The Story behind Call of The Scarab [lore]

Hello everyone! The Call of the Scarab micro-holiday is upon us once again. After a year of your faction being represented within silithus, it’s time to once again honor the call and fight for the right to fly your banner at ahn’qiraj. But what’s the story behind all this? That’s what we’re going to talk about today! It all begins waaaay back when at the moment where the titans found a little planet called Azeroth with a slumbering titan spirit inside. The world was corrupted with the malevolent evil of the old gods, but the titans with the use of their keepers were able to contain the threat and give Azeroth a fighting chance. In the land later known as Silithus they housed the old god C’thun in a subterranean prison which was later expanded upon by Keeper Ra and his titan-forged followers. The anubisath giants and the leonine tol’vir labored day and night until they constructed the mighty frostress known as Ahn’qiraj. Ra then ordered his followers to safeguard the stronghold as he himself would spend the following ages roaming the southern regions of Azeroth. During their battles with the old gods, the keepers had to deal with their forces, amongst them the aqir, insectoids of incredible resilience and strength. They were born from organic matter that seeped from the old god’s blighted forms. While in time the keepers destroyed most of the aqiri race, small pockets of the insectoids, those that had tunneled deep underground, escaped the keepers’ wrath. Many years later, trolls would foolishly perform vile rituals and living sacrifices to awaken the C’Thraxx, a mighty faceless one also born from the old god’s organic matter, known as Kith’ix. They succeeded and the C’Thraxx looked upon troll civilization with nothing but contempt for it was but a pale shadow of what the Black Empire, the empire of the old gods ruling the world before the titans showed up ones was. Kith’ix knew it would delight the old gods to see this puny civilization rent to ashes and he found a race of creatures to aid him with ask, the Aqir which it could control. The swarms were rallied, driving them to make war and establish their dominance over Azeroth once again.As Kith’ix took its time to expand its power and recover, the Aqir began building a vast subterranean empire known as Azj’Aqir. He patiently watched and waited as the aqiri ranks rose in number. When the time was right, the C’thrax led the insections from their underground empire and they swept across the land. At first the trolls were overwhelmed by this force, something like this they had never faced before, but soon enough the zandalari took charge and the trolls pushed back. The Drakkari pushed into the frigid north near Ulduar.The Amani set their eyes on defeating Kith’ix, building their new settlement of Zul’Aman on the spot where they defeated the C’thraxx while the Gurubashi decided to go southwest, where the aqir had overrun Ahn’Qiraj. The titan-forged left inside were corrupted, enslaved by the insectoids and early engagements between the Gurubashi and the aqir proved disastrous for he trolls. The insectoids and their mighty anubisaths slaughtered several large Gurubashi encampemnts. Thereafter, the Zandalari instructed Gurubashi priests to seperate their tribe into smaller, more mobile raiding groupds instead of large armies. This new tactic alowed them to constantly harass the aqir, bleeding the insectoit armies dry over a period of many years. Though they were never able to complete wipe out the aqir, the Gurubashi eventually won uncontested control of the surrounding territory. With their leader, with the C’thraxx gone, the rest of the aqir no longer fought with as much ferocity or purpose. After many centuries of brutal battles between trolls and insectoids, the troll shattered the Aqir empire. The remaining insectoids were contained the far northern and southern reaches of the continent, those that survived fortified their unground colonies against further troll attacks. They showed no more interest in fighting and in time, trolls proclaimed themselves victorious.   But their victory did not mean the end of the Aqir. Under the influence of the old gods nearby, change started to happen and three disticnt cultures would arise from the aqir empire. The insectoids in the north gathered near the underground prison of yogg-saron. Due to their proximity to the old god, these aqir would gradually evolve into a race called the nerubians. The aqir in the southeast congregated where Y’Shaarj’s essence still polluted the land. These insectoids would eventually transform into a race called the mantid.The aqir in the southwest made their home in ahn’qiraj where the captive old god’s foul presence would slowly wap the aqir’s form over time, molding them into a race known as the qiraji. Since their defeat against the troll empire, the descendants of the aqir had stayed hidden in their subteranean domains. Only the mantid of Pandaria remained an active threat and nearly all of Azeroth’s races had forgotten the ruthless potential of the insectoid colonies that lurked beneath the earth. Within Ahn’Qiraj’s lifeless