What if N’zoth Is Still Alive? – The War Within Lore Speculation

N’zoth perished at the end of Battle for Azeroth… but what if he didn’t? Let’s speculate on how N’zoth might have survived right under our noses, and how it’s been set up the whole time.

What We Know about N’zoth

N’zoth is a character with a presence spanning the history of Warcraft, with roots in ancient lore and modern expansion stories alike. To fully understand this theory, we’ll first have to lay out the facts about N’zoth and his past.

Despite his grandeur, N’zoth is not the top dog of the Void. That title goes to the Void Lords, entities present outside of reality who were first revealed in the Chronicle series. According to Chronicle, the Void Lords have one goal: to consume the universe. Despite their immense power however, they are unable to fully manifest within reality, and so their plans are forced to take a more indirect approach.

Originally, they tried to achieve this through the corruption of the Titan Pantheon, but they proved too powerful to infect. Instead, the Void Lords decided to corrupt a Titan before it had been birthed: a worldsoul. To achieve this, they created dark creatures known as Old Gods, and flung them throughout the universe in hopes that they might land on a planet containing a worldsoul and begin to corrupt it. While an unknown number across the cosmos may have landed on other planets, we know of four who landed on Azeroth — Y’shaarj, C’thun, Yogg-Saron, and the weakest among them, N’zoth.

Upon landing on Azeroth, the four Old Gods quickly began to subjugate the planet, warping its surface into a realm of darkness and digging their tendrils into the earth to reach the worldsoul and corrupt it. They faced resistance from the four Elemental Lords upon arrival, but ultimately subjugated them as well, and began to give rise to what we know know as the Black Empire.

Seated at the heart of the Black Empire’s bastions, the Old Gods erected a society of chaos around themselves, giving rise to fleshy beings like the Faceless Ones and the Aqir. They not only ruled over the planet’s surface, but went to war with one another for dominance over the surface, and reveled in the destruction their battles caused.

Eventually, Azeroth was discovered by the Pantheon, who were horrified to see the corruption the Old Gods had spread across the planet. Worried that direct intervention from the Titans themselves might damage the planet, they initially formed the Keepers and their titanforged armies from the planet itself, but when the battle against the Old Gods tipped perilously against them, the Pantheon’s leader Aman’thul made the choice to step in and remove the strongest of the Old Gods directly. Reaching down from the heavens, he plucked Y’shaarj from the planet, but in the process ripped a massive wound in the planet that they would later mend into the Well of Eternity.

Believing it impossible to excise the Old Gods by their own hands due to how deep their tendrils had reached into Azeroth, the Pantheon chose instead to imprison them, and build facilities capable of containing them indefinitely. Marching their titanforged armies across Azeroth, they imprisoned the remaining three Old Gods one by one, starting with N’zoth, then C’thun, and finally Yogg-Saron, but not before the many-faced god unleashed the C’thraxxi upon the world. In the end, the Pantheon was victorious, and the Old Gods were locked away deep beneath the planet’s surface.

Despite their imprisonment, the Old Gods were not fully contained. Over the millennia, they manipulated conflicts in an attempt to free themselves from their prisons, from C’thun’s hand in the War of the Shifting Sands to Yogg-Saron’s creation of the Emerald Nightmare, but few have had as far-reaching an influence as N’zoth.

N’zoth is responsible for acts like the corruption of Neltharion and the Black Dragonflight, but perhaps his most significant move was his alliance with Queen Azshara. In the wake of the War of the Ancients, Azeroth’s oceans rushed inward towards the collapsing Well of Eternity, leaving Azshara and her Highborne elves trapped beneath the waves. In that moment, N’zoth approached Azshara with an offer: absolute power, for absolute servitude. Instead, the elven queen bartered her way into a more equal exchange, transforming her people into the serpentine naga and setting out to free N’zoth from his underwater prison.

The threat of the Old Gods have surfaced across Azeroth during World of Warcraft’s lifespan, from the threat of C’thun in Ahn’Qiraj to the corruption of the Keepers in Ulduar, and while N’zoth’s machinations nearly saw the world enveloped in twilight by Deathwing during Cataclysm, the Old God himself would not surface his more direct manipulations until the events of Battle for Azeroth, where he acted as the expansion’s ultimate antagonist and endboss.

