#Neltharion the Earthwarder

[legendaryevokercupcake]

'Can you kill god?' With the Dragons of Warcraft+Friends

Thinks they can kill God, can: Malygos, Nozdormu

Thinks they can kill God, can't: Alexstrasza, Sabellion, Nefarion, Neltharion, Arygos, Stellagosa (No hate to my queen)

Thinks they can't kill God, can: Kalecgos

Thinks they can't kill God, can't: Anduin,

Accidentally killed God in a Wendy's parking lot in 2018: Chromie, Wrathion

Will kill God if he doesn't shut up: Kleia

Is God: Pelagos

[lorellaishc]

Lessons of the Earthwarder

((Daily Writing Challenge May 2023, Day 2, Divine/Tragedy, @daily-writing-challenge , CW: None))

Edmund Sturmtide closed the book they'd found in the vaults, supposedly penned by the dragon who had become Deathwing, and was wearing a thoughtful expression. Lorellai looked up from the fire, and titled her head. "Copper for yer thoughts, Edmund?"

"It's all a tragic story, isn't it? About Neltharion. Just a classic story about a being with great power, wealth, and respect, but none of it helps them with their problems." Edmund declared, waving the book about. They'd all had a look at it, the "play" Neltharion had partially wrote where he saved the world from a great evil, and the other aspects all praised him in the end.

"Well, I dunnae know if I'd go that far. He made plenty of choices all his own that got him where he ended up," Lorellai replied, shuddering to remember the stories her parents had told her of those days when she was left in Ironforge with her nanny, the mountain shaking while they went to fight the dragon trying to destroy the world.

"Well that's just it. We all know the stories of Deathwing. But when we got that audience with the aspects, they spoke of who he was before, and it's clear they loved him without any restraint. He was family to them, and they trusted him. But then you read this, and the other things we found, and I don't think he -believed- them when they showed their love. The Earthwarder was insecure about his worth!"

"Honestly, I'm with Sturmtide on this one," Pinapple said, coming back from a pit stop just outside the camp. "We know the void corrupted him. That's probably the crack they found in his psyche that let them get in and turn him against everything. Think about it.

Shansii stared into the fire, resting her chin on her crossed arms on her knees. "It reminds me of when my mom was seduced by the Legion. She didn't think she was strong enough to keep us safe, and they used that to convince her that only by joining them would she be strong enough. We almost lost her."

Edmund sighed. "And that's what makes it tragic. The impulse to protect one's family, to be worth of them, turned against you."

Lorellai sat back, looking up at the stars. "So... how do we make sure it doesn't happen to us? We all want to keep people safe, we're all a little afraid of what we're up against, how do we know we won't end up the same?"

Shansii smiled at her friend. "We keep each other close. Mom was saved by her friends, her family. They were stronger together than the sum of themselves alone."

Edmund nodded. "Makes sense. Everythin' we've heard about Neltharion is that he tried to shoulder it all himself, kept secrets, got crushed under 'em. We stick together as a crew, keep each other honest, and we make it through the storms."

Lorellai smiled brightly in the firelight. "Aw, shucks, ah love yeh all too." The laughter and smiles that followed helped keep the shadows at the edge of the fire light away, as the lessons of the Earthwarder were taken to heart.

[mysdrymmumbles]

So what *is* the Black Dragonflight’s culture?

Red - tend to life (critters) Green - tend to life (trees) Bronze - fuck with protect time Blue - magic  Black - ??? 

Neltharion was the Earthwarder, so...I guess miners, blacksmiths, weaponsmiths, jewelcrafters?

Would they be the warriors? The tanks of the five man? Like, what is their specific role in dragon society, before they went batshit crazy?

