by Magistrate - 10 years ago     show comments

Welcome to the Dungeon Dossier! Every weekend, the Dossier dives a little deeper into the lore of World of Warcraft‘s dungeons. This week, delve into the ancient depths of the Titan city known as Uldaman.

Though not as glamorous or extensive as Uldum or Ulduar, Uldaman is among the only known Titan cities in Azeroth. Uldaman is rich in lore from many perspectives, including the Titans, the Troggs, the Earthen, and its present story even has connections to the Dark Iron Dwarves, the Explorer’s League (A) and the Reliquary (H), and Ragnaros. However, its most important story element is relegated to the Alliance Dwarves–the adventure of Uldaman is most strongly correlated with their journey to understanding their origins.

All of that in mind, the strongest themes in Uldaman are:

• Greed: The Dark Iron Dwarves plunder Uldaman for both its riches and its secrets.
• Self-Discovery: The Dwarves gain interesting leads on their origins, and this story develops in later content.

We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get started.

The Ancient City of Uldaman

A long, long time ago, the Titan Khaz’goroth designed plans for the city of Uldaman. Or it might be just a complex. Or just a vault. It’s hard to say–sources both new and old are all over the place. Regardless, Khaz’goroth designed Uldaman and gave that design to his servants to carry out. Ironaya and similar beings carried out the feat and were meant to preserve its halls, but time and age have not been friendly, and Uldaman is very, very old.

Located deep underneath the mountains Khaz (so named for Khaz’goroth), Uldaman has since become an underworld of ancient secrets, relics, and danger. Of specific interest are the Discs of Norgannon, also referred to as the Platinum Discs. Norgannon, the Titan known as a  keeper of knowledge and a supreme wizard, may have lost the Discs somehow, as indicated by the RPG (which is no longer canon). Rumored to grant the owner immense magical power and protection, the Discs supposedly contained immense arcane knowledge of the universe. Accordingly, the Dwarves–who have always been obsessed with understanding their roots and their reason for existence, as well as collecting Titan artifacts–have a vested interest in discovering them.

But the city is full of perils, not the least of which being Troggs. It seems that every ancient, deep place has some connection to the creatures, and Uldaman is no exception. While previous dungeons we’ve looked at (including Ragefire Chasm) have only explained that the Troggs came from deep within the earth, Uldaman provides more context to the Trogg mythos, as well as the origins of the Dwarves.

The Prototype Races

The Discs of Norgannon, it turns out, have a great deal to say about the origins of the Dwarves and the Troggs, but both of them go back to a race known as the Earthen. The Earthen were created with Azeroth to tunnel and build in Azeroth’s underground–caves, mountains, rocks, and stuff like that. The Titans wanted a race that would carry on this work without the Titans’ presence–they had other worlds to shape, presumably. So, they created the Earthen based on the subterranean being matrix, or a body design based on rock samples taken from Azeroth. Theoretically, constructing a race from Azeroth’s very bedrock would make the Earthen strong enough to work this very same material.

But if the Titans are the closest things Azeroth has to gods, they were found wanting in their design. The subterranean being matrix had two degenerative anomalies. One of these anomalies developed into the Troggs, who turned out ugly, violent, cannibalistic, and stupid, and they had to be sealed away in vaults underneath all of Azeroth. The second anomaly developed into the Dwarves, their only flaw being that they were made of biomass, or flesh, and not stone as originally intended.

Long story short, the Earthen were conceptually the “pure, original, perfect Dwarves” and were made of stone instead of flesh. Two variants of the Earthen developed due to an unspecified high-stress environment (spoiler: it was the Curse of the Flesh, which is beyond the scope of this Dossier). These two variants are the Troggs and the Dwarves.

The Discovery of the Earthen in Context

This new knowledge of the Earthen left the Dwarves with a lot to think about. They now know where they came from and what their original purpose was, thanks to the Discs of Norgannon. But the discovery prompted some questions:

• What was the high-stress environment that caused the Earthen to degenerate into the Troggs and Dwarves?
• Did this mean that the Dwarves were imperfect and not what the Titans intended?
• Was there a way to return to their “perfect” Earthen state, and, if so, would this ethically be the right thing to do?
• What other knowledge of their origins was sealed away across Azeroth?

These questions and many others would lead to similar storylines, such as the Tol’vir bargain with Al’akir to return to their stone form, excavations in Northrend that led to the discovery of the (beautiful) Titan city of Ulduar, the Mogu, Deepholm, and much, much more.

From a more ethical standpoint, the issue of divergent authenticity has become an interesting question in more recent content, including Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria. Essentially, this issue asks that if a creation ended up becoming something other than what it was originally designed as, was it necessarily evil and in need of “righting”? In Cataclysm, the Halls of Origination is an immense Titan reset switch built to address this very issue, and in Mists of Pandaria the Mogu are seen to have struggled with their need for purpose when their creators vanished thousands of years ago. This issue is explored in many other areas, as well.

Dark Deeds, Dark Iron, and You

Where there is power, riches, and knowledge to be found, there will inevitably be those who seek to attain it for nefarious ends. While the Dwarf-centric Explorer’s League and the Silvermoon-based Reliquary wish to unlock Uldaman’s secrets to secure them from those who would abuse them, the Dark Iron Dwarves have their own goals, not the least of which being the destruction of their ancient enemies from Ironforge.

In addition to arcane guardians and beasts of the deep, the Dark Iron are everywhere in Uldaman. Led by Galgann Firehammer, a senator sent from Shadowforge, the Dark Iron engage the Explorer’s League and the Reliquary in a deadly race to reach the Titan artifacts. While it’s more overtly stated that the Dark Iron are there for riches, it would be magnanimous to overlook their allegiance to the Firelord Ragnaros. At the time of the excavation of Uldaman, Ragnaros had not yet been defeated in the Firelands raid. Thus, the Dark Iron, who have historically been slaves of the Firelord, could use knowledge to catastrophic ends.

As often proves the case, ancient knowledge is the key to mending the present, unearthing the past, and protecting the future. Whatever your faction, Uldaman will prove just as much a physical labyrinth as it is a historical one.

The Dungeon Dossier runs every weekend covering a new dungeon’s lore in detail. Tune in next week to explore the winding, watery wonder that is the Wailing Caverns!

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