Home of the twin bears Ursoc and Ursol, the Wild Gods. Legends say they were curious, so much they frequently found themselves getting in the territory of bigger animals, but these dangers never made them turn around. These majestic creatures never left the other behind, even when in dire situations.
But Grizzly Hills is also the home of Vordrassil (Broken Crown), long before known as Andrassil (Crown of the Snow). And this is the story of that World Tree. 4,500 years before the First War, Fandral Staghelm took branches from Nordrassil, the World Tree, and planted them. One of those branches, with time, grew to become Andrassil.
Even if with good intention, this was done in secret, without letting the Cenarion Circle know, and upon discovering, they were furious, yet agreed the plan work. And it did for several decades.
In time fights between the taunka (long relatives of the Tauren) and the forest nymphs started to happen, getting more violent with time, which worried the druids that launches an expedition to understand what happened.
The roots of Andrassil reached so deep into the earth that they had touched Yogg-Saron's subterranean prison (and we will talk about this later). Since the tree didn’t have the blessing of the Aspects it was vulnerable to corruption and the living creatures near it were driven crazy. The only decision was to destroy the tree, making it what we know now as Vordrassil. Sadly, some theories point this wasn’t enough as the corruption left some doorways into the Emerald Dream, being is a possible explanation of how the Emerald Nightmare began.
Of a wild, cold and dangerous beauty, this area is home to two key history incidents. Ulduar with all its secrets and the battle between the Guardian Aegwynn and Sargeras’ avatar.
Let’s start with Ulduar, as its existence goes way back in time and the amount of history in those walls in uncountable. When it was discovered, multiple theories came up, some saying it was a city made for and by the Titans, others a vault filled with treasures. It’s true it was made by the Titan’s, maybe as a base of operations for them and the Keepers. Yet many of its uses are still to be known, but if one thing is sure, it’s that this was the place where Yogg-Saron was imprisoned. Many stories are held here, so we will just briefly mention some.
As we saw Yogg-Saron corrupted Andrassil, but not just that, the corruption reached the Keepers that inhabited Ulduar, specially that known as Loken. This Keeper, who was chief jailor of the Old God, had an affair with Sif, who was married to the Keeper Thorim, his brother. As Loken as drove into madness and in the fear of losing Sif, he killed her by accident. Horrified by his acts and in hope Thorim will not find out, he said it was the work of the king of giants, Arngrim. But there’s more Loken did… subduing other Keepers to the will of the Old God, killing Mimiron, and even convincing Helya to imprison Odyn. Telling all these stories will take more than this article, so we will focus on this last one.
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The Keeper Odyn decided not to use proto-drakes as warriors, but to create its own race, the vrykul. This idea wasn’t shared by the other Keepers that tried to convince him otherwise, but this only made Odyn to focus more in it, asking the titan-forged sorceress Helya, to move a part of Ulduar away, creating the Halls of Valor. But this wasn’t all, Odyn wanted to give those who died a worthy death in battle a new body, but for this some vrykul would need to be raised as undead to take the spirits from the Shadowlands. Since no one offered, he said he’ll force them, to which Helya opposed and threatened to move the Halls back to Uldual, and for this, he transformed her into de first Val’kyr. Time after Loken reached to her and convinced her to look Odyn away.
Now something more recent, just 823 years before the First War. The Guardian of the Tirisfal, Aegwynn was on a mission to destroy the demons that were hunting the dragons in the area. It is said soon she noticed more and more powerful demons, but with the help of the last dragonflight, she defeated them. But soon after a storm erupted and an enormous dark image appeared, Sargeras. Confident in herself, or proud according to others, she decided o fight him, believing she was strong enough to match him.
At first the battle was too easy. Although eventually she found some resistance, even needing to use Ariesh, the Greatstaff of the Guardian, as her previous staff did not seem as reliable and, once more, the dragons also went in her aid. After this she locked the remnants of the body in the Temple of Elune that was sunken when the Well of Eternity collapsed, what is now known as the Tomb of Sargeras.
After this she decided it was her choice who the next Guardian should be, what she did not notice is that Sargeras transferred his spirit into her body. this twisted her mind even more, making her have paranoid ideas and become distant with the Council of Tirisfal, and so she built Karazhan. This story continues, but it is away from Northrend, and so we must leave it here.
Crystalsong Forest
Long ago known as Moonsong. Crystalsong Forest was accidentally created by weak and desperate Highborne of Shandaral after the Great Sundering, who ached for a replacement for the Well of Eternity.
They had seen the blue dragonflight crystallizing creatures and drawing magic out of them, something they will painfully find out hard to replicate. But that’s not all, they infiltrated the Nexus and stole artifacts of the flight, making the dragons furious. When the dragons confronted them in the forest the elves attempted to crystallize part of the area and draw magic from the crystals to fight the dragons off, but the spell was much more powerful than anticipated and transformed the entire region as well as twisting the elves' spirits.
Conclusion
As you can see, just in three areas of the Northrend there is a lot of history, and we hope to bring more within time. And if sadly most of them hard and not happy, it is important to know past lessons, not to repeat them.