[melosjournal]

HIM

yes im having a normal moment NO im NOT HAVING A NORMAL MOMENT, THE PATCH IS ABOUT DEATHWINGS LEGACY

“Embers of Neltharion, as the name implies, deals a lot with the legacy that Nelatharion left behind on his path from the Earthwarder, this noble protector of Dragonflight and of Azeroth as a whole, down to Deathwing. And this is a way that we can peek into that history and learn some of that progression. We’ve seen the end result of what he became, but this is a chance to tell that story, which plays out in a number of ways.“

“The armor is meant to feel like it’s prison, and as we break down its armor in the stages of the fight, it reveals more of the tragic nature of the dragon.“

[risunochek]

i've had severe artblock for a while and this is the only thing i could think of but..... It's Not That Great Anyways But ...... It's Bad On Purpose

[sekhithefops]

Legacies - Chapter 3 thoughts

Watch video first if you haven't already. Then read, 'cause here be spoilers.

Okay?

Okay.

So, that bit in the third one? Where Neltharion used the power of the Old Gods to defeat Razageth...

*deep breath*

THAT is how you connect old lore to new. Razageth is Zovaal done RIGHT.

It was implied in chapter one that Neltharion had been hearing the voices of the Old Gods for some time, but this... right here... is implied to be the first time he actually heeded them, he listened.

"So this is what you hid from us brother, the moment you fell from grace." - Norzdomu

Yeah, he wasn't Deathwing after that... but this was when his descent into madness began. He listened, he used their power, he saved Azeroth... for the moment, but the door was open. He'd let them in.

This shows how powerful Raszageth was. Neltharion was the Earthwarder, one of the most powerful beings on Azeroth, and he had to rely on the Old Gods just to seal her away. Not KILL her, just DEFEAT her.

This has me freakin' HYPE right now.

Also, I have a feeling that this may be part of why Neltharion sealed away the Dracthyr.

They saw him do this. They witnessed the Aspect of Earth use the power of the Void.

They may not have known what he'd done, it was possible the Dracthyr might not have recognized it or may not have even known what the Old Gods were (Neltharion may not have told them,) but they could have told other dragons what they'd witnessed. They may even have done so out of concern for their creator, trying to seek help.

Neltharion couldn't risk it, and without that artifact he was using to control them he couldn't be sure they wouldn't.

I think one of the reasons they were sealed away was because he wanted to make sure that the method he'd used to defeat Razageth remained hidden. He didn't want the other flights to know what he'd done.

(Update after reading War of the Scaleborn: FUCKIN' CALLED IT! :D)

I think at this point he was still Neltharion. He was probably telling himself "Okay, this was a one time deal. I used their power, but what else could I have done? Razageth and her rebels would have done untold damage if I hadn't! I had no choice! Never again! I don't care what they promise me, this will NOT happen again!"

... until it did.

And again.

And once more.

And just another time.

Each time a little easier for the Old Gods to convince him.

Each time a little easier for Yogg-sauron to worm his way into his nightmares.

Each time a little easier for N'zoth to whisper dark thoughts into his mind.

Each time a little easier for C'thun to tempt him to try it... just once more... they could risk so much less if he'd just do it...

... until finally...

... he stopped considering other options. Until after ten thousand years of compromises and listening and the occasional use here and there... Neltharion had become Deathwing without even realizing it himself, and it was too late.

As I said, THIS IS HOW YOU CONNECT OLD LORE TO NEW! Good gods it feels good to see Blizz actually do this right after Shadowlands.

[sekhisadventures]

Laurelgosa/Laura Brightflame, Dracthyr Evoker

Important Stories:

Coming Troubles, New Adventurers: After centuries of slumber in the Forbidden Reach, the spell keeping her in stasis is broken, and Laurelgosa awakens.

Fractured Order: After arriving in Orgrimmar, a chance encounter in the Broken Tusk gets her attention, and she meets Savage United on the boat to the Dragon Isles.

Brightflame, Dim Memories: Sekhi attempts to help Laurelgosa regain her memories with a variation of a shamanistic ritual she last attempted in Ardenweald.

