This GB Lore Corner turns to the black dragon behind the end of the world in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Deathwing began as Neltharion, the Dragon Aspect charged with protecting the earth, and spent 10,000 years as the most destructive servant of the Old Gods. This entry follows him from his creation to his death at the Maelstrom, using Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft: Chronicle as the current reference and noting where older novels and manuals told the story differently. It stops at the end of Cataclysm. Blizzard's Cataclysm cinematic shows Deathwing's return to Azeroth. Check out the official trailer down below:
The Earth-Warder
Chronicle Volume 1 explains how the Dragon Aspects were made. The keepers left behind by the titans chose 5 proto-dragons and asked the titan Pantheon to empower them. Keeper Archaedas asked his creator, Khaz'goroth, to give part of his power to the proto-dragon Neltharion, who became known as the Earth-Warder and was given charge over the mountains and deep caverns of the earth.
The titans' energy transformed each of the 5 proto-dragons, and Neltharion's hide turned an earthy black. The keepers then altered hundreds of proto-dragon eggs to create the dragonflights that would serve each Aspect, and the black dragonflight became Neltharion's. Chronicle says he served for many long ages as the greatest friend and confidant of Alexstrasza, the red Aspect and Life-Binder.
Chronicle ties his fall to the domain he guarded. The Old Gods were imprisoned deep beneath the surface of Azeroth, and Chronicle explains that their influence had tainted the bedrock around their prisons over the ages. Neltharion's connection to the earth made him uniquely susceptible, and the darkness spread through his heart gradually, long before any of the other Aspects suspected it.
The Dragon Soul And The War Of The Ancients
The betrayal came during the War of the Ancients, when the Burning Legion invaded Kalimdor through the Well of Eternity. Malfurion Stormrage called on the Aspects for help, and they met at Wyrmrest Temple to plan. Neltharion proposed a weapon of his own design, the Dragon Soul, and convinced Alexstrasza, Ysera, Nozdormu and Malygos to sacrifice part of their power into it. He was the only Aspect who did not add his own.
Neltharion used the empowered Dragon Soul against the Legion and wiped out the demons on the battlefield, then turned it on his allies. The attack killed nearly all of the blue dragonflight and forced the other dragons and the night elves to flee. Malygos was driven mad with grief that lasted for thousands of years. The Dragon Soul's energy began tearing Neltharion's body apart, opening fissures in his hide that spewed fire and magma, and he fled the battle under a new name: Deathwing.
Chronicle adds that Illidan Stormrage later found Deathwing in his ravaged state while working to steal the Dragon Soul for Sargeras. Deathwing had bolted adamantium plates to his spine to hold his body together. Illidan delivered the artifact to the Highborne, and Malfurion later took it back and used it to disrupt the spell opening Sargeras's portal in the Well. The earlier GB Lore Corner on Illidan Stormrage covers that side of the war.
Canon note: Chronicle describes the Dragon Soul only as an artifact Neltharion designed and crafted himself. Richard A. Knaak's War of the Ancients novels, written before Chronicle, add goblin servants who forged the golden disc from his blood in their workshops beneath the earth. Chronicle does not contradict that version, but it does not repeat it.
Asleep Beneath The World
After the war, the other Aspects hid the Dragon Soul beneath what would become the Redridge Mountains and enchanted it so that no dragon, Deathwing included, could touch it. Chronicle Volume 2 says the artifact had nearly destroyed Deathwing, who settled into a deep slumber to recover. During that time, the other dragonflights hunted his black dragons to the brink of extinction.
The magic used to open the Dark Portal woke him. Deathwing watched the First War between Stormwind and the Horde and decided the orcs could break the kingdoms that would oppose his flight. He took the guise of a Stormwind noble, visited Lordaeron and told its aristocracy that reports of an orc invasion were fabrications meant to hide problems with human rebels. He then used sorcery to keep Lordaeron's nobles from sending help.
Deathwing next lived for months as a Blackrock orc. Chronicle says Gul'dan believed he was a loyal follower, Blackhand believed he was a proud Blackrock, and Orgrim Doomhammer believed he was a stalwart ally.
The Demon Soul
The Dragon Soul could not be wielded by dragons, but orcs could use it. Deathwing sent visions to Zuluhed, chieftain of the Dragonmaw clan, showing his warriors riding dragons, then led him to the Redridge Mountains. The Dragonmaw killed the red dragon guardian Orastrasz, losing more than a dozen orcs in the fight, and the warlock Nekros Skullcrusher broke the artifact's wards. He sensed fel energy left over from the War of the Ancients and renamed it the Demon Soul.
Alexstrasza sensed the wards breaking and flew south with several red dragons, unaware that Deathwing had set a trap. Nekros used the Demon Soul to enslave her, and the Dragonmaw took the red dragonflight to Grim Batol in Khaz Modan, where they forced the captive dragons to serve the Horde as mounts during the Second War. Deathwing kept advising Nekros from a distance. Chronicle Volume 3 adds that he had also carried a clutch of black dragon eggs to Draenor, a plan that ended when Draenor was torn apart.
Lord Daval Prestor
After the Dark Portal was destroyed, Deathwing returned to Lordaeron as Lord Daval Prestor. Chronicle calls it a persona he had used before, during the years when he kept Lordaeron's court in disarray. He brought his children, Onyxia and Nefarian, disguised as human nobles, and the 3 of them stirred up rivalries between the Alliance's nations while feeding bad information to the soldiers hunting the remnants of the Horde.
