#lich king darion is one of my favorite aus honestly

[nighthaunting]

I have an interesting idea for you: Based on the timeless isle daily quest about the history of the world. What if Darion Mograine had become the new Lich King instead of Bolvar? The man's all about self-sacrifice, retribution and atonement. The Ebon Blade backed by the Scourge work machine can only be an asset... what fun to contemplate~! :D

i have so many feelings about darion becoming lich king! 

like, i understand that bringing bolvar back was a last-minute thing because they realized that if arthas died and the threat of the scourge was finished forever, they’d never be able to bring it back into the storyline. and i do actually like bolvar as lich king insofar as what i imagine his struggles are trying to remain somewhat moral and reasonable while contending with the weight of both arthas’ and ner’zhul’s legacies and the ‘memory’ of their wills in the scourge. (and obviously not always managing to negotiate that slippery slope, if legion is any indication).

but also, darion’s whole life has been self-sacrifice. its very bleak, but i fully imagine him being raised by alexandros with the idea that darion can somehow achieve greatness and it will ‘make up’ for elena’s death and what alexandros feels was elena’s lost potential. which is a hell of a thing to teach a little kid, when it boils down to ‘you have to succeed because otherwise your mother died for nothing’. especially considering alexandros is the one who’s really At Fault for elena dying in the first place, and although arguments could be made that at least part of his shitty parenting was a result of him knowing that and being guilty about it. the result is that darion grew up to be a person who is highly skilled, highly intelligent, highly ambitious, and with very very little self-worth. the omnipresent idea that elena sacrificed herself so he could live made a very deep impression on darion. and so the combined notion that self-sacrifice for a loved one is the greatest expression of love, as well as the idea that he himself needed to be held to a higher standard to be ‘worthy’ of that sacrifice (and thus, worthy of love) literally drove him to suicide at the first light’s hope. 

and to sort of segue into a tangent for a moment, tirion absolutely did not know that darion’s idea of what the greatest expression of love was when he told darion that ‘only a greater act of love can undo an act of evil’. and tirion was honestly horrified that darion took his advice like that, even if it did save the argent dawn. 

the way i imagine it is like this: tirion and darion are at icecrown’s summit after arthas has been defeated. terenas’ ghost tells them that there must always be a lich king. bolvar died at the wrathgate, and his soul rests now, saved from the darkness of the shadowlands by the red dragonflight’s cleansing fire. the helm of domination rests on the ground between them, and tirion picks it up, contemplating the dimly-glittering jewel and the cold ridges of saronite that make up the helm’s faceplate. tirion would never ask anyone to make a sacrifice he himself would not, and so he intends to assume arthas’ place as lich king. darion stops him. tirion is still mortal, and still one of the living, there’s no reason he should resign himself to undeath when he has the option not to. darion is already dead, and has already served as the lich king’s right hand before he was freed at the second battle for light’s hope. he knows the workings of the scourge, and the necromancy to control them, and has been tied to arthas and ner’zhul’s wills before and broken free. he tells tirion to give him the helm, and tirion does.

i don’t tbh imagine darion deciding to go into the ice, because that was half a writer’s decision to store up the scourge until they wanted to make storylines for it again, and half because i imagine bolvar was still like, tremendously injured by being plagued/burned/tortured. so darion just takes off his own helmet, and for the first time in a long time tirion sees his bare face again. still painfully young, kept hidden behind armour for a reason, and it makes tirion’s heart ache a bit. and then darion slides the helm of domination over his face, and his eyes close, and then open again, the gemstone set into the helm’s faceplate sparking with a new glow, and the lichfire in darion’s eyes more pronounced than before. as he turns away from tirion to take his seat on the frozen throne, tirion grabs him by the arm and pulls him into a hug. its slightly awkward, but tirion doesnt want to let him go without reminding him that tirion is there for him. 

