New Faerin Lothar short story

Lore Story Forum
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So now we are just missing Alleria/Locus Walker short for the Crossroads book.

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Also in PDF format: https://assets.blz-contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt3452e3b114fab0cd/blt4ed6fa1b02dbba5b/6843672fba7bb6b249bbaa99/WOW_Faerin_EN_F.pdf.

I’m surprised that no one’s talking about the story within the story: “The Ballad of Craishae the First Flame: Tale of the Lost Queen of Arathor.”

Craishae was a descendant of Thoradin and ancestor of Faerin. According to the legend, when Craishae was still a princess of Arathor an unnamed curse spread across the land and mutated people into vicious beasts. When all seemed lost, an entity of light gave her a vision of a hidden temple containing some power.

Craishae searched the wilds and eventually found the temple, which was guarded by the being of light from her vision, who turned out to be a woman who called herself the Scion. However, the Scion was not an ordinary woman, and her appearance shifted between elf and human and troll.

When Craishae promised to use the power to defend all lands, she was told to bathe in the fiery waters of the temple, and she was remade into a light/fire-infused human and granted an ember called the First Flame.

Craishae passed down portions of the ember to her children, who spread the lessons of the light and flame to their people. Craishae herself went out to track down the source of the curse so that it could not harm the world again, and she has not been seen since.

So many questions! What was the nature of the curse, and who sent it? What kind of being was the Scion, “dressed in stardust robes?” Related to Elune somehow? And is there a temple of holy fire hidden somewhere in the Eastern Kingdoms, “where the heart of the world and eye of the heavens” meet? Who built it? Maybe there are some lore crumbs for Midnight.

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It could be azeroth aswell.

World soul looks like a sun
Elf-troll-human vision thing(all races on azeroth)
Elemental shrine, no temple of light.

There are connections there

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Given the name, I’d probably lean The Blue Child.

The First Flame light/fire stuff could be (finally) a direct An’she reference. Although I’d kinda hate that, because it would mean carving off Tauren stuff to give to Ancient Humans.

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No offense, but An’She is a project by a very ambitious WoW player who used headcanon to make this figure bigger than it really was. It was a name that, I believe, was mentioned maybe 2–3 times in the entire lore of WoW, and that was it. It was never meant to be expanded this much or turned into a major character.

I don’t understand why people keep clinging to An’She.

Even if it were the Blue Child, people would just say, “That’s Alliance content,” because it’s connected to Elune—something that already upsets a lot of people here. But An’She, in this context, is so far-fetched. Why would a Tauren god appear with human/elf/troll features? That makes no sense.

An’she was never intended to be Elune’s equal, and with the current canon, it doesn’t even make sense for a being of Light to be the sibling of a being of Life—especially within the framework of the Life Pantheon.

Edit:
And before anyone brings up the Winter Queen—she is a being of Life within the Pantheon of death…

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The Tauren Myths incidentally say the Earth Mother could keep only one Eye open at a time due to her immense power.

What if the Harranir Goddess is Beledar and her Eyes have been returned to her sockets causing the Light & Shadow Phases?

But what does that mean for Elune?

I suspect Elune is not tied to Mu’sha at all despite assumptions by the Wikis!

Furthermore considering at least one of the Earth Mother’s Children would had to die for one of the Eyes to already be in her Eye Sockets before Sargeras stabbed the Planet it would seem An’she and Mu’sha both perished at one point which means the last ember of the First Flame is An’she’s Aspect channeled into the Physical Realm.

Since the only Eye that was killed when Sargeras stabbed the Planet was the Blue Eye Xal’atath who proclaims Elune an upstart “goddess” one would assume that’s a hint that Mu’sha is Xal’atath who sees Elune as a rival and upon being killed by Sargeras’s Sword’s Fel returned to the Earth Mother’s Eye Socket before using that Eye closing to possess her old form in a weakened state before using the Souls of the Naga and the body of a High Elf to regain her power before getting N’Zoth to free her from the body.

N’Zoth of course uses this to gain entry to the Earth Mother’s Eye Socket which I suspect is about to be drained by the Ethereal trapping him inside the Dark Heart just so that he could tempt Alleria into consuming him just as the Void Prophecy of a A Thousand Years of War foretells.

He promptly gets eaten by the Visions of N’Zoth Alleria not the real one rendering the Visions a big farce.

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My guess it is because it is the only part of Tauren mythology that is left vague, or at the very least, their identity has not being retroactively applied to another.

