Worse for all concerned, however, was what happened after Dathrohan's death - Balnazzar chose to hide within the paladin's corpse, animating it with his own unholy essence and hiding within it.īy this time, Alexandros had become infamous as the Ashbringer, and the sword he wielding was named this in his honor.

Unfortunately for the people of Lordaeron, they had more than just the Scourge to deal with - the demons of the Burning Legion were complicit in the Scourge's creation (it was Kil'jaeden who had created the Lich King, and three dreadlords who had been chosen to control him before Arthas engineered a rebellion after Archimonde's death and the Legion's defeat) and on one mission, Saiden Dathrohan died at the claws of Balnazzar the dreadlord. Mograine and his allies (Saiden Dathrohan, one of the first five paladins of Azeroth, among them) refused to submit to the Scourge and defied the traitor Prince Arthas' command to disband the Silver Hand. Soon the weapon would be used to return that grief upon Lordaeron's undead assailants. Magni called the weapon his greatest creation, a weapon forged by his hand and suffused with all the grief he felt over his brother's death. Enraged by the death of his brother (Magni had no way of knowing that Muradin wasn't dead, merely wounded and taken in by the Frost Dwarves) Magni set hammer to anvil and forged the blade Ashbringer, housing the crystal orb in the form of a radiant sun disk. Magni had been informed that his brother Muradin was dead, slain by Arthas the self-same prince of Lordaeron who was now leading the Scourge against his own people. Mograine then traveled to Ironforge, to ask the King of the Dwarves Magni Bronzebeard for his aid in forging such a weapon. A pact was forged between them to find a way to use it to defeat the Scourge and rescue their people. An attempt to destroy the orb with the power of the Holy Light, however, had an unanticipated effect - instead of destroying it, the orb was transformed into the very artifact of the Holy Light Mograine had urged his fellow paladins to help him find. However, not all present at this meeting were as sanguine about the orb - after all, its shadowy power had blighted Mograine's hand, and they could all feel the pure darkness within it. Such an artifact, if it could but be found, could be the deciding factor that would prevent the Scourge from overwhelming their people. Mograine proposed that if such an artifact of pure darkness could exist, so could an artifact that embodied and manifested the pure power of the Holy Light. Mograine knew he couldn't allow his native land to be destroyed by the foul forces of undeath any more than he could the orcs before them, and so he gathered those men and women of good conscience and strong faith in the light to meet him in Southshore, and presented them with the shadow orb he'd wrested from the orc warlock at Blackrock Spire. So he chose to keep it hidden in a locked iron chest.Īfter the battle with the orcs, Alexandros Mograine retired to a rural life, doing his best to raise his sons alone in the absence of his deceased wife. This crystalline orb seemed to contain a shadow magic of unheard of power, and Mograine, despite having been maimed and withered in the hand that grasped it, believed there was merit in the item. At this battle, while the orcs were being routed by Turalyon, Mograine encountered an orc warlock wielding a dread crystal that was suffused with such terrible fel energies that even after striking the warlock down, Alexandros was damaged merely by touching the item. Alexandros was one of the paladins who fought at the battle of Blackrock Spire. We know that Mograine had two sons, Darion and Renault, and that he was married to Elenam who died after giving birth to his younger son Darion. But to speak of the blade, first we have to speak of the man - for it was by the actions of Alexandros Mograine that the blade came into existence.

We speak of both, for both were the Ashbringer. The man was a tireless crusader for his people, who stood against the forces of the Scourge - and when he did, whole armies of the undead were as ash. The weapon is one of the most powerful ever forged, crafted by the hand of a dwarven king mourning a brother he believed slain, made with a chunk of crystal from another world. Unlike other KYL's we've written here, this one's actually about two things - a person, and a weapon. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how - but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe.

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