sandstone corridors, the insectoids laid dormant even when Azshara made contact with Sargeras, tried to summon the Legion into the world resulting in the Sundering of the land. Though Azshara and her night elf empire had once known of the fortress, its existence had become lost to time. Few living creatures dwelled near Ahn’Qiraj, partly because the vast and inhopisitable desert of SIlithus, which stretched out from the stronghold’s towering obelisks. Ahn’Qiraj wasn’t rediscovered by the elves until Archdruid Fandral Staghelm, 975 years before the dark portal opened up, came up with the brilliant idea to regrow the land of Silithus. He send out his warrior son, Valstann, and a group of his most trusted druids to perform this task. They trudged across the scalding dunes, searching for hidden water reservoirs that they could use to transform the region into a lush forest. Valstann and his comrades eventually stumbled across Ahn’Qiraj. Although some of the druids cautioned against entering the fortress, Fandral’s son did it anyways. His presence in the cold, dead halls inadvertently roused the dormant qiraji back to life. From its prison beneath Ahn’Qiraj, C’Thun also became aware of the awakened qiraji. The Old God drove the insectois into a murderous frenzy. The highest classes of qiraji society began organizing their lesser minions, the most numerous of which were known as the silithid. These vicious insectoids came in many forms, and all obeyed the will of their qiraji overlords. The discovery of the qiraji shocked Valstann and his druid companions. Upon retreating from Ahn’Qiraj, they established a small outpost in Silithus to keep watch over the insectoids. Before their eyes, the fortress swelled with greater and greater numbers of qiraji. Then, without warning, a massive army spilled forth from the tunnels beneath Ahn’Qiraj. At the head of this swarming host were the qiraji. They directed their silithid minions to engulf the surrounding deserts and spread into other regions as well. By this time, Valstann wisely had called for help from his father. Fandral rallied a force of druids, Sentinels, priestesses, and keepers of the grove to deal with the qiraji threat. In the southern reaches of Kalimdor, the night elf host clashed with their vicious foes. At times they managed to drive the qiraji back towards the dunes of Silithus, only for the insectoids to mount a counterattack and regain the advantage. This ebb and flow continued for many months, leaving in its wake the broken corpses of elves and insectoids alike. The War of the Shifting Sands had begun. Fandral and his comrades established outposts across southern Kalimdor, from these locations, they contiued their brutal fight against the qiraji. Eventually, the tireless druids and their allies managed to push the qiraji back into the heart of Silithus itself. Yet just as victory seemed within reach, the war took a dire turn. News had reached them that the town of Southwind Village was under attack. Fandral considered pulling the troops back to defend the village, but he sensed that such an actoin would only leave an open door to invasion from the remaining Qiraji. They still had no diea of just how many the insects numbered, or even if they had seen all that this new race had to throw at them. Valstann offered to lead a detachment to the village so that Fandral could stay and provide containment. The thought of this being a ruse had crossed their mind, but they simply couldn’t take the chance. The village had to be defended and Valstann promised his father that he would return victorious, upholding the honor of his name. Reluctantly, Fandral nodded. ‘Just return alive and I will be more than satisfied.” For the next few days they battled wave after wave of silithid streaming from the hives scattered throughout the land. On the third day the Qiraji appeared, their numbers reinforced. Once again the buzz of insect wings stirred the air. They spread out before Fandral and the others like the shadow cast by a giant cloud obscuring the sun....and stopped....and waited. Fandral formed his lines and stood at the forefront as the ocean of insects parted, and the hulking form of the Qiraji general approached, carrying a wounded figure in its clawed appendage. It proceeded to the frost on the Qiraji lines and held Valstann Staghelm aloft for all to see. Gasps spread throughout he ranks, Fandral stood mute, knowing that Southwind had fallen and fearing that his son may already be dead. He cursed himself for allowing the boy to leave and stood, frozen by a mixture of fear, anger and despair. Within the general’s claw, Valstann stirred and spoke to the general, though he was too far away to be heard. At once the spell that had fallen over Fandral broke *** he bolted forward, followed by the night elf forces, but the distance was great... The Qiraji general fixed his second claw onto Valstann’s bloodied form and with both he squeezed...and pulled apart...seperating the young night elf’s body at the waist. Valstann’s death shattered the archdruid and sowed uncertainty throughout the night elves’ ranks. The qiraji seized the oppertunity and