While the Fourth War raged across Azeroth, N’zoth took advantage of the chaos to orchestrate his freedom, most notably through the use of the naga. While their efforts in Zandalar mostly consisted of shoreline attacks in search of artifacts, their actions in Kul Tiras were much more prominent through acts like Azshara’s corruption of the Tidesage order. Ultimately, their actions would draw the ire of the player, who in their travels came across a very fortuitous blade: Xal’atath.

Xal’atath is an entity with history all her own, having manipulated mortals across Azeroth’s history, and her latest object of interest prior to the Fourth War was none other than the Priest player. Having wielded her during the final battle against the Legion, the Priest player was forced to surrender the power Xal’atath had amassed, leaving her a weakened husk — but still clinging to life.

After being tipped off by the Tortollans, players end up finding Xal’atath (or bringing her with them if the player is a Priest) and restoring some semblance of power to her. Now strong enough to continue her manipulations, she convinced the player to gather relics of power to prevent a naga ritual from succeeding. Along the way, she claims a body of her own, and when the time comes, she uses the relics not to stop a ritual, but to call upon N’zoth.

In exchange for her freedom from the Blade of the Black Empire, Xal’atath offers N’zoth access to us, the player, before vanishing into the Void. Placing his gift upon our head, he subsequently simply… allows us to leave, and return with allies strong enough to purge his stronghold beneath the Shrine of the Storm and reclaim the now-empty Blade.

For Horde players, that quest prompts them to take the Blade to their then-Warchief Sylvanas Windrunner who, unbeknownst to her allies, uses the Blade to make a deal with Azshara. In exchange for destroying the Alliance and Horde fleets and luring the player to Nazjatar to free N’zoth using the Heart of Azeroth’s power, Azshara would use the Blade to kill N’zoth as he escaped, eliminating the threat and claiming the power for herself.

In truth, Sylvanas had no such desire to see N’zoth dealt with so fast, and she sent us to Nazjatar with the full expectation that we would eliminate Azshara and be forced to deal with N’zoth directly. That’s exactly what happened, with Azshara and the Blade being captured by the newly freed N’zoth at the end of the Eternal Palace raid and taken to Nazjatar.

With the onset of N’zoth’s return, Magni and the player are joined by Wrathion in their quest to defeat the Old God and safeguard Azeroth. After some trial and error in learning how to resist N’zoth’s whispers and powering up the various forges across Azeroth, we then journey directly into Ny’alotha to confront N’zoth and prevent him from recreating the Black Empire.

Before we reach N’zoth himself however, we first find Azshara deep within Ny’alotha’s halls in the midst of being tortured for her defiance. After we kill her tormentor, Azshara offers Wrathion two things; First, she gives him the Blade of the Black Empire, still in her possession despite her capture. Second, she offers him a piece of crucial information: N’zoth can only be killed once he is struck by the Blade. Having no further interest in N’zoth or his promises of power, Azshara escapes into the Void, leaving us to deal with the Old God.

Once we finally reach N’zoth, we do just as Azshara says. Wrathion uses the Blade to pierce N’zoth’s hide, and using the corruption-resistant cloaks he fashioned for us, we journey into N’zoth’s heart. N’zoth almost manages to corrupt us, but our latent connection to Azeroth allows us to regain our will and channel her power through the Heart of Azeroth to kill the last Old God once and for all.

…or so we thought.

The Suspicious Things about BfA

On the surface, N’zoth’s story seems like a fairly typical fantasy villain: a great cosmic entity with grandiose plans, thwarted by the power of mortal defiance. Indeed, despite his millennia of planning, he seemed rather susceptible to the most obvious of plans on our part.

And yet, just before his final moments, N’zoth let us in on a rather revealing secret: he knew about the plots against him the whole time.

During his final encounter, N’zoth reshapes his surroundings into visions of his past exploits, boasting about acts like his corruption of Deathwing. Amidst those visions, he shows us one of Azshara and Sylvanas in the middle of their deal, and reveals to us that he knew of their plans and let them transpire.