Race: Dracthyr

Class: Evoker

Birthplace: The Dragon Isles, Specific Location Currently Unknown

Residence: Orgrimmar, Valley of Strength, Barracks

Personal Rune: "Ancient Wyrm"

Abilities:

Evoker: Laurelgosa is an evoker, one of the elite soldiers of Neltharion. She is able to use the powers of all five dragonflights, though to a lesser degree than a dragon of that flight would be able to (i.e. she can affect time to draw out a wound so that it can be dealt with easier, or can rewind time to before a person was hurt, but cannot travel through time like Chromie or Nozdormu could without aid.)

Visage: Laurelgosa has two forms. In her true form she stands close to seven feet tall and has blue and white scales with bright pink eyes. In her 'visage' form she appears to be an elven woman with hints of draconic features (small horns, patches of white scales) whose eyes have pink irises with vertical slits, but otherwise appear normal for elves. She actually prefers her visage form as it helps her distance herself from what Neltharion did to her and her people.

Dracthyr: Laurelgosa has the abilities inherent to all Dracthyr. Her scales are essentially dragon scale and very resistant to injury, and she's capable of flight as well as breathing fire. She cannot use these abilities in her visage form and will often transform if she is expecting to enter combat.

Echo of the Aspects: Laurelgosa can, in times of dire need, call upon the innate ties to the dragonflights all dracthyr share to use any one flight's power to it's utmost, displaying an eruption of draconic might. However, if she uses this she loses access to that flight's powers until the end of the next day. The only exception is if a dragon of the flight she's trying to echo is nearby.

Echo of the Lifebinder: Laurelgosa expels a blast of ruby flames before her, scouring all corruption from her allies. The flames will burn away any poisons, diseases, or curses her allies are afflicted with, and the residual heat evaporates any new ones for a short time.

Echo of the Spellweaver: A purely offensive power. Laurelgosa expels a blast of pure arcane energy at her foes. The power tears into them, warping reality all around them and sending their own powers into chaos, unraveling their own magics should they use any.

Echo of the Dreamer: Laurelgosa exhales a pure cloud of healing from the Emerald Dream, and all injuries her allies suffer vanish as if they were simply a nightmare they were having. However, the breath cannot revive the dead.

Echo of the Timeless One: Laurelgosa exhales a blast of sand and temporal energy, and all enemies struck by it are frozen in time, their own personal timelines coming to a complete halt for a full two minutes. Not long, but long enough for her allies to do some serious damage should they be nearby.

Echo of the Earthwarder: Laurelgosa exhales a blast of earthen might, and the very land itself embraces her allies, forming an armor of stone to protect them. This armor will not hinder their movement, the stones moving with them almost as if alive, but will absorb most any mundane damage and take quite a bit of magical punishment as well.

Military Acumen: Having regained much of her lost memories thanks to the aid of her newfound allies in Savage United and Avalon, she remembers the military training under Neltharion with the rest of her Dracthyr brothers and sisters and is able to impart her knowledge of tactics and planning to them. If she and Dareley joined forces in such they would be formidable indeed.

History

Laurelgosa had a rough time adjusting to life following her return to Azeroth. Her memories of the time before the Dracthyr's imprisonment were all but gone and her confidence with them. She felt adrift, like a boat with no anchor or, more accurately, a soldier with no general.

She followed Cinderthresh and Ebonhorn to Orgrimmar mostly on impulse, but found once she was there that she lacked the trust in herself to decide a path forward. She spent several days at the Broken Tusk until chancing to overhear an exchange between two members of Savage United, the undead troll Mola'raum and the mag'har warrior Galdia Grimaxe.

She followed them to the docks and wound up on a boat with them to the Dragon Isles, where she met the rest of the group's members.

After they arrived their landing site was ambushed by the primalists, causing Laurelgosa to fly into a panic as memories of the battle between Neltharion and Raszageth emerged in fragments. She completely incinerated one of them using her deep breath, but the sound of lightning from another struck fear into her as her partial memory recalled the Storm Eater's fury.

Sometime later she encountered the vulpera shamaness, Sekhi, in Valdrakken who offered to use a ritual she'd devised to help her. It was meant to allow people to hear the elements as she did, but if she modified it the ritual could help induce a vision of her past… or so she thought, Sekhi kind of makes these up as she goes.

