World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1 (3 page)

THE PANTHEON

B
efore life began, before even the cosmos took shape, there was
Light … and there was
Void. Unfettered by the confines of time and space, the Light swelled across all existence in the form of a boundless prismatic sea. Great torrents of living energy flitted through its mirrored depths, their movements conjuring a symphony of joy and hope.

The ocean of Light was dynamic and ever shifting. Yet as it expanded, some of its energies faded and dimmed, leaving behind pockets of cold nothingness. From the absence of Light in these spaces, a new power coalesced and came to be.

This power was the Void, a dark and vampiric force driven to devour all energy, to twist creation inward to feed upon itself. The Void quickly grew and spread its influence, moving against the flowing waves of Light. The mounting tension between these two opposing yet inseparable energies eventually ignited a series of catastrophic explosions, rupturing the fabric of creation and birthing a new realm into existence.

In that moment, the physical universe was born.

The energies released by the clash of Light and Void raged across the nascent cosmos, raw matter merging and spinning into primordial worlds without number. For long epochs, this ever-expanding universe—the
Great Dark Beyond—broiled in a maelstrom of fire and magic.

The most unstable energies coalesced into an astral dimension known as the
Twisting Nether. Light and Void collided and bled together at the edges of this realm, throwing it into turmoil. Although tangentially linked to the Great Dark Beyond, the Twisting Nether existed outside the borders of the physical universe. Even so, the Twisting Nether’s volatile energies would occasionally tear through the veil of the Great Dark, flooding into reality and warping creation.

The cataclysmic birth of the cosmos also flung shards of Light throughout reality. These shards suffused the matter of myriad worlds with the spark of life, giving rise to creatures of wondrous and terrible diversity.

The most common forms of life to appear were the elemental spirits—primordial beings of fire, water, earth, and air. These creatures were native to nearly every physical world. Many of them reveled in the turmoil that held sway over the early ages of creation.

Occasionally, clouds of fractured Light gathered and gave shape to beings of far greater power, of far greater potential. Among these were the
naaru, benevolent creatures composed of scintillating
holy energies. When they gazed out across the immeasurable universe, they saw a realm of limitless possibilities. The naaru vowed to use their mastery over holy magic to spread hope and nurture life wherever they could find it.

Even more extraordinary than the naaru were the colossal
titans. Their spirits—known as
world-souls—formed deep within the fiery core of a small number of worlds. For ages, these nascent titans slumbered, their energies suffusing the celestial bodies they inhabited.

When the titans finally awoke, they did so as living worlds. Cosmic winds howled across their gigantic forms, bodies shrouded in a cloak of stardust, skin crisscrossed with silvery mountain peaks and oceans shimmering with latent magic.

With eyes that shone like brilliant stars, they observed the fledgling cosmos and became enraptured by its mysteries. Whereas the naaru set out to safeguard life, the titans embarked on a different journey. They wandered the distant corners of the Great Dark, searching for others of their kind.

This grand, far-reaching voyage would one day alter the course of creation and shape the destiny of all living things.

N
o one knows when or why the first titan awoke, but legends hold that his name was
Aman’Thul.

Though Aman’Thul was alone, he knew in his heart that others of his kind must exist. Thus, he explored the worlds of the Great Dark Beyond, intent on finding more titans. His quest was arduous and lonely, but it was ultimately fulfilling. In time, he discovered other nascent world-souls. Aman’Thul lovingly nurtured these newfound kin and roused them from slumber. Those who awakened devoted themselves to his noble search.

Aman’Thul and his siblings later became known as the
Pantheon. They were benevolent by nature, creatures aligned with order and stability. The Pantheon possessed a natural affinity to the latent magic in the universe. Fully aware of their incredible power, they bound themselves to a code of temperance toward the civilizations they encountered, even those of the unruly elemental spirits.

The titans of the Pantheon came to realize that order was crucial to finding others of their kind. On each world they encountered, they employed techniques to ascertain whether a world-soul was present. The Pantheon would first pacify the world’s raging elemental populations. Then, they would reshape the world, forming great mountains, fathomless seas, and roiling skies. Lastly, the titans would seed myriad life-forms across the newly ordered world. In doing so, the Pantheon hoped to call forth the world-soul and help bring it to maturity. Most of the time, however, the worlds visited by the titans proved inert.

The Pantheon vowed to maintain and protect all of these worlds, even those that did not contain a slumbering spirit. To do so, they empowered primitive life-forms to uphold the integrity of their ordered worlds. The Pantheon also embedded colossal machines in the surface of the worlds that
they had shaped. Through these devices, the titans could monitor their worlds—and purge them of life should their evolutionary paths succumb to disorder.

To aid the Pantheon, Aman’Thul called upon a mysterious race known as the
constellar. These celestial beings observed the many worlds ordered by the titans, staying vigilant for any sign of instability. When it was necessary, the constellar could initiate a fail-safe procedure to scour life from a world in the hopes of resetting its evolutionary process.

Over the ages, the Pantheon discovered fewer and fewer world-souls. Yet they remained undaunted. They knew that the universe was vast beyond measure, and even after epochs of exploring the stars, they had only plumbed but a small corner of creation.

Unbeknownst to the titans, malign forces were also hard at work in the distant reaches of the Great Dark.

T
HE
P
ANTHEON

Aman’Thul—Highfather of the Pantheon

Sargeras—Defender of the Pantheon

Aggramar—Lieutenant of the Great Sargeras

Eonar—The Life-Binder

Khaz’goroth—Shaper and Forger of Worlds

Norgannon—Keeper of Celestial Magics and Lore

Golganneth—Lord of the Skies and Roaring Oceans