Not only did he let them transpire, but N’zoth also seemed to actively invite his own demise at times. Were it not for his deal with Xal’atath, neither Sylvanas nor Azshara would have had access to the Blade of the Black Empire in their scheme to strike him down. Likewise, after he had kidnapped Azshara, he had no reason to allow her to keep the Blade on her person, and could have easily confiscated it to some far-flung corner of his dark dimension.

At first glance, these simply seem like the actions of an overconfident god, unable to see past his own plans (or the plot conveniences required to enable his raid fight), but there’s one crucial question we never got answered: what happened to the Blade of the Black Empire after N’zoth was stabbed?

As we saw in the cinematic, the dagger simply vanishes from Wrathion’s hands after he uses it against the Old God, leaving N’zoth’s inner core exposed and prompting us to follow through with our plans. Since then, nobody has even mentioned the Blade or its whereabouts, even amidst its former host Xal’atath’s schemes in the modern day.

One could easily pass these questions as unanswered flaws of a perhaps rushed-through plot during Battle for Azeroth. It’s certainly what I considered them for many years, as someone who is quite critical of Battle for Azeroth and its haphazard handling of basically every character in its story in favor of plot convenience.

That all changed thanks to our favorite bronze dragon, Chromie.

What Changed: Dragonflight

During our adventures in the Dragon Isles, we concluded our leveling campaign questing with Chromie in Thaldraszus. Most of our work involved various chores to clean up loose strands of time, but by the end of it, the Bronze Oathstone is nearly assaulted by the Infinite dragon Eternus — before being intercepted by Chromie in a clash of time magic, sending the two spiraling through the timeline.

After following them through the timeways and visiting places like a future where the Primalists won or a version of Azeroth inhabited entirely by Murlocs, we eventually begin speeding backwards in time, landing at one of the earliest points of Azeroth’s history: the founding of the Black Empire.

At this early point, the Old Gods are in the midst of battling and enslaving the Elemental Lords, and while we slip through the chaos to rescue Chromie and Eternus, we’re noticed by a rather knowing presence… bearing the voice of N’zoth.

Knowing Presence whispers: I… know you. What you were. What you will yet be.
Knowing Presence whispers: You will follow him to the deep places. The dark waters will flow in his wake.

Despite his initial confusion, N’zoth recognizes us, the very Champion of Azeroth that would one day strike him down in Ny’alotha, and in that same moment glimpses our future. For one so far in the past, he seems rather sure of himself; it’s almost as if his glimpse inside our head offered a glimpse into his own future.

As beings of the Void, the Old Gods deal in infinite possibilities, with glimpses into all possible futures. While that certainly adds to their god-like cunning and foresight, it does not offer them definitive knowledge of what path the future will take — but what if, amidst the rescue of a few dragons lost in time, one of the Old Gods was able to peer into the mind of someone from the future, and learn exactly which path was the ‘true timeline’?

What might an Old God like N’zoth do with such knowledge?

New Lore: Xal’atath Lorewalking

We ended up getting a hint to exactly how N’zoth might use that kind of foresight — and how someone like Xal’atath might manipulate him — thanks to 11.1.7’s new Lorewalking feature. In Xal’atath’s entry, we learn of how she fought against the Old Gods during the height of the Black Empire, as well as how she came to be imprisoned within the Blade.

While much of it is bluster between the Y’shaarj and Xal’atath, Lorewalker Cho makes note of additional information about the words Xal’atath whispered to N’zoth after her imprisonment about an offer of partnership to the weakest of the Old Gods.

Xal’atath whispers: Consider what greatness could be yours, if your siblings did not stand in your way.
Xal’atath whispers: The offer stands.
Xal’atath whispers: You need only reach out and claim it.

By her wording, it seems as though it wasn’t the first time Xal’atath had made an offer to N’zoth, and it seems that he made good on that deal in Battle for Azeroth by granting Xal’atath her freedom… but in return, N’zoth didn’t seem to gain much for his own schemes. The champion is quickly able to dispel his Gift (if they so choose), and the Blade of the Black Empire ultimately becomes the very tool of his undoing.