Mu’sha is clearly Elune given the mythos of Mu’sha’s union with the White Stag (Malorne) which led to the birth of Cenarius. The key difference between the Tauren and Night Elf versions is the Taurens involvement in driving Malorne into Mu’sha’s embrace. The Night Elf version has them be a sort of Starcrossed lovers.

The Earthmother, according to Baine is now referred towards Azeroth (The World Soul). So that just leaves An’she unaccounted for.

Now obviously certain parts of Taurens mythos does not line up with the rest of the lore. Such as Mu’sha and An’she being the Earthmothers “eyes”. That tends to happen with myths after all.

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Cause its the only part of the tauren culture that is actually theirs, Mu’sha is elune, they are at best the second best druids and not even the actual oldest. in every aspect of their lore they are second fiddle to either orcs or the nelves. Anshe is the one possibility where they are just a race of complete jobbers

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Unless it was. If you’re on cdev and got the definite facts, feel free to clue us in.

People “cling to An’she” because the Tauren creation myth is neat, and it would be nice to see them actually matter for a change. That, and the myth itself has themes that are extremely close to the central plot surrounding Azeroth in TWW.

Scion appears as human/elf/troll. An’she would be the source of the forgotten temple’s power (The Sun, Light/Fire). He is potentially a direct embodiment of The First Flame in Eyes of the Earthmother—the first light of day.

Unless he was. If you’re on cdev, yada yada. We don’t know what Elune is yet.

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The important thing is how this story is referred to as a legend. The key thing about legends is that there are some truth to them, but it has been altered. Often certain aspects are exaggerated for either dramatic effect or they were written decades or even centuries after. As such the author “fluffs up the myth a bit” to fill in the gaps or certain biases are drawn to achieve the same effect.

As such we should take the events told in the legend with a grain of salt.

The first question to ask is, when does this legend take place? Does it happen before the Hallowfall Arathi’s ancestors left the Eastern Kingdoms or afterwards? aka, when the Arathi are on the landmass passed the Storming Sea.

GIven that this story is about the origins of the Scared Flame, I am leaning towards the latter. As no such legend has appeared in any sources from the Eastern Kingdoms. Although Craishae being referred to as a Princess of Arathor does seem to point towards this happening in the Eastern Kingdoms. The reference to Thoradin’s Wall basically conforms that this took place on the Eastern Kingdoms.

I know others have gone for Elune or other entities, but a hidden temple of the light on the Eastern Kingdoms kind of points me towards Odyn and his Val’kyr. After all, we know that there was a clan of Vrykul that lived in Trisfal Glades. It was these Vrykul that nurtured the fledgling humans into their own. Although I don’t think we have seen any Val’kyr capable of shapeshifting. But that could be one of the “fluffed up myths” I mentioned before. The passage about the Scion saying that only a soul strong and true enough could claim it does support the Val’kyr theory. Because that is straight up Odyns alley.

Part of me thinks that the curse might have been the Worgen Curse and this legend is what made Ur begin his research into the Worgen. I know there is another thread that also proposes this idea. We know that where the Worgen were imprisoned in the Dream matched a location in Gilneas. More specifically, Tal’doren. So maybe some managed to break out?

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Moreover the story refers to the threat as eventually “breaching Thoradin’s Wall.” That description would make the most geographical sense if it were coming from the west - i.e. possibly the future Gilneas - and spreading toward “Arathor proper” in the Highlands, rather than the other way around.

Also of note is that Gilneas is the one human region that’s retained its own pre-Holy Light “proto-druids” (the harvest-witches) to this day, and in his book Ur spoke of there being preexisting magical knowledge to summon the worgen from “their world” into Azeroth.

It’s perhaps also worth considering that the one place in-game after Cataclysm that’s still inhabited by hostile worgen - Duskwood - also retained the Vanilla precedent of their spellcasters using Shadow magic.

Like maybe the worgen curse being a curse isn’t just a word; perhaps because of Ralaar’s vengeful hatred behind its creation or the imbalance between Goldrinn’s rage and Elune’s disapproval, the curse’s nature as a curse - its contagion and the feral madness - might be as much a thing of Shadow as of Nature.

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Ur also said that old, rural folklore have referenced the Worgen, or creatures like them and there might be some truth to them after all.

