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The Story of The Bronze Dragonflight with Nobbel87
Live
Publié
07/11/2022 à 01:20
par
DiscordianKitty
With the Dragonflight pre-patch event on its way, Nobbel87 is working on a spoiler-free series that will look over the major Dragonflights. He's already covered the
Black Dragonflight
, the
Blue Dragonflight
, and the
Red Dragonflight
, and the
Green Dragonflight
. This week, the focus is on the Bronze Dragonflight.
Nozdormu
Nozdormu the timeless one was empowered by the Keepers and the Titans after the, at the time proto-dragons, banded together to end the threat of Galakrond. His blessing came from Aman’Thul, high father and leader of the Pantheon:
Unto you is charged the great task of keeping the purity of time. Know that there is only one true timeline, though there are those who would have it otherwise. You must protect it. Without the truth of time as it is meant to unfold, more will be lost than you can possibly imagine. The fabric of reality will unravel. It is a heavy task ― the base of all tasks of this world, for nothing can transpire without time.
Time
Power over time itself, the past, the future, the present. Enough power to make anyone lose their head, so to make sure that he fully realized that not even the bronze dragon Aspect is beyond the effects of time, they also showed him the moment of his demise... something that seemingly is not just reserved for the Aspect. I can’t say for certain if all bronze dragons know their moment of demise as part of the package deal to get their powers, or if it’s more of a ‘I got curious so I checked it out myself’ kind of deal, all I can say for sure is that the bronze dragon Chromie has also checked out her death and knows exactly when she's supposed to die. That’s why she recruited our aid when someone was trying to kill them before their supposed time.
Compared to the domains of the other flights - earth, life, nature and even magic - we got a solid understanding and concept of what’s going on, but the domain of time is a bit more tricky. The fantasy concept has different rules and explenations across different media. You got multiple timelines, the butterfly effect, bootstrap paradoxes or, ya know, wibblywobblytimywimy stuff...
A lot of things that you can apply to timetravel and ultimately... considering its a fantasy concept... anything pretty much goes.
War of the Ancients
Taking that into Warcraft, we know that the sacred charge of the Bronze Dragonflight is to keep the timeline pure. One timeline which has certain events that need to happen. Immediatly there’s a bit of a problem there as the timeline has already been alterd.
There is a timeline in which the War of the Ancients played out and the night elves knew nothing about the orc Broxigar. Then Broxigar, together with Korialstrasz and Rhonin, are swept up and taken back in time, 10.000 years to the War of the Ancients. This time tornado sweeping them away was Nozdormu’s desperate attempt to get some help as he had gotten himself trapped trying to investigate some unknown time anomaly. All he could do was hold the fabric of the timeways together and hope that Broxigar and crew could see the war through. They did, but not without playing an active role in the war. They would change moments that without them being there would have never existed, like Rhonin guiding Illidan through the ways of magic or Krasus saving a couple of the blue dragon eggs, and Malfurion’s life.
There are at least two versions on how the War of the Ancients played out and yet Nozdormu is perfectly fine with that. How does that fit into keeping the timeline pure and I guess an explenation could be that the details don’t matter as long as the major key point events play out as they should. Despite major changes that they made, some knowledge that was revealed before its time, Deathwing was still defeated, the Dragon Soul locked away. The Legion’s invasion was still prevented and Azeroth still split apart. After which Nozdormu would become obsessed with unraveling the mystery as to what – or who – had been responsible for the anomaly and more. After sending our heroes back home, he disappeared into the timeways and would not be seen again for years.
Alternate Timelines
The concept of alternate realities, alternate timelines, exists as well, but they don't exist forever. I'm going to lean heavy on the Chronicles to explain how that works:
In all known realms of the cosmos, time flows forward, ever forward. Chaotic energies in places like the Twisting Nether can affect how quickly it flows, but it only flows forward. Once an event happens, it cannot be changed. These events and choices, made up of all creatures and forces in the cosmos, join together like a river, sharing the same reality. Different choices and different possibilities naturally spin off the river of time like small creeks and estuaries, ebbing and flowing for a while. If these shades of what could have been are left alone, they will eventually dissipate into nothing. But if efforts are made to preserve them (or alter them), they can indeed remain in existence indefinitely. They can even be made to feed back into the main river – dead creatures can seemingly ‘live again’ , and the past, or future, may literally come back to haunt you.