and so darion sits the frozen throne. he doesnt allow the ice to take him, because barring kel’thuzad’s shade that wanders the shadowlands, he knows more about the scourge than anyone even nominally alive at this point. he begins calling the scourge back to icecrown. he summons koltira and thassarian and tells them simply: any death knight who isn’t willing to serve him now is free to leave and make their own ends, but he is still highlord of their order, and he wants them to assist in managing the scourge. i feel like the majority of them accept that, because i have a lot of feelings about darion having the respect and honest admiration of his knights. he tried very hard to be a good boss for them, and they’re willing to stay in his service now that he’s lich king. 

they set out to contain the scourge. its a Process, to say the least. the undead themselves are easy to manage, because the psychic might of the lich king can reach nearly across the whole of azeroth. its the living cultists that are the problem, and darion issues an ultimatum, return to icecrown and serve the scourge, or die. 

i think things are a bit different in this, that there’s not so much a Great Secret that the lich king still exists, so much as its well known that the ebon blade moved into icecrown and is working on destroying the leftover plague caches and containing all the random scourge and so forth. naxxramas gets cleaned up. acherus is moved to hang out over the shadow vault or maybe even the argent tournament grounds once the argent crusade decamps. 

its a bit confused, but as i understand it the val’kyr and so forth went looking for work because bolvar was sleeping/moping/whatever and some of them just left. darion doesn’t allow this. he has his death knights to think about, and the val’kyr were their spirit healers, so he very swiftly re-establishes the lich king’s vigil so his knights can be raised by the val’kyr if they should fall. 

sylvanas doesnt throw herself off of icecrown, sylvanas isnt particularly welcome in icecrown. no one is quite sure if sylvanas knew about the wrathgate or not, but what is known is that she had approved research on the new plague, and darion isn’t about that plague life. as the leaders of the two undead factions, they write very terse letters to each other, and darion moves his efforts to gather up all the scourge’s necromancers along that much quicker, once he realizes that sylvanas is hunting them too. 

and so time passes. in chronicles its made pretty explicitly clear that deathwing hesitated to emerge while arthas was active bc the lich king is such a badass, but when bolvar decided to ‘sleep’ instead of doing anything he took his chance. i feel like darion is a balance between the two approaches to lich kinging: he’s not sleeping in the throne, he’s out and about in icecrown working to restructure and manage his kingdom, because he was raised from birth to be a highlord and he takes his responsibilities seriously. but he’s not plaguing things and being gratuitously evil and actively building his army. so deathwing probably pops up eventually, but perhaps it takes a while longer than in canon, so there’s more time for things to heal post-wrath. 

i don’t really see things being Very different than in canon beyond that? arthas knew the legion would eventually come for azeroth, and his plan to kill everyone and make the scourge super powerful was half motivated by his own crazypants ideas and half because he’d decided that the best way to fight the legion was with a world unified in undeath under his rule. darion inherits this knowledge, and at least part of his rebuilding of icecrown is motivated with the legion’s eventual invasion in mind. he doesnt know when it will be, but he warns tirion that the legion will someday return, and at some point or another he probably set the cult of the damned (or what’s left of it at least) to attempting to find ways to un-plague things so the lands can be healed, just like the cenarion circle and argent dawn and earthen ring have been attempting to do. 

this got really long, but i adore the idea of lich king darion? he has such a practical mentality most of the time, he’d try making the best of it, especially since he isnt saddled down with any more angst over being undead than he had before, and repairing the scourge and fixing things the scourge broke was the way he intended to atone Anyways. 

but also, i leave you with this mental image: three lich kings’ worth of rage being brought down on kil’jaeden’s head when he invades azeroth. ner’zhul’s fury at being used and lied to lingering on as a memory within the lich king’s power. arthas’ despair and pain at failing to save his kingdom from ruin before he went mad and destroyed the rest of it himself. darion’s faith, that even when he’d never shown skill with it the light would guide him to set things right; and darion’s love, that he’d lay down his life without hesitation for the people he cares about.