So what exactly did N’zoth gain from the bargain?

The Theory: N’zoth Is In the Blade

Putting it all together, the grand theory is that N’zoth didn’t die when he was stabbed by Wrathion — he was absorbed into the Blade of the Black Empire.

Looking at it from N’zoth’s perspective, he landed on Azeroth as a being of the Void, an infinite number of possible futures rolling through his eldritch mind just like his fellow Old Gods… until one day, a strange mortal appears from the future, with a mind full of memories that speak of one singular future: a future where N’zoth is slain.

If you were an Old God who suddenly knew exactly which one of the infinite possibilities was the correct one, as well as that future leading to your death, you’d more than likely start planning contingencies. Xal’atath seems to have been exactly that contingency as a willing partner seeking freedom at any cost, even if it might aid the very Old Gods she had been warring with.

And so, over the millennia, N’zoth built his schemes, manipulated entities into serving him with the goal of corrupting Azeroth — after all, if it does work, he wins anyways. But all the while, he’s ready to set the pieces into place to organize an escape in the event of his death.

When the Fourth War rolls around and the future he’d seen within that little mortal’s head finally inches closer, he moves his pieces into play: the naga bring Xal’atath exactly where she needs to be in order to manipulate that very same mortal. At the Crucible of Storms, the bargain between Xal’atath plays out exactly how they told us right to our faces.

Xal’atath says: Honor our bargain… free me to find my own fate!
N’zoth says: Go… but the blade must remain… to serve my will.

Now, N’zoth depends on his very first and most useful pawn: us. The Horde Champion brings the Blade to Sylvanas, who makes a deal with Azshara to kill the Old God with it ; a deal N’zoth was plenty privy to, and plenty willing to boast to us about. Azshara fails to kill him, and ultimately gives the Blade to Wrathion in Ny’alotha, who strikes N’zoth’s hide with it to allow us to kill him.

All the while the Blade of the Black Empire, a dagger forged to contain entities of the Void, mysteriously vanishes for the first time since it had last been occupied by another Void entity. Having known since the birth of the Black Empire that this day was coming, N’zoth planned for a piece of his essence to be sealed away within the Blade, allowing himself to be safely spirited away in the event of his death in Ny’alotha.

To the world, the last Old God was dead, and Azeroth was permanently freed from his corruption. In truth, N’zoth lives on within the Blade of the Black Empire, ready to scheme another day as the dreaded Knife’zoth.

The New Timeline from Start to Finish

To summarize, this theory proposes that a few things happen across the Warcraft timeline, shortened into an internet-friendly numbered list.

1. N’zoth learns of his death from the player when we travel back to the founding of the Black Empire.
2. Xal’atath offers N’zoth a way to escape his fate through a mutually beneficial bargain.
3. N’zoth recruits Azshara and the naga, and she begins to plot how to overthrow him.
4. During Battle for Azeroth, N’zoth frees Xal’atath from imprisonment in exchange for the Blade.
5. N’zoth allows the Blade to be taken to Sylvanas, who manipulates Azshara into setting N’zoth free.
6. Azshara and the Blade are taken by N’zoth at the end of Eternal Palace and imprisoned in Ny’alotha.
7. N’zoth allows Azshara to keep the Blade and be freed by Wrathion and the player.
8. Azshara gives Wrathion the Blade and tells him N’zoth can only be slain after being stabbed by it.
9. Wrathion stabs N’zoth with the Blade, absorbing a portion of his essence into it.
10. The Blade disappears, leaving the world to believe N’zoth perished in Ny’alotha while he escaped through the Blade in secret.

What that means for N’zoth going forward is anyone’s guess, but as we head into Midnight, the secret presence of an Old God would be sure to shake things up, and perhaps offer us an ally of convenience in the fight against Xal’atath. After all, what’s the worst that’s ever happened when you listen to the whispers of a void entity trapped inside an eldritch dagger?

For now, we’ll put the tinfoil hat down, and dream of the day that Knife’Zoth shows up to praise his beloved devote– I mean, play a role in the future of Warcraft’s story.