Rough translation; alternate realities staying or disapearing kinda depends on what they need for the story and if someone goes through the trouble of preserving them. Nozdormu investigating the source behind the anomaly, trying to figure out what was going on, had him get stuck in time again. He would be saved by former warchief Thrall on a quest given to him by Ysera. The rescue mission had Thrall go through different time periods - even some timelines that would never be, like the one in which he had died as a baby and so never rose up to form the Horde. Realities like that would disapear where as the alternate reality which we visited during Warlords of Draenor has been greatly altered and even reconnected to our timeline to recruit the Mag’har orcs into the Horde. That timeline seems to be a permanent one, with our first trip - it had us go not just to an alternate reality, we also traveled back in time, around the formation of the first Horde. And then our second trip had the timelines line up, thirty-five years, give or take, passed which has not been the greatest time for this reality. Yrell and the draenei started a holy crusade against the orcs. A storyline that hopefully will one day be further explored.
End Time
After Thrall saved Nozdormu, the Bronze Aspect revealed what he had learned by deep-diving into the timeways. That pretty much all of the horrible events against the Dragonflights and Azeroth had been orchestrated by the Old Gods. Even worse, he will become corrupted and form the infinite dragonflight, again by the hands of the Old Gods. Those revelations were soon enough revealed to be true.
Once Thrall had helped out the Aspects and took up the role as surrogate Aspect of Earth in their war against Deathwing during the Cataclysm, we came up with a crazy idea to stop Deathwing once and for all. We were going to steal his creation, the Dragon Soul, out of the timeline and bring it back to ours. Empower it further with the might of the Aspects and turn it against its creator. Only problem is that someone locked up the timeways and made it so that no time travel was possible except to one specific spot... The so-called 'End Time'. One of an infinite number of potential outcomes in which we failed to stop the Hour of Twilight and Deathwing actually won. Completing the Old Gods plans and putting them back as rulers upon Azeroth.
As a reward, they impaled the mighty black behemoth upon Wyrmrest Temple. Not the best timeline to find yourself in, but what entity could possibly have the power to prevent Nozdormu from cruising the timeways?
Well that would be Nozdormu himself in the form of Murozond. Nozdormu was tricked by the Old Gods into trying to subvert his mortality, that one thing he wasn’t allowed to do. As a result, Nozdormu shattered the timeways and created the Infinite Dragonflight... jeopardizing the very future of Azeroth.
Murozond yells: You crawl unwitting, like a blind writhing worm towards endless madness and despair. I have witnessed the true End Time. This? This is a blessing you simply cannot comprehend.
Has Murozond really seen a timeline worse then one in which the Old Gods won or is this more Old God trickery? Uncertain, but the fate of Nozdormu is set in stone. By his own admission...this is his moment of demise...
Murozond yells: You know not what you have done. Aman'Thul... What I... have... seen...
Nozdormu says: At last it has come to pass. The moment of my demise. The loop is closed. My future self will cause no more harm.
Nozdormu says: Still, in time, I will... fall to madness. And you, heroes... will vanquish me. The cycle will repeat. So it goes.
Which is quite the interesting moment. He wasn’t allowed to prevent his death, but doing exactly that is what creates Moruzond, it creates the moment of his death. Him becoming Murozond closes the loop so while it might be Old God trickery that pushes him over the edge, there might be some other form of corruption, it could also be an active choice to keep the timeline pure...
Interesting loop going on here, and time is going to tell. Let's not forget that this is lore that they set up back in the Cataclysm - things are subject to change.
EIther way, Murozond is slain. The timeways are opened up again and we retrieve the Dragon Soul at the end of the War of the Ancients.
The Bronze Dragonflight and Mortals
Taking it back into our time period, we use it to defeat Deathwing, to which the Dragon Aspects give up a huge chunk of their powers and must now see the world through mortal eyes. With his powers gone, the Dragon Soul has returned to its place in time. Yet that still left their domain of time to be guarded and similar to how Ysera has worked together with the druids, the bronze dragons would ally themselves with mortals of the world.
Not the first time that they looked favorably upon mortals. Once they came into contact with Xarantaur <the witness> a tauren druid, one of the first tauren druids, taught by Shan’do Cenarius himself, before the Legion and before the Sundering, so over ten thousand years ago. He wandered his natural life in search of knowledge, seeking more wonder and meeting more strange and mysterious races than any of his people before him. Traveling across the length and breadt of ancient Kalimdor until there was no more to see, no new lands across the Horizon. Yet...there was still so much he did not know as he felt his final journey approaching and he wept for the things he would never know. That’s when they found him. The bronze draognflight, snatching him from the brink of death. Nozdormu wanted him to continue his hunt, and gave him, just as he had to given to the night elves through the blessing of Nordrassil, immortality as a watcher - tasked to bear witness to the history of Azeroth.
