I’m doing the nether dragon questline for the first time in like over 10 years, and during one of the introduction quests Neltharaku says
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Neltharaku%27s_Tale
I… We are powerless. Illidan found and delivered unto the Dragonmaw their leader - Zuluhed. This orc was the one responsible for the capture and incarceration of Alexstrasza. How could we fight against such power? He captured an Aspect!
But the way Zuluhed did that was with the Dragon Soul, which the Dragonmaw definitely don’t have because it was destroyed way before WoW began. So what exactly was letting them enslave the nether dragons?
I always assumed they just chained them up and beat their leaders to cooperate
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The Matriarch of the Netherwing, Karynaku, was captured and bound by chains which sapped her powers.
Edit: Forgot to add the quest source.
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I don’t know the answer to this but for a time Illidan had the Dragon Soul (Demon Soul) in his posession. He delivered it to Sargeras.
Could that have been used to subjugate the Netherwing?
Nope. Following Rhonin destroying the Demon Soul at the end of Day of the Dragon, it shattered into shards which Night of the Dragon revealed were acquired by Sintharia. Interesting enough those shards, Balacgos’s Bane, a stolen staff of the Naaru, and the essence of the nether dragon Zzeraku ultimately gave birth to the Twilight Dragonflight.
The end of the novel also saw the permanent destruction of the Demon Soul, which is why the Aspects had to use time travel to get the Demon Soul for the final fight against Deathwing.
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They enslaved the Netherwing dragons through ordinary means, no Demon Soul required. Neltharaku’s perspective is flawed.
I think there’s a level of ambiguity.
Afterall Neltharaku was afraid of Zuluhed because he had his mate captive and had enslaved Alexstrasza in the past, though without understanding that Demon Soul was involved. So there’s that emotional aspect crippling him, in a sense, but at the same time Zuluhead is referred to as an ancient orc with unknown powers, who was surely empowered by Illidan.
I think the Netherwing’s fear made him a bigger threat than he was in the grand scheme of things, though he was very much a personal threat to them. At the same time he was rather powerful and was one of the few of Illidan’s servants in Outland proper that required a group to kill.
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on an unrelated tangent:
is the dragon soul the only “time lost” artifact?
Millhouse Manastorm has interesting poke dialogue in Legion suggesting he is looking for any artifacts that are “time lost” Millhouse has been hanging around on the sidelines of the Twilight’s Hammer narrative for some time now. Do you have any idea which artifact he’s specifically looking for?
He’s another character to watch alongside Magatha, while she was only in the Earthen Ring to keep The Doomstone in her sights. The only reason Millhouse was in the Mage Order Hall was to keep tabs on the Nightborne Soulstone. (Disclaimer: this is only my instincts speaking here, I trust neither of these characters and see them infiltrating Order Halls for their own gains as nefarious)
Ah, I see. I haven’t done the Nethering quest chain in a while. I haven’t even completed most of the zones in this game, so I often feel unqualified to talk about things.
I don’t know. There are no artifacts that jump out at me but Blizzard could also create “time lost” artifacts like they did for alot of the Legion weapons, like the Fist of Ra-den. So his hunt could end up going somewhere or nowhere with him giving up because he couldn’t find anything.
The funny thing about Magatha and the Doomstone is that when we visited the Maelstrom in Heart of Azeroth/Azerite campaign, Nobundo had special dialogue for Shamans in which he explained that he had secured the Doomstone and Magatha is nowhere to be seen. So it’s not clear if the Azerite elementals drove her off and she thought it was too risky to try and claim the Doomstone with the attack going on or if she had left or was told to leave sometime after the Legion’s defeat.
Magatha and her current whereabouts are currently unknown, but she was datamined for Dragonflight. So I do wonder if we will get a “Defend the Maelstrom” quest as Magatha and her force attack the Earthen Ring to claim the Doomstone, once and for all.
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Alternatively she could have pulled the ol’ switcheroo and have magatha leave a fake. Blizzard did steal Xal’atath right out the player’s pocket. The Nightborne Soulstone is also an interesting plot point because the only people who know it’s current state (ie’ powering Dalaran with kathranatir’s soul still inside) is are the Sunreavers and Khadgar.
If they wanted to villain bat the Sunreavers again in the future they could have us release Kathranatir. I think it’s fishy they they set that up as a potential cause of conflict, especially at the time the Sunreavers were not supposed to be in Dalaran at all.
With jaina and Khadgar’s Shadowlands stay a while and listen that may yet come up in the future.
The fact that they literally had them from the eggs. Which had been given to them by Sinestra. Some of them did get away which are the ones you initially see roaming around the area.
They used magic in the quests, I’m pretty sure. Been years since I did them, but you could just fly out there and do them yourselves and see.
We do see Sintharia making deals with the Dragonmaw in TBC. Asking for netherwing. Maybe she gave them a shard or two along with the services of the Black Dragonflight in exchange for a couple of netherwing they found. And those played a role in the Dragonmaw capturing the Netherwing Matriarch.
While that could be possible, I personally doubt just because of how possessive of the shards Sintharia was during the novel.
No idea:
As for Magical Artifacts in general we know of the Doomstone, the Artifact Weapons(all overloaded with the Fel from Sargeras’s Sword), Sargerite Keystone, the Ata’mal Crystals, the Eye of Dalaran, Focusing Iris, Balecgos’s Bane, Spellbook of Medivh, the Crown of the Triumvirate(currently powering the Vindicaar Laser), the Pillars of Creation, Heart of Azeroth, the Crown of Wills(formerly the Helm of Domination before it was changed into a new form like it’s sibling Artifact Frostmourne) and the Blank Scroll.
Destroyed Artifacts(outside the Dragon Soul itself) include the Eye of Sargeras and(not counting Artifacts redesigned)… little else…
Incidentally the Players are hinted to be holding back on each of their Artifact Weapons’ True Power.
Aluneth outright states we could turn it’s power loose reducing entire cities to rubble.
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The Dragonmaw do have an innate talent for taming beasts, even in the “new” Golden lore. It wasn’t 100% Demon Soul. That being said, it does seem that the Demon Soul has had some sort of lingering effect on the Dragonmaw Clan, as we saw in Cataclysm with their glowing amber eyes.