The ritual worked and Laurelgosa remembered a brief glimpse of the battlefield and the sight of a friend, a drakthyr named Jakrostrasz, dying at the hands of Raszageth and her Primalist allies… but little else.

Sometime later she encountered Sekhi and her friends in the Ohn'ahran Plains on route to play healer to the centuar who were preparing to lay siege to a post controlled by the traitorous Clan Nokhud. Before they could arrive however they were ambushed by Savage United's most dire foe. The warlock Dissonantia.

Dissonantia had laid a trap specially prepared to disable Sekhi and while the shaman was unable to fight back her other demons kept Nitika and Galdia busy as her incubus, Cenoon, moved in for the kill.

However, Dissonantia had a mount. A black dragon she was controlling using fel magic. The sight of this triggered Laurelgosa's memories of the titan device Neltharion had used to control the dracthyr, and inspired such fury in her that she tackled the warlock from the dragon's back and tried to incinerate her head with her breath!

The battle was chaotic, but in the end Dissonantia was forced into retreat and the black dragon was freed of her control, and she offered her services to Savage United.

Trivia

For those readers who are sharp eyed, they may have noticed that both Laurelgosa's dracthyr and visage forms share a specific color scheme. Blue and white scales and pink eyes for the former, white scales and pink and blue hair for the latter. Yes, this is intentionally the same colors as the Trans Pride flag.

Laurelgosa presents as a woman and uses she/her pronouns, but in truth she doesn't have a physical sex. None of the dracthyr do (at least in my cannon.) Neltharion would have intentionally designed them without the ability to reproduce so he could control their numbers, making them reliant on his laboratory in Abberus to create new dracthyr to ensure their loyalty. Appearing as masculine or feminine is entirely at the personal preference of the dracthyr in question.

Laurelgosa tends to talk in a way that sounds very formal as she does not usually use contractions in her speech (i.e. instead of saying "I won't" or "I didn't" she'll say "I will not" or "I did not.") This is because she learned Common and Orcish via magic rather than being taught and the spell cannot impart slang or nuance, only the basics of language. Any time she uses contractions when she's talking in the story, she's speaking in her native language: Draconic.

[vythanis]

30 Days of Character Development

Day 10 - Family: What is their family history like? How does it affect them? While he can���t say for certain, Vyth suspects he comes from a brood sired by Neltharion on Sinestra. Like other Netherwings, he was mutated in the egg by out-of-control nether energies. As luck would have it, he has a fairly strong connection to the rocky, airy places of Azeroth - crags, mountain streams, and cliffsides. He’s definitely a child of the Earthwarder. Beyond all that, he considers himself brother-of-the-heart to Zayneth Shadowspite, the demon hunter who rescued him in Outland from a demon’s trap; this connection has predominantly shaped who he is today.

How do they feel about their family? Vyth was already on Azeroth by the Cataclysm. Because of his latent connection to the planet, the destruction wrought by Deathwing nearly killed him. As it stood, he spent four months recovering from the psychic and physical damage of being tied intimately with the leylines during the upheaval. Vyth hates the Flight he came from and generally tries not to mention how close to his original stock he seems to be. He has absolutely no relationship at all with his clutchmates from Outland. That said, he adores the heck out of his adopted family and considers himself a Shadowspite in all but name (he won’t take his brother’s name out of his own sense of respect). He has a particular love for Tziska which rarely gets a chance to get expressed these days. She and Vyth worked together to pull Zayneth out of a suicidal spiral and find some sense of self-reliance once more. Vyth will always feel a deep bond with her over that.

How does their family feel about them? He might as well not exist to any in his dragon family; like as not, they’d try to eat him for his tasty, tasty magic. Among his adopted family, he’s treated like the little brother - with a great deal of indulgent affection. He is not, however, treated like a child (especially since he and Zay have an off-and-on physical relationship). On the whole, his family of choice completely adores him.