swarmed out of Silithus once again, pushing into the eastern deserts of Tanaris. They even dared to assault the sanctum of the bronze dragonflight: the Caverns of time which in turn pushed the bronze flight into action. Led by Anachronos, they enlised the help of Caelestrazs, child of Alexstraza from the red dragonflight. Merithra, child of Yssera of the green and Arygos, child of Malygos from the blue. The mighty dragons joined the night elves and helped drive the qiraji armies back behind the walls of Ahn’Qiraj. But even with the mighty dragons joining the war, there were simply too many qiraji to vanquish entirely. Fandral feared that the war would never end. Thousands of elves had already perished at the claws of the insectois, and he was loath to sacrifice more of his people. Ultimately, he and the dragons came up with the plan to lock the insectoids within Ahn’QIraj itself. Fandral called on his druids to focus their powers as one. Along with Anachronos, the elves summoned a great barricade to close off Ahn’Qiraj. Merithra, Caelestrasz and Arygos sacrificed themselves by pushing into the city and holding the Qiraji back long enough for the rest of their forces to create their magical barrier. Outside the cursed city, the dry earth split wide, and a magical barrier of stone and colossal roots emerged. This impenetrable Scarab Wall towered high over the barren landscape, effectively sealing the qiraji within their city forever. As a final act, Anachronos forged two mystical artifacts. He motioned to a scarab scuttling below his feet, the creature frozen, then flattened out, transforming into a metallic gong. Stones shifted into place near the wall, creating a dais where the Scarab Gong was finally placed. The great dragn then proceeded to the severed limb of one of his fallen companions. He held the appendage and after a series of incantations, the limb morpehed into the shape of a scepter, The Scepter of the Shifting Sands. Handing the scepter to the Arch-Druid, The dragon told Fandral that should any mortal ever wish to pass the magical barrier and access the ancient city, they need only strike the scepter against the gong and the gates would open. Fandral looked down, his face twisting in contempt. “I want nothing to do with Silithus, the Qiraji and least of all, any damned dragons!” With that Fandral swung the enchanted object into the magical gates--where it splintered in a shower of fragments--and walked away. Fandral found no solace in ending the qiraji threat, for Valstan’s death still tormented his heart. The pieces of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands became lost for the next thousand years, but the need to re-enter the city would arise during classic as the old god c’thun incited the qiraji to frenzy and both the alliance and horde prepared for a massive war effort to preemtpively deal with the threat. To do so they’d had to breach the Scarab Wall which meant reforging the Scepter while also funding the war effort by bringing a whole bunch of resources together. We’re talking about ore, fish, leather, herbs, bandages, war aint cheap and the amount was quite absurd but then again it was a server wide, cross faction effort which took months to complete. In the meantime someone had to go through the incredibly long, looooong questline to get the scepter which is unfortenatly no longer available in game. It all began with getting your reputation to neutral with the brood of Nozdormu faction. Baristolth of the Shifting Sands in Cenarion hold was turned into a watcher by the bronze dragonflight and offers the chance to prove your worth. First we check if his master Anachronos has returned at the Caverns of Time which confirms to him that it is as it should be, the great one has risen and there’s no time to waste. A hero must be found and it might be us, if we’re able to slay Broodlord Lashlayer and return with his head. Only then can we begin the reputation grind by slaying silithid at Hive’Ashi, Hive’Zora and Hive’Regal. They drop carapace fragments, 200 can be repeatadly turned in at Baristolth to increase the reputation or if the gates have already been opened, you can also get reputation from killing the bosses inside of Ahn’Qiraj. Upon reaching neutral we’ve become worthy to talk with his master while he’s also kind enough to give us a tome which tells the tale of the war of the shifting sands. It’s content no longer fully lines up with the story we know from the chronicles and the short story, but the essence is still the same. An essence also shown after checking out a single crystaline tear near the sacred barrier as the dragons sacrifice themselves, the wall is created and Falstad shatters the scepter. After learning about the past we return to Anachronos who lets us know that he gathered the shattered pieces of the scepter and returned to the caverns of time. He had every intention of protecting it from those that would seek to use it to cause harm to our world – thus was born the charge of the Dragonflights. A scepter divided amongst the four mighty Aspects would prove to be nearly impossible to restore for those willfully seeking chaos...or atleast