Draenethyst: those blue crystals that you can find hanging from Lost One huts and in the ground around their camps. There’s a mine for it in Blade’s Edge Mountains too. Back in Classic the Lost Ones in Swamp of Sorrows (who BC would retcon into being Broken) made a big deal about how they needed draenethyst to hold onto their sanity, and there was a Lost One in Blasted Lands who was able to open a rift to Outland with enough of it.
But like…what is it? Neither BC nor WoD ever elaborated, in fact WoD didn’t even mention it at all. Is there some obscure book or short story that ever answered why draenethyst helps Broken and Lost Ones hold onto their minds? Or was it just never addressed?
Draenei farm crystals which they manufacture a synthetic Argunite known as arkonite. Draenei crystals have the ability to drive local flora and fauna into a frenzy. The crystal Draenethyst, may have a similar property but instead of driving them into a frenzy they calm the Broken and allow them to keep a portion of their sanity.
Arkonite is not draenethyst. We have seen unrefined arkonite in mines in Talador, and it’s purple just like the refined version is. Dranethyst is blue. Even if they were the same that wouldn’t explain why it keeps Broken sane.
It’s a forgotten-about form of MacGuffinite.
No one knows anything about it because they never expanded on it after retconning the base race of draenei into holy eredar.
Never said they were the same, but have similar properties. Arkonite drives local flora and fauna into a frenzy. It’s possible that Draenethyst has the opposite reaction and calms Lost ones. The Draenei have since Argus manufactured technology based on gems. I imagine this skill translate to the desire the Lost Ones have for these type of gems. That was my point. They want it to calm themselves and develop something akin to what they had on Outland/Draenor/Argus.