Then on the Timeless Isle we find the faction of Timewalkers. You got the historians, watchers, wavers and wardens, all working together with the keepers of time. Even mortals outside their faction were invited to help out. Help investigate this mysterious timelesss isle and as they do, they also gather power for the bronze dragon Kairozdormu. He has a special device called the Vision of TIme which he asks us to charge up and as we do, he’s able to show us some interesting visions. Some of are of the past, some are of the future or futures that might be if we fail.
One vision doesn’t seem to be connected, the death of Soridormi, Nozdormu's mate, which hasn’t played out in any way, shape, or form. Instead, Kairoz would thank us for our efforts and use his vison of time during the trial of Garrosh Hellscream. Show visions of the past for all present to support the court proceeding, while his true goal was to get Garrosh out of there. Use the vision of time to send him over to alternate Draenor. The motivation of Kairoz and Wrathion has, as far as I know, only truly been explained during the Legion beta. Dialogue that they later removed but it does make sense. They wanted Hellscream to meet up with his father and form a new Horde, to then have that Horde add its numbers to Azeroths defenders, have them stand with us against the coming Burning Legion. Instead Garrosh shoved a shard of the vision of time through Kairoz’ throat and went about doing his own thing. Form the Iron Horde not in the defnese of Azeroth, but rather to conquer it. We’d come across the spirit, the echo of kairoz and a lot of what he was saying was hinting at the birth of the infinite dragonflight.
Archmage Khadgar says: Kairoz! What did you want? Why did you need an army?
Spirit of Kairozdormu says: Not just one... An infinite number of armies, across an infinite number of worlds...
Spirit of Kairozdormu yells: I would be INFINITE!
Infinite Dragonflight
The infinite dragons had even shown up to attack the trial and create enough turmoil for Kairoz and Garrosh to make a clean escape, so there was definitely some sort of connection between them. Sadly, it was a story that they never continued, and while we have some idea about who their leader Moruzond is and why he created the Infinite Flight, we don’t exactly know what they want to accomplish. They’ve shown up to mess around with critical moments on the timeline. They’ve tried to stop Medivh from opening up the Dark Portal, tried stop Thrall from escaping Durnholde, and tried to stop Arthas from going to Northrend. Somewhere along the way one of them also decided to become a pirate but what does it mean? Why do they want to alter these moments - what is the motive behind it?
That’s still a subject to be explored. One theory would be that they tried to serve the Old Gods. By stopping the Horde from coming to Azeroth or being formed, the war in Silithus against C’thun would have looked entirely diffferent. Same could be said for Yogg-Saron in Northrend. If the Lich KIng hadn’t been there to draw our attention to Northrend, then Yogg-Saron's actions within Ulduar might have gone unnoticed as well. Just a theory though, we might very well be looking for patterns that no longer exist. Yet I’d be very surprised if Dragonflight isn’t going to massively deal with the whole Infinite Dragonflight storyline and honestly, can’t wait to learn more.
Nozdormu: My story is already written, but yours, and that of all Dracthyr, is only beginning to unfold.
Soridormi
That, so far, is the major idea behind the bronze dragons and their powers over time. Lets talk a little bit more about some of their known members and what they’ve meant for the story...
Soridormi, or spelled Saridormi for the War of the Ancients trilogy, is the prime consort of Nozdormu, and she often represents the Master of Time whenever he’s occupied elsewhere. A good example was him being stuck in that time anomaly while they still needed to empower the Dragon Soul. For moments like this they had an hourglass made of what appeared to be pure golden sunlight. Within it, glittering bronze sands flowed not down but up. When the top filled, they then descended, only to begin their upward march once more. These sands were a part of Nozdormu, set separate by him for urgent need by his flight. In Nozdormu’s name they added his strength to the disc and you gotta wonder how a walking spoiler like Nozdormu looks at these events.