The fiend of which I write is the Worgen. Old, rural folklore may hearken to these creatures. For what farmer’s child has not heard tales of beastly wolf-men stalking the fields and marshes outside his village? And truth may hide in such tales–perhaps they are warnings against the Worgen, veiled as myths to frighten us.

https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/The_Book_of_Ur

Meaning that there has to be a frame of reference for these folklore mentioning the Worgen. The legend of Craishae might be that, retroactively of course. But over the generations, the legend of Craishae was lost to time but not the creatures she fought.

Honestly if it does turn out that these vicious beasts in the legends were worgen, I kinda wished there were hints of that in Hallowfall. Such as Worgen having the side quest where you have to prove yourself even more that shadow priests, void elves, Man’ari Draenei, Undead, Death Knights, warlocks and Demon hunters have.

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As if maybe such tales were inspired by some worgen escaping the Dream from Tal’doren in the distant past or someone - either inadvertently or maliciously - setting one or more of them loose and causing an outbreak.

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The worgen curse does not match the description as it does not corrupt the land

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The Emerald Nightmare does though. As seen in Val’sharah

And the Nightmare did exist at this point in time.

But the land being corrupted could also be another “addition for dramatic effect” which is common for Legends.

The passage also says that an unseen force was driving the corruption, hastening its spread.

So I think the curse is the Worgen curse while the corruption that spread in tandem was the Emerald Nightmare. With the Nightmare strengthening the Worgen.

It would also line up with Ur saying that the Worgen came from a place of Nightmare as well.

The worgen’s home is a dark place, a place of nightmare.

https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/The_Book_of_Ur

Not to mention the Scion referring to the curse afflicting the Kingdom of Arathor as a “nightmare”.

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i suppose it would be very consistent of the devs to add a cure to the worgen to further twist the knife of how they’ve been treating them

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idk, there is just a lot of circumstantial evidence that points towards the Worgen and the Emerald Nightmare being the antagonists in the legend.

The cursed creatures attacking Thoradin’s Wall, which implies it was spreading eastward. We know that to the west of the Wall, in the region that would later be known as Gilneas, there is Tal’doren, which is the material planes equivalent of the tree that bound the Worgen in the Emerald Dream. The curse spreading throughout the populace at an alarming rate. Ripping away at anything in his path. The Scion referring to the curse as a ‘Nightmare’. Ur stating that there were already pre-existing legends and folklore about the Worgen and that they came from a “place of Nightmare”.

For all we know, this legend could also explain the origins of the Kingdom of Gilneas. That a group of people set out to find Craishae and settled in the region where the trail went cold.

Also the mention that the Scared Flame ‘cured’ those who were inflicted could also be hearsay.

I feel Blizzard is very much intentionally drawing on imagery that makes you think of the Worgen when reading it.

a terrible curse struck the land, tainting anything and anyone it touched, mutating them into vicious beasts. People turned on their loved ones, ripping their homes and villages apart

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Moreover it’s hard to necessarily say the feral, still-maddened worgen don’t corrupt the land at all. While not as destructive in the overt “poisoning and depleting the landscape” way the Scourge, Old Gods or Legion taint their surroundings, the appearance of the pervasive black fog that subjects eastern Duskwood to its state of perpetual gloom is said to have have coincided with the worgen starting to appear there, and the Blackwald - perhaps where Arugal summoned his worgen - is rather similarly afflicted.

It’s not seen in Kalimdor from Velinde summoning them, but then that was in Felwood, where a different malady was already deeply afflicting the land, so it might have just not taken root with everything there already saturated with the fel to the point that half of the trees are leaking the stuff.

The sacred flame possibly curing it could also fit into a pattern we’ve been seeing. The Arcan’dor, Amirdassil, Shadowflame, even the Arathi treatise on the difference magical schools; there’s been a growing trend of suggesting that using two or more magical forces synced together in harmony creates a stability that can far more readily counteract and even overpower any single type of magic than just trying to beat it back with one sort of power, even its respective opposite.

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Could be that the very first worgen, before they were called such, were products of the dream itself and that the worgen from the War of the Satyr were night elves trying to recreate and control it?

I like to think the worgen curse is far older than we realized and the night elves buried that part of history for a reason.

Either way, the myth is pretty cool and has a lot story and RP potential

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iirc the Worgen that were originally the druids of the pack predate this. The War of the Satyr happened soon after the War of the Ancients. i.e around 9300 BDP.

Thoradin’s Wall didn’t exist until the Kingdom of Arathor was a thing, which was around the time of the Troll Wars. i.e. around 2800 BDP

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