World of Warcraft

Dotted around Eversong Woods are huge, enchanted Runestones – towering slabs of smooth, weathered stone built by the high elves long ago. I find them particularly interesting because the elven Runestones have been part of Warcraft lore for a very long time and are a callback to Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. I love it when World of Warcraft refers back to previous titles in the franchise, so I couldn’t resist delving deeper into the history of the Runestones and finding out how the lore has changed over the years.

In Warcraft II, a Runestone (right) appears in one of the missions in the Horde campaign, near the human keep of Caer Darrow, which is situated on an island in the middle of Darrowmere Lake in Lordaeron. The Runestone is described in this game as an ancient monolith erected by the elven druids and inscribed with powerful runes of protection and warding. The Runestone was seized by the orc warlock Gul’dan and hewn into slates that were then used to construct the Altars of Storms – structures that channelled dark arcane energies to pervert the innate elven magic of the Runestones.

This version of events, however, has changed somewhat since Warcraft II was released in 1995, particularly in how the high elves are portrayed. They were originally depicted as being quite close to nature, with their reason for joining the Alliance, as stated in the Tides of Darkness manual, being partly because the orcish Horde intended to defile the very lands of Lordaeron. But in Warcraft III, the druidic night elves were introduced to the lore. A backstory between the night elves and the high elves was established, with the latter being depicted as more in tune with magic than nature. With the exception of a few references in the Warcraft RPG books (which are generally considered non-canon these days anyway), high elven druids have not been referred to in any canon source since. The original story was therefore changed; the new lore says that high elven mages and arcanists, not druids, were the ones who placed the Runestones.

Shortly after the founding of Quel’Thalas, many thousands of years ago, some high elves grew wary that their use of arcane magic might once again draw the Burning Legion to Azeroth, as had happened during the War of the Ancients. Dath’Remar Sunstrider sent his most powerful arcanists to find a solution. They decided to craft monolithic Runestones along the borders of Quel’Thalas, like giant sentinels watching over the forest, and these massive stones powered a magical shield called Ban’dinoriel (‘the Gatekeeper’ in the high elven tongue). This was intended to mask the elves’ magic from extradimensional threats, protect their lands from invasion, and weaken the magic of all non-elves within it. The Runestones were powered by the Sunwell and linked to the high elves’ mother tree, Thas’alah.

In founding Quel’Thalas, the high elves had built their new kingdom atop ancient Amani troll ruins – ruins still considered hallowed ground by the trolls. Vastly outnumbering the elves, the Amani attempted to drive the invaders from their sacred land. When the magical barrier was erected, however, it began to frighten the superstitious trolls away. They retreated back to their temple city of Zul’Aman, deciding it would be safer to ambush elven convoys that strayed beyond the barrier than to launch a full-scale assault on Quel’Thalas.

If we fast-forward again to the Second War, Gul’dan dismantled one of the elven Runestones to disrupt the magical barrier protecting Quel’Thalas and restore the Horde’s use of magic. He and his followers chiselled away at the monolithic relic to build structures called the Altars of Storms. He then used the Altars to perform an ancient ritual. By channelling raw arcane magic into regular ogres, he was able to turn them into highly intelligent two-headed ogre magi. With the Runestone desecrated, the Horde’s death knights and other spellcasters regained their powers. The orcs and their allies stormed into Quel’Thalas, terrorising the countryside, pillaging settlements, and cutting down every elf they found.

It’s interesting to note that Caer Darrow is located quite a distance from the current border of Quel’Thalas. It’s in what was formerly a human land called the Eastweald (now the Western Plaguelands) in Lordaeron. Likely, this is simply because Blizzard conceived the original Runestone before they decided it (and others) would form a magical boundary to Quel’Thalas. Lorewise, however, it’s possible that, in the far past, the borders of the elven kingdom stretched all the way to where Caer Darrow is now located (older maps of Lordaeron seem to place Caer Darrow closer to Quel’Thalas than its current location in World of Warcraft). Perhaps, as the human kingdom of Lordaeron expanded, Quel’Thalas shrank somewhat, and the human settlement of Caer Darrow was constructed on this once-sacred site.

Or maybe the fact that Caer Darrow was home to a Runestone has been retconned completely. The lore book World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 2 only mentions Gul’dan and his followers desecrating a Runestone – it doesn’t specify its location. And when you explore Caer Darrow in World of Warcraft, there are no remains of an elven Runestone, nor, as far as I know, any mention or hint of one ever being situated there. The evidence points to there never having been a Runestone at Caer Darrow, but, as with other aspects of older lore that seem questionable or unlikely today, until Blizzard says otherwise, we have to go with the information presented to us.

So what became of the Runestones after the Second War? Interestingly, five Runestones were shown on the map of Quel’Thalas in the Warcraft III manual, but not on the game’s loading screens. It turns out that most of them were destroyed when the Scourge invaded Quel’Thalas and defiled the Sunwell during the Third War. Only three survived. Found in the southern reaches of Eversong Woods, close to the border with what is now called the Ghostlands, they can be visited in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. They are now used to protect Eversong from becoming tainted by the Scourge and suffering the same fate as the Ghostlands.

The westernmost Runestone failed some time ago during a Scourge attack. In an attempt to halt the Scourge forces and the spreading of the soil-tainting blight that accompanies their expansion, the blood elves made the difficult decision to burn down the forest surrounding the now permanently deactivated Runestone. The treants, who have been the elves’ friends for years, are now trying to nurture life back into the burned soil and foster the regrowth of the forest, perhaps unaware that it would benefit the Scourge. Having failed to convince their former allies to cease their endeavours, the blood elves are now being forced to stop the treants using violence.

Further east of the Scorched Grove, in south-central Eversong, is Runestone Falithas, as seen in the image at the top of this page. This is the only Runestone that remains completely intact and functional and is tended to by Runewarden Deryan. However, there is another Runestone even further east, Runestone Shan’dor – and although it is currently deactivated, Deryan believes it can be reclaimed by using the energy from an arcane crystal. During a quest, the player will travel to Runestone Shan’dor and instil the energy of the crystal into it. Enraged wraiths attempt to destroy the infused crystal to disrupt the process, but the player is successful in repelling them. When the crystal releases the last of its energies into the Runestone, it is successfully reactivated and joins Runestone Falithas in helping protect Eversong from the effects of the Plague.

My time in Eversong Woods is nearly up, but there’s one last place I want to visit. Next time, I’ll be admiring the towering, gleaming spires of Silvermoon City itself… and investigating its darker, seedier underbelly.