Background

Built twelve thousand years ago by a covert sect of night elf sorcerers, the ancient city of Eldre'Thalas was used to protect Queen Azshara's most prized arcane secrets. The noble houses of Thalanaar and the Shadowleaves were among the guardians of the Queen's lands, the Shadowleaves themselves the fierce druid guardians of Her most prized secrets.

As the Shendralar became more and more assured of their superiority, they began to think of themselves as a race above normal elven people. In their arrogance, they tampered with things best left alone, and after two thousand years of experimentation called down the Maelstrom that nearly destroyed Kalimdor. The Queen and her most loyal subjects survived the disaster, twisted by magic into forms that would survive in their new home of Naj'Entar, deep beneath the new ocean that would separate the continent of Kalimdor from the new Eastern Kingdom.

Thalanaar was the first post to fall. Only a few beaten stragglers escaped with their lives as the Thousand Needles was sundered. Next, and perhaps most unexpectedly, the Shadowleaves fled the city en masse. While their plan had been to leave the city and then return to recover it, their actions were largely viewed as treachery. The curse visited on them by Azshara was even more terrible than the "gift" she bestowed on her followers, and after ten thousand years the worgen have only just begun to forgive the elves for their dark origins.


What Would Be Their Hope...

After the Maelstrom, as the Shendralar fled the cities to become what would be the Blood Elves of the next age, those few Highborne who remained tried to research the means to sustain their immortal spirits. They fell upon a horrifying plot.

Prince Tortheldrin and his Lorekeepers laid a trap deep in the Athenaeum for the demon Immol'thar, one of the loathsome creatures that had invaded the Dire Maul after the three main districts of the city had fallen. Trapped behind five channeling stones that absorbed the latent energies left over from the Maelstrom, the void terror waited for its strength to recover, delayed as the Shendralar fed on the creature's demonic energy to grant themselves immortality.


...Became Their Doom.

As time drew forward, the latent energies from the Maelstrom began to subside, and the beast Immol'thar began to recover his strength. Gradually, the balance began to shift, and the creature began to strain against his bonds. Immol'thar's Prison suddenly required more energy than the elves gained from their containment of the demon. If he escaped, Immol'thar would surely destroy what is left of the noble city's arcana, and the secrets of Eldre'thalas would be lost forever.

To preserve his own power, a Tortheldrin consumed by greed and corrupted by a lifetime spent stealing the demonic life energy of the void terror began to sacrifice his own faithful, leaving them to wander the corridors of the Dire Maul as the Shendralar Wisps, sad creatures that only too late learned the madness of their keepers, and wait for a day of salvation promised by Tortheldrin that will never come.

Only the Highborne Azj'tordin has escaped death, but the curse of Immol'thar's tomb that ties him to the fallen city prevents him now from leaving the Lariss Pavilion, and he stays there to warn others who would use the secret entrance to the East Quarter near the Library that among many things, the Prince is not their friend.


The Return

Thalanaar today is a small camp on the border of Feralas at the northern reaches of the Thousand Needles, little more than a flight waypoint east of Feathermoon Stronghold connecting Theramore Isle and the neutral villages of Gadgetzan and Ratchet. Only the single ancient roadsign in the Thousand Needles pointing to Thalanaar tells the slightest tale that the small outpost at one time served some greater purpose.

Turus Thalanaar today guards the Lariss Pavilion while keeping safe the remnants of the original Highborne population still barricaded deep inside the Dire Maul, striving to recover Eldre'thalas and one day put down the forces that destroyed it, no matter the cost.

In memory of all that was lost, all Thalanaari receive an argent silk velvet tabard, fringed with bleached sable, prominantly displaying a brown leaf. It is said of the tabard, "although the life tree of Thalanaar may be sleeping, it shall never die."