Hello everyone!
In a time before the reign of Dragons, eons before the age of the mortal races that would
later call it home.
A planet had formed around a slumbering world-soul in a far corner of the Great Dark Beyond.
We would later know both this sleeping Titan and the planet that formed around her as Azeroth,
and at the beginning this primordial planet was the playground of the elements that called
it home.
These elements were all led by a Lord.
The most powerful of their kind.
Al’Akir was the cunning Lord of Wind, Ragnaros was the brash Lord of Fire, Therazane was
the reclusive Stonemother, and Neptulon was the wise Lord of Water, he is also the topic
of today’s video.
These four elements were originally five, but a growing Titan Soul is a hungry child
to feed and so vast was this slumbering Titan that it drew in and consumed the fifth of
these elements, Spirit.
Without this fifth element to keep balance the others grew wild and chaotic, waging wars
against one another to claim the planet as their own, though in truth, they each cared
more for the sheer chaos and destruction they wrought against each other than they did for
any grand plans.
All they wished was for this cycle of unmitigated carnage to carry on forever, for Azeroth to
remain their warzone.
The Elements wish that Azeroth would remain their own personal battleground would be granted
for untold millenia, that is until it literally came crashing down in the form of the Old
Gods.
These towering monstrosities plummeted from the Great Dark Beyond, sent by the Void Lords
to find and corrupt the nascent titan spirits that grew in some of the many planets.
The arrival of the Old Gods would not go unnoticed, and the Elemental Lords were not happy these
grotesque beings had gatecrashed their party.
Not only had these unwanted squatters ruined their millennia of wanton chaos, but they
had brought their own guests.
Faceless ones and the insectoid aqir slithered to life from the organic matter that oozed
from the grotesque bodies of the Old Gods, and there seemed to be no end to their swarms.
It became clear that the four elemental lords would have to take drastic action.
Though it was unprecedented, the Elemental lords came to a truce.
For the first time, the Lords of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth would work together rather
than against each other.
The enemy of their enemy was their friend after all, and the sooner the Elements got
rid of these unwelcome guests the sooner they could get back to their scheduled chaos.
The lords of air and fire, Al’Akir and Ragnaros, would unleash ruthless burning cyclones at
their foes, whilst The Stonemother, Therazane, and The Lord of Water, Neptulon, had found
their own effective tactics.
Therazane would corral the enemy by raising jagged mountains of rock around them, then
Neptulon would crush them with the power of the seas.
Despite the best efforts of the 4 elemental lords they could not defeat the Old Gods and
became enslaved.
We don’t know what the Old Gods did with their elemental pets, but without their interference
these vile servants of the Void Lords draped Azeroth in a veil of eternal twilight, bringing
about the reign of the Black Empire.
As suddenly as the Black Empire rose, so too would it eventually fall and when the Pantheon
was informed of the slumbering soul of one of their kin, they were determined to save
it from the vile corruption which threatened it.
The Titan’s sent their keepers to cleanse the planet, their assault both swift and fierce.
The Old Gods seethed and called upon their greatest of lieutenants, the Elemental Lords,
to defend them.
The keepers split into groups to deal with the threat and each group advanced upon one
of the four Lords.
As Neptulon rushed to join the fray he was waylaid by Loken and Mimiron, his forces outmaneuvered
at every turn until eventually Loken froze and shattered Neptulon’s water elementals,
as Mimiron created enchanted bonds to imprison The Tidehunter.
The Elemental Lords were bound to Azeroth and so killing them here would serve no end,
for nobody, not even the keepers could get rid of something as primal and essential as
the elements.
The land they walked upon, the air the mortal races would breathe, the fire which would
light the dark and the water which would nourish all living things, they were all here, all
ruled over by the four lords.
They could not kill the elements because they were as much a part of Azeroth as the World
Soul was.
The best the keepers could do was incapacitate them.
Ra and Helya formed a pocket dimension they called the Elemental Plane and it was here
that they imprisoned each Lord within their own domain.
Neptulon had been freed from his servitude to the Old Gods only to be imprisoned once
more in his new realm: The Abyssal Maw.
Ra sealed the domains of the Elements and hid the key inside his shield, “The Highkeeper’s
Ward”.
Contained within their own realms the Elemental Lords could no longer harm Azeroth, but it
did nothing to cool their tempers.
They constantly fought between themselves.
Ragnaros took this one step further and even went as far as warring with the elemental
plane of air for 5,000 years culminating in him killing the prince of Air, Thunderaan,
and consuming most of his essence.
Ragnaros would eventually come to be summoned onto Azeroth by some overzealous Dark Iron
dwarves, and as he was rampaging on the surface we don’t really know what the other Elemental
Lords were doing or if they were all still imprisoned.
Regardless of where he was, Neptulon still ruled the waves and commanded all water elementals,
even those who remained behind on Azeroth, so we do see his influence crop up.
One example of Neptulon’s influence is regarding the Gurubashi Trolls.
There is a book called The Stone of the Tides which discusses how this tribe of trolls came
across a peculiar artifact of the same name.
Various members of the tribe could wield the artifact to control water and it has been
suggested that this immense power could be a physical manifestation of the powers possessed
by the Tidehunter himself.
Regardless of the truth in that story, Neptulon would play a huge part in the tribe's history.
