp and some resurrection to reboot a story...
The black dragon deathwing had spend his time recovering in deepholm and he has come back
to destroy the world. Displaying the heads of his children might not have been best idea
in the world, but thankfully he didn’t instantly destroy us...instead he worked on more schemes
and more plans. Nefarian was resurrected by his father and took up residence within the
blackrock mountain once more. This time deeper in the mountain within the area known as blackwing descent.
During the raid we encounter several bosses. You have the omnotron defense system which
was created by the dark iron dwarves and taken by nefarian for his own purposes. There is
Magmaw, a beast summoned from the firelands centuries ago by the dark iron dwarves. Chimaeron,
a hideous experiment that needs to be killed. Atramedes, another experiment gone wrong who
has lost the ability to see and Maloriak...a young human alchemist kidnapped by nefarian
and fused with the corpse of a dragonspawn. All of it quite interesting, but Neferian’s
greatest achievement within this area is the resurrection of his own sister.
She together with her brother were the final encounter of the raid and by killing them, we prevented them from doing any more
harm to the world... even though Nefarian’s experiments would echo on and cause more trouble
else where but this video focuses on the mountain and there’s one mystery in the mountain
that I want to talk about. After the cataclysm revamp they’ve added
new quests to blackrock depths and on the alliance side we see a faction called Morgans
militia. The militia has always been there around the mountain, but now their leader
shows up and they put you on the task of taking out Emperor Dagran Thaurissan. I’m not entirely
sure how this works with Moira’s storyline considering she’s pissed that people killed
her husband, but the messy lore continues. When you turn in the quest they say:
She may have lost her land and family when Ragnaros tore this land asunder, but with
the Dark Irons crippled we'll be able to safely build a new kingdom of our own in the Burning
Steppes. Not even the Firelord himself will be able to breech the capital's walls!
It says that Morgan has lost her land and family when Ragnaros tore the land asunder
but that event took place around 230 years ago so something doesn’t add up. There’s
been a bit of speculation as to how she lived so long and one theory is that Morgan is actually
a black dragon but to me that seems unlikely. It's not impossible, it just seems unlikely. A far more interesting theory is that she’s
actually a ghost of the person that was blown up during the formation of blackrock mountain, because the Redridge lands and all the area around it...it most likely had humans
Inside of it and when the dwarfs summoned Ragnaros, all of it was destroyed and...it's not unreasonable to think that she was destroyed and blown up as the mountain was created.
Truth be told though... blizzard probably didn’t really pay attention to this specific storyline
We also see that the king that we already killed during classic, he's back...so yeah there are many things that you can give a spin to it.
if you want to, for all we know she found a magical way to keep herself alive maybe
she found the fountain of youth, maybe she is a dragon, maybe she is a ghost, you know...It's a fantasy story, who knows...but you can give a spin to it.
That mystery aside, the story is not yet complete. With warlords of draenor the dark portal turned
red and blackrock mountain recieved a few new visitors. Warlord Zaela and some of her orcs
made their way into upper blackrock spire where they worked on their doomsday device
which would destroy Stormwind. Heroes of both the alliance and the horde went into the mountain
once more and they were greeted with references from the past.
Leeroy Jenkins, and for those that don’t know leeroy check the description, anyways leeroy is dead on the floor and adventurers
can resurrect him to finally get him his devout shoulders. During the Commander Tharbek encounter
we once again get help from a dragon, only this time it’s the blue dragon Awbee.
Back in the day, you could find Awbee as a young dragon whelp who was kidnapped to be
used in Nefarian’s experiment and tossed out to be killed.We saved his life and now he returned to repay the favor.
With taking out Zaela, we make sure that the Iron Horde’s plans to destroy stormwind
are prevented and with that we end the final story of the mountain. Like I mentioned before,
there are a lot of storylines, a lot of events that happened within the mountain and I don’t
think I’ll ever be able to tell all of them. I do hope that you got a better understanding
of why this mountain is so important to the lore of warcraft and I truly hope that you enjoyed the stories.
Thank you very much for watching everyone, I hope you'll have a great week! Subscribe if you like my videos and until next time guys....see ya!