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Nathrezim (called dreadlords in the Common tongue) are intelligent and cunning demons who once fought Sargeras and after the Titan's fall they eagerly joined his Burning Legion. "The mysterious beings of the Burning Legion called the dreadlords are also known racially as the Nathrezim. Little is known of their homeworld and even that is rumor." They act as tacticians and lieutenants upon the field of battle in time of war, as well as being emissaries and agents for the fiery lords of the Legion, notably Kil'jaeden. During the Third War, they served as the Lich King's jailors, on the behest of Kil'jaeden, and commanded the Plague that swept through Lordaeron.
They are known to be extremely manipulative and masters of trickery; they sometimes refer to themselves as thal'kituun in their language, meaning the unseen guests.
Background[]
Dreadlords are psychic vampires who feed on the weak-minded and often use their victims as slaves, they have dead, grey skin like a corpse, no hair, and two sharp canines jutted down their mouth. Little is known of their past, but it is said they were once an enlightened and powerful race with unmatched summoning abilities. They are cunning and extremely skilled at magic—on par with the Eredar—they were also deadly fighters.They and the ered'ruin, infernals, and Sayaad were demonic even before Sargeras corruption, in fact they were responsible for it. Their demonic magics can drain the life of their victims, and they have been reported to devour the souls of their slain victims. They can amass a swarm of flying carrion insects, and have been known to put their enemies to sleep. They prefer to work from the shadows, corrupting slowly, as opposed to assaulting their enemies directly. This makes the Dreadlords the perfect henchmen for the most cunning of demons, Kil'jaeden the Deceiver.
Masters of trickery, deceit, and guile, take pride in the fiendish destruction they have wrought on Azeroth. Affiliated with the Burning Legion for centuries, the dreadlords — also termed Nathrezim — acted as commanders of undead legions during the Burning Legion’s second invasion, slaughtering thousands with their unnatural hordes. The dreadlords lost much power when several of their most influential members fell to the Forsaken armies under Sylvanas Windrunner's banner. Now the dreadlords seem almost a myth, a story told to frighten children. People feel safer when they think the dreadlords a remote tale; some instead comfort themselves with the lie that the great Varimathras is the only surviving dreadlord. More practical sorts know that evil never truly dies and that just because they cannot see something does not mean it is not there.
Dreadlords invariably stay behind the scenes and affect change through proxies. Adventurers might go their whole lives and never realize a dreadlord has acted against them in countless, seemingly unrelated ways. Only after much exertion and investigation do the heroes uncover the dreadlord behind a plot. Even then, the task of tracking and slaying a dreadlord can overwhelm the most competent hunter of evil. Dreadlords live in heavily fortified lairs or march at the center of an army. They also act as intelligence agents and interrogators, likely when not commanding on the field of battle or manipulating things behind the scenes.
The Nathrezim have a war-centered culture with an emphasis on codes of conduct. It is forbidden for one of the Nathrezim to kill another, a law broken only once, by Varimathras when he was ordered to kill his brother Balnazzar by Sylvanas Windrunner. However, the killing was either staged or a failure, for Balnazzar is still alive today and secretly rules the Scarlet Crusade. The Nathrezim serve as both the tacticians and field commanders of Archimonde and the henchmen of Kil'jaeden.
Although none of the Nathrezim encountered in the Third War were actually seen to fly, accounts from the War of the Ancients clearly state that they flew without using magic.
Though many dreadlords were killed in the War of the Ancients and Third War, the continued existence of Balnazzar and the recent discovery of Mal'Ganis's revival suggest that the Nathrezim are immortal, or at least much, much more difficult to kill than previously thought.
After adventurers dealt with Mal'Ganis on behalf of the Knights of the Ebon Blade and Balnazzar twice for the Argent Dawn and the Argent Crusade, the Argent Crusade now takes any report that a Nathrezim is "dead and gone" with a grain of salt. Indeed, they state that a Nathrezim killed in a conventional manner in the mortal plane only sends it back to the Twisting Nether. Until a way is found to permanently kill (and confirm) that a Nathrezim is no more, the Argent Crusade considers any defeated Nathrezim known to them to be alive and active; by name, this includes the brothers Balnazzar, Varimathras and Detheroc.
Ecology[]
Society[]
In the Nathrezim's eyes, malice is the ultimate gift. To torment another creature with physical and moral agony offers something superior to happiness or contentment. Dreadlords prefer to turn their talents to psychic assault and manipulation, seeking to dissolve the bonds that unify individuals, groups, and nations and leave their mortal victims floundering amidst chaos and decay. A Nathrezim-occupied world eventually abandons higher morality as irrelevant to the context in which its inhabitants find themselves, joining the dreadlords in their callous worship of the maligned. Although fierce warriors, Nathrezim prefer a leadership role, standing behind a wall of ghouls or other allies and retreating when their enemies press too close. This is particularly true of the weaker Nathrezim, whose magical abilities cannot always prevent their swift, bloody execution by a determined fighter, wizard, or rogue. A dreadlord engages in melee combat only when convinced he holds the upper hand. A dreadlord studies his opponent first and learns her weaknesses. Then he remains at range, unleashing his most powerful spells on his enemy.
Nearly all dreadlords choose to study both the arts of war and the arts of magic. Almost all have the ability to summon an Infernal, while a few choice dreadlords can create a doomguard from their fallen foes. Some of them, such as Mal'Ganis, are proficient at necromancy. It is important to note that the Nathrezim are not as talented in magic as the eredar — whereas the eredar have become adept at almost all forms of magic, the Nathrezim show talent for only a handful of types. They most often are arcanists, but some dreadlords favor the physical arts of the rogue or warrior.
Languages[]
Dreadlords can apparently understand any tongue psychically. Dreadlords can speak with any creature that has a language. However, since they are members of the Burning Legion, it can be assumed they would speak Eredun most of the time.
Trivia[]
- Dreadlords are a step below Pit Lords in the Burning Legion hierarchy.
- Nathrezim have dark blood.
- It has been stated that calling Dreadlords necromancers seems to pidgeonhole their abilities because they are demons.