that’s what he thought. Time has not been kind to the dragonflights, whether by agents of the Old Gods or betrayal by those that would call them friend, each guardian of a piece of the scepter has fallen to tragedy. We need to seek them out and prepare ourselves for the worst. Anachronos still holds his piece and no shard would be given to the corrupted black dragonflight which means that our quest aims at the red, green and blue dragonflights. The red one is the simplest of the 3, but by no means easy. Heroes had to venture into Blackwing Lair and talk with Vaelastrasz the corrupt, the second boss of the raid. He actually came here in an attempt to kill Nefarian, but the black dragon proved to be more powerful amd corrupts the red turining him against us. It is in his darkest hour that one should rise to relieve him of the shard, but sadly Nefarian has taken it and plans to destroy it. This means that the raid only had 5 hours to complete the raid, slay Nefarian and take the Red Scepter Shard of his corpse before he destroys it. Simple....but not easy! The green one had heroes travel to the temple of Atal’Hakkar, the Sunken Temple to find the Shade of Eranikus. After Ysera, the green dragon aspects smasked the temple to stop the Atal’ai’s plan to summon Hakkar the Soulflayer, Eranikus and a few others were send in to deal with the remaining Atal’ai priests and stop their plans. Inside they were somewhat succesfull yet still fell to the corruption of the emerald nightare. You might remember dealing with the nightmare in Legion, that was like the second coming of the nightmare, this was before all of that so something had to be done about Eranikus’ corruption before we could retrieve the shard. The image of malfurion sends us to darnasssus to inform tyrande which then sends us to the moonglade to talk with keeper Remulos. He in turn sends us to the four dream portals of Azeroth located in Ashenvale, Duskwood, Feralas and the Hinterlands. From the dragonkin nearby we were able to farm a fragment of the nightmare’s corruption while the one in Duskwood had us fight a 40-man raid satyr known as a Twilight Corrupter. With these 4 fragments gathered we lured Eranikus out and of course we had to show restraint. The green dragon was not inherintly evil, he was corrupted and with the blessing of Elune called upon by Tyrande we were able to cleanse the green dragon. In gratitude he offered his green shard while returning to the dream to aid his beloved Ysera in the war against the nightmare. Then the final one, the blue shard whos questline was just insanely long. The shard was held by the blue dragon Azuregos, a world boss during classic but you could talk to him either living or in his spirit form. The blue didn’t really care about guarding the shard for very lone, knew that it would only give him trouble while all he wants is to be left alone to his studies and not babysit some would be hero’s ticket to glory. So he came up with a brilliant pan to give it to a fish, but not any kind of fish, a very special minnow which he granted some special powers. The waters of the sea are vast and contain many minnows, but not to worry, to draw out this special fishy we had to create a arcanite buoy. His minnow would be attracted to the magical emanations. When he gets near the buoy- BLAMMO! It will explose in a glorious pulse of arcane energy, revealing the minnow’s true form. We also may or may not incure the wrath of neptulon the tidehunter, but ehh what’s life without a little bit of risk. The blue dragon is even kind enough to give us the schematics for it, schematics brought over to the gnome Narain Soothfancy but he can’t read it since it’s written in draconic. We need to figure out what Azuregos wrote which requires his scrying goggles, a five hundred pound chicken and volume 2 of draconic for dummies. The scrying goggles were taken by his ex best friend for life, or as Stewvul would call it, slave for life who we track down, but they lost the goggles while going through the molten core so we kill minions inside until it drops. The 500 pound chicken is cooked up by Dirge Quickcleave after killing lord Lakmaeran on the isle of dread and gathering some chimaerok tenderloins, deeprock salt and rocket fuel. The draconic for dummies was hidden away by the gnome on an island so far out that we can’t reach it without dieing from fatigue. Thankfully Meridith the mermaiden is there to help us out. She’s quite taken by the gnome and wants us to deliver a love letter to him. He’s not realy interested, ya know a gnome and a fish would never work out, but she is kind enough to give us a swimming speed buff which allows us to reach the island only to discover that the book has been stolen by none other then Narain’s arch-enemy Dokter Weavil. We try to outsmart him, but it backfires and the good dokter destroys the book. The only known copy of it was ripped into 8 parts and scattered to the wind. One is taken from the body of dr weavil, one is dropped from demons in the blasted lands, one from demons in winterspring, one is found in the undercity, one in the stormwind keep library, one on the body of onyxia, one