Knaak's 2001 novel Warcraft: Day of the Dragon tells this period in detail. Prestor claimed a distant blood tie to King Aiden Perenolde of Alterac, advised King Terenas Menethil to depose the traitor king, and used telepathic coercion to get Terenas to name him as the next king of Alterac. Terenas was also prepared to offer him the hand of Princess Calia. The red dragon Korialstrasz, disguised as the Kirin Tor mage Krasus, tried to get into Prestor's chateau and set off a spell trap called the Endless Hunger.
Canon note: Day of the Dragon introduced Prestor as a lord who appeared at Terenas's court after the Second War. Chronicle keeps that period but moves the persona earlier, stating that Deathwing had already used it during the First and Second Wars to keep Lordaeron from understanding the threat. Blizzard's Chronicle timeline is the current version.
The Battle Of Grim Batol
Chronicle dates the Battle of Grim Batol to 10 years after the opening of the Dark Portal. Deathwing sent dreams to Nekros warning of an Alliance strike, then arranged for a small Alliance party led by the mage Rhonin to stumble onto the Dragonmaw. Nekros ordered the clan to leave Grim Batol for Dun Algaz, and Deathwing attacked the moment they left, aiming to steal the red dragonflight's eggs for himself.
Korialstrasz, as Krasus, helped Rhonin, who brought the high elf ranger Vereesa Windrunner and the dwarf gryphon rider Falstad Wildhammer. During the battle, Alexstrasza broke her chains and devoured Nekros. Ysera, Nozdormu and Malygos joined her against Deathwing, and Rhonin found a flaw in the Demon Soul and destroyed it, sending its stolen power back to the Aspects. Day of the Dragon has him do it with one of Deathwing's own scales. Deathwing fled badly wounded, and Lord Prestor vanished from Lordaeron's court.
Onyxia And Nefarian
Onyxia became Lady Katrana Prestor in Stormwind and worked to keep the kingdom isolated from Lordaeron, and she later played Stormwind's nobles against the Stonemasons' Guild, whose members went on to form the Defias Brotherhood with her secret support. Nefarian took over the upper half of Blackrock Mountain, made a pact with Dal'rend Blackhand's "true Horde," and bred a chromatic dragonflight in his laboratory by combining the blood of all 5 flights.
Both became raid bosses in the original World of Warcraft. Onyxia's Lair in Dustwallow Marsh was in the game at launch, and Nefarian waited at the top of the Blackwing Lair raid. Chronicle says Horde champions killed Nefarian and carried his head back to Orgrimmar.
Canon note: Players kill Onyxia in her lair in the game. Chronicle instead credits King Varian Wrynn, who exposes Katrana Prestor, chases her to Dustwallow Marsh after she takes Prince Anduin, cuts off her head and hangs it from Stormwind's gates.
Deepholm And The Cataclysm
Deathwing recovered in Deepholm, the earth domain of the Elemental Plane. Chronicle says the Old God N'Zoth fed dark energy into his heart there, and Twilight's Hammer cultists bolted elementium plates over his wounds to stop his body from tearing apart. N'Zoth planned to discard him once the Hour of Twilight, the end of all life on Azeroth, had been achieved.
At N'Zoth's command, Deathwing burst out of Deepholm and broke down the boundary between the Elemental Plane and the physical world. The natural disasters that followed became known as the Cataclysm, which Blizzard released on December 7, 2010. Deathwing burned parts of Stormwind, while Cho'gall's Twilight's Hammer seized the Highlands and the cult raised Nefarian and Sintharia from the dead in Blackrock Mountain. Deathwing then defeated Alexstrasza in a fight over the Twilight Highlands, though Chronicle says he barely won.
His forces then attacked a gathering of dragons at Wyrmrest Temple as cover for a plot to turn the dragonflights' eggs into twilight dragons. Korialstrasz destroyed the eggs and himself to stop it, and the other dragons wrongly believed he had betrayed them. Thrall, who had left the Horde to work with the Earthen Ring at the Maelstrom, helped the Aspects recover by freeing Nozdormu from the timeways, helping the blue dragons choose Kalecgos as their new Aspect and showing Alexstrasza the truth about Korialstrasz's sacrifice. Christie Golden's novel Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects tells that part of the story.
The Hour Of Twilight
Kalecgos proposed using the Dragon Soul, but Rhonin had destroyed it at Grim Batol. Kalecgos argued that Thrall could wield it because he was not a dragon, and that he could weave the element of earth into it to make Deathwing vulnerable. Nozdormu agreed to take the artifact from the past, and Chronicle says Horde champions helped him defeat Murozond, his corrupted future self, while Alliance heroes went back to the War of the Ancients to retrieve the Dragon Soul.
That story became patch 4.3, Hour of Twilight, released on November 29, 2011, with the Dragon Soul raid as the final fight of the expansion. Deathwing's twilight dragons and cultists, joined by N'Zoth's faceless ones, besieged Wyrmrest Temple. Thrall and the Aspects used the Dragon Soul to drive him away, and players chased him across the sky, tearing plates off his back before the final battle at the Maelstrom.
N'Zoth poured more power into Deathwing than ever before, and his body split open into molten tentacles. Alexstrasza, Ysera, Nozdormu and Kalecgos gave all of their remaining power to the Dragon Soul, and Thrall used it to destroy him. The Aspects lost their powers and handed the protection of Azeroth to the mortal races. Alexstrasza, who gave up her Aspect power with the others, is also the subject of a statue from HEX Collectibles.
Which part of Deathwing's history do you think was the bigger turning point, the betrayal with the Dragon Soul or the years he spent as Lord Daval Prestor?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.