A tablet titled “The Fall of the Gurubashi” tells us how Neptulon sent mighty Krakens
to raze the city of I’lalai.
If the previous tale is true and the Stone of the Tides was his artifact this could have
been a reason for Neptulon to punish the trolls for their arrogance, but if not, they must
have done something to call the wrath of the usually calm natured Tidehunter upon them.
The Krakens sent huge waves of water to fall upon the jungle, getting as high up as the
mountains before they retreated again, leaving nothing in their wake, and the city of I’lalai
lost beneath the waves.
The fate of the Gurubuashi is not the only instance of Neptulon’s ability to command
his forces even whilst he was presumably still imprisoned.
Bold adventurers worked alongside some of his water elementals, the Hydraxian Waterlords,
to rid Blackrock mountain of Ragnaros and send him back to the Firelands, his domain
in the Elemental Plane.
It is doubtful that the motivation for helping us send Ragnaros back to his prison was due
to compassion for the mortal races, and judging by their usual animosity it’s more likely
Neptulon was taking the opportunity to inconvenience Ragnaros whilst it presented itself.
Duke Hydraxis himself tells us that the Waterlords wage war against any lesser elements, and
they wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to loosen the foothold of these lesser elements
and send them back to the elemental plane.
The first time we see The Tidehunter in person would happen after Deathwing erupted from
Deepholm and the Elemental Plane collided with Azeroth.
Shortly before this, when Deathwing was being tended to in Deepholm, the Old Gods had called
out to their earlier servants, The Elemental Lords.
Two of them, Al’Akir and Ragnaros relished the thought of war and the promise of free
reign on Azeroth and readily allied themselves with Deathwing, but Therazane and Neptulon
refused.
The lords of Earth and Water were generally less hot-headed than the Lords of Air and
Fire, and their long imprisonment had given both Therazane and Neptulon the chance to
break free from the shackles of the Old Gods.
They refused to be enslaved once again and would rather remain imprisoned in their domains
than to walk on Azeroth as slaves of the Old Gods once more.
When Deathwing erupted from Deepholm the domains of the Elemental Lords became accessible,
and this decision not to ally with Deathwing would result in the naga trying to enter the
Throne of the Tides and overthrow Neptulon’s reign.
N’Zoth had ordered Azshara to overthrow the Tidehunter, but this was more than a punishment
for Neptulon’s defiance.
N’Zoth wanted the power to control the world’s seas so they could cut off all forms of sea
travel in an effort to splinter the world’s nations into isolated enclaves.
It would seem absurd that the naga could ever hope to compete against an Elemental Lord,
but they were succeeding, and when we enter the Throne of Tides we can see why: they have
bent the colossal Ozumat, Patriarch of all Kraken to their will and we need to kill the
naga forces occupying Neptulon’s domain and protect the Tidelord himself as he cleanses
the waters.
Just as
it seems victory is within our grasp Ozumat picks Neptulon up and carries him away.
We don’t know where he went or what happened next, but this isn’t the last we’ll hear
of the Lord of Tides.
Neptulon can’t be incapacitated merely by getting kidnapped by a giant squid and he
does escape at one point.
We don’t really know how he did it and it seems Blizzard might not know the answer to
that either, with Chris Metzen saying it is “a damn mess is what
it is.”
In legion Shamans got proof of his escape for themselves when, during their order hall
campaign, the earthen ring calls upon Neptulon for his aid in defeating the burning legion.
He appears ,along with Ozumat who is now under the Tidehunter’s command, and scoffs at
the suggestion that we can unite all the Lords to our cause, but he does remember a time
when all the
Lords united and worked as one.
This was of course when they united to defeat the Old Gods, and it didn’t work out so
well.
Regardless, he agrees to aid us, and sends us his greatest champion.
You may remember Hydraxis as being the leader of the Hydraxian Waterlords, well now he’s
joining us as an Order Hall follower.
Hydraxis isn’t the only one of Neptulon’s champions we get to work with in Legion, and
we also meet Aquaclease.
On Foulshore Strip on the Broken Shore a world quest can be active where we meet up with
the water elemental.
He tells us he has been sent by Neptulon to bring ruin and judgement upon the fel infused
fools infesting the area, and we can help him by putting out fell-fires and killing
fell creatures.
Once we’ve completed the world quest he’ll tell us that we did well for one who is so
painfully dry.
Helping us clean up the fel corruption in Legion wasn’t the last time we would hear
of The Tidehunter however, and we see him again in BFA.
In Nazjatar you can speak to Farseer Ori, a member of the Waveblade Ankoan, who tells
us that he, unlike the rest of his clan, was summoned here to do Neptulon’s bidding.
He isn’t the only one here representing The Elemental, and we soon find two familiar
champions of the Tidehunter, Hydraxis and Aquacleese, have been sent by their Lord to
reign justice upon the naga.
Although Neptulon is more than capable of dealing out justice himself, the ancient titan
magics of the Tidestone stop him entering Azshara’s realm and he stands watch just
behind an impenetrable wall of water.
As Battle for Azeroth draws to a close we begin to prepare ourselves to enter The Shadowlands,
and it seems unlikely we’re going to see Neptulon much in the upcoming expansion.
When Elementals die they typically end up back in the Elemental Plane, so the Shadowlands
isn’t somewhere Neptulon really needs to worry about.
Anyways, that brings us to the end of the video so thank you very much for watching
everyone!
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