found in blackwing lair and finally one dropped by Ragnaros. After all that we’re still not quite done yet. To actually make the damn thing, Narain needs 20 arcanite bars, 10 elementium ingot’s, 10 blue sapphires and 10 azerothian diamonds. Those were not cheap, but all of that combined gives us what we need. Off the coast of Azshara we spawn Maws, the minnow carrying the shard and finally, with all 4 combined we can reforge the scepter of the shifting sands. Now all we need to do is wait for the war effort to complete, for the horde and alliance to gather enough resources and after five days of transporting the troops, we can finally *** the scarab gong, tear down the wall and start the 10 hour war server event. A global message was spread, Champion of the Bronze Dragonflight has rung the Scarab Gong. The ancient gates of Ahn’Qiraj open, revealing the horrors of a forgotten war.. Like the days of old we had to face against General Rajaxx and all his powerful minions. We even ventured into the titan facility itself and took on not just the Silithid and qiraji, but even the manifestation of the old god c’thun himself. The 3 dragons that sacrificed themselves had spend all that time locked up inside, but we’re able to set them free and even score some sexy gear. As a reward for completing the scepter and ringing the gong first or even within 10 hours of the first one, you’d be rewared with a unique Black Qiraji Battle Tank. Although many varieties of Qiraji Battle Tanks can still be found in the ruins of AHn’Qiraj today, the darkest of the species were only seen on the day the Scarab gong was rung. The scarab lord title would forever mark those crazy enough to fuse the scepter and *** the scarab gong first which in the short story is done by the night elf priestess Shiromar, a veteran of the war of the shifting sands, while the first player was named Kalahad on the US server of Medivh who rang the gong in januari of 2006. This is why we celebrate and remember the call of the scarab where 12 years ago a bloody war was triggered by a simple sound: the banging of a gong. No rallying fanfare, no bloodthirsty yell; just an eerie silence, and many many realms that crashed cause they couldn’t handle that many people in one single zone. Today we celebrate the heroics of those past adventurers by returining to Silithus and walking in their footsteps. What’s more; this is a competition between the Horde and Alliance. Whichever group can earn more credits earn the right to fly their flag next to the gong for the rest of the year. Earning credits can be done by turning in resources, taking on the forces of the qiraji and the twilights hammer. Faction pride, that is our reward but some datamined information reveals that the new models we’ve seen used in Silithus are also going to be applied for temporary mounts available during the micro-holiday. Surprisingly they also decided to give those that already had the Black Qiraji Battle tank an updated new version on top of the one that they already had. That means that those few lucky enough to be around during classic and those that used the small window of oppertunity due to a bug with wrath of the lich king now get a shinier, brighter model. This has been received with mix responses, I personally don’t really care. I didn’t have the mount to begin with so I don’t care if they give an updated one to those that already had it. I doubt it took them a lot of resources to recolor the temporary mounts and make it permanent, but I do wonder why they did this. It doesn’t effect a whole bunch of players since it’s no longer obtainable and the response like I said, some feel like they’re missing out just because they didn’t play back then. Will they also add new models to other mounts that are no longer obtainable? I don’t see the massive benefit to it considering it rewards such a small group, but again to me... I don’t really care. I was talking with perculia about this from WoWhead and she came up with the suggestion that perhaps, tinfoil moment, they’ll add like a timewalking opening of AQ event in the future which would re-open the forging of the scepter and give players another chance at this mount. If they do, I’ll be all over that. The research for this video was difficult considering a lot of things have been removed, but also really fun and I would love to experience the questline for myself. I was playing back then, but not crazy enough to go through all of this. My part was just turning in resources and completely missing out on the opening of the gates because I think I either couldn’t log in with the servers overloaded or I was out for a job interview. Either way this is all the story that I really have for you all when it comes to the background for this micro-holiday. From bringing order to azeroth and imprisoning C’thun within Ahn’Qiraj, to the Horde and Alliance figuring out that evil was stirring once again and the wall erected at the end of the war of the shifting sands had to brought down. I hope you enjoyed it everyone! As always, subscribe if you like my videos, leave a like if you enjoyed this one aaaaand until next time guys....see ya!