He has the power over time after all, he knows things before they’re going to happen and yet, for the sake of the timeline, he has to let them happen anyway. That has to be a great burden, yet at the same time they also make use of clouding his vision or weakening his powers. Being able to prophecise something doesn’t always mean you’re right in the story of Warcraft. We can look at the visions given to Velen about young Anduin. Or Queen Elisande, leader of the Nightborne, who saw no other future for their people except one allied to the Legion. We proved them wrong on that account, and sometimes Nozdormu can’t be sure about whats to come or he has to keep his mouth shut and just let it happen.
Anachronos
From the union of Nozdormu and assumed to be Soridormi came a child known as Anachronos, heir of Nozdormu. Throughout the history of the dragonflights you’ve heard about heroic dragons flying into Ahn’Qiraj to hold the line and give Azeroth a chance to lock the threat of C’thun away. It was the bronze who were asked by the elves to help first and they had refused. What were these mortal quarrals to the might of the dragons? That mindset quickly changed when C’thun’s forces dared to strike at the Caverns of Time. Now the elves had the support of the dragons and together they managed to set up the Scarab Wall with a gong in place. If ever they had need to bring the wall low, all they had to do was strike the gong with the Scepter of the Shifting Sands. But Staghelm, after losing his son in the war, wanted nothing to do with any of it, and shattered the scepter only for heroes to reforge it during Classic and venture into Ahn’Qiraj once more.
Anachronos says: Listen well, mortal.
Anachronos says: Countless threads are woven to create the fabric of our timeline.
Anachronos says: As the wardens of time, we of the Bronze Dragonflight observe their infinite combinations.
Anachronos says: When disruptions are detected by our watchers, we are charged with their repair.
Anachronos says: A recent event, obscured by powerful magics, remains masked, even to me.
Anachronos says: But the catastrophic outcome is plain.
Anachronos says: Azeroth will burn.
Anachronos says: While the details remain shrouded from our view, one thing we have gleaned...
Anachronos says: ...is that the fate of Azeroth hinges on the deeds of a mortal.
Anachronos says: Are you the mortal on which so much depends?
Anachronos would aid mortals again for the sake of time and Azeroth. It was them who send us on our mission to uncover the treachery within the blue dragonflight and ultimately forge Tarecgosa’s rest as well as help Eitrig and the Horde recruit the Mag’har orcs into their ranks. Helping out the mortals of the world.
There is another bronze that loves to hang out with us.
Chromie
Chromie or Chronormu is probably the most well-known bronze dragon out there and her naming scheme has been a topic of discussion for a fair few years. You might have already picked up on how the different flights have different naming schemes for their males and females. In the case of the Bronze, ormu is the ending for the males like a Nozdormu, while ormi is ending for the females, like Soridormi. Yet Chromie uses a female visage which she goes into much more detail with in the story Visage Day - as part of Folks and Fairytales of Azeroth, but now also
published for free on the WoW website
.
In it, we read about Chromie’s journey in choosing her visage, talking with other dragons and their motivations for how they appear to the rest of the world. For example, Onyxia chose her female human visage, as humans - while not the strongest nor the stmartest - are the most relentless.
Heed my wisdom, little one: you are a dragon, a hunter, with claws for tearing and teeth for killing. No visage will change that. And just like your other gifts, your visage will be a means to take what you want.
That’s not how Chronormu wanted to be seen by mortals. On the other hand there was Kalecgos, who had chosen his visage as he wanted to come across as a friend, a peer and someone they could trust. Ultimately our Chromie chose the form of a female gnome, cause she felt that visage suited her best. And as our gnome buddy, she has popped up in our timeline a fair few times often quite confused if she's early or late. Dealing with the threats to time at Andorhall, joining us on our adventures through time in the Caverns of Time. Even finding the time to support the mortals efforts during the trial of Garrosh and journey with them to alternate Draenor to make up for the damage caused by Kairoz.
As I mentioned earlier, someone tried to kill our Chromie before she's supposed to die. We still don’t have a clear answer as to who or what wanted to kill her, perhaps like the story of the Infinites, something we could explore within Dragonflight.
Chromie says: I have a sneaking suspicion that the enemy is planning a cross-synchronous attack. Why else would they be using chronoshards, right?
Chromie says: I can tell you're a little foggy on what that means. Basically, they're attacking me at multiple points in time simultaneously.
Chromie says: These guys really know what they're doing! I wouldn't be surprised if they had a bronze dragon on their side
Exciting stuff on the horizon, but for now I think you’re up to speed on the major story behind the Bronze Dragonflight and their effects upon the world.
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