Happy Mother’s Day!

(If you happen to be a visitor from WoW Insider, I humbly welcome you to my blog!  I am deeply honored to be featured in their Daily Quest post series)

Today is Mother’s Day, at least in North America (I’m not sure whether or not it is celebrated on the same day in other parts of the world).  To celebrate the amazingness that is our matrons, this short post intends to reflect on a few important mothers in Warcraft Lore.

Draka

Draka is the famed mother of Thrall, and the wife of Durotan, the leader of the Frostwolf clan.  She first met Durotan in Draenor, the former homeworld of the orcs.  The Frostwolf leader-to-be (still a develloping orc at the time) immediately noticed her attractive attributes, and was befallen instantly.  Unfamiliar with her face, it was Durotan’s best friend, Ogrim Doomhammer who had told him that growing up, Draka was a sickly orc, and due to constant illness, was unable to join the clan on hunts and other activities involving the orc children.

Draka would overcome her ailments and become one of the stronger, if not strongest, woman in her clan.  Once she had become of age, she accepted Durotan’s invitation to courtship (represented by a hunting ritual).  They fell in love instantly, and when Durotan became the chieftan of his clan, Draka also became a strong matriarch as well.

During the corruption of the orcs by the burning legion, Durotan protested against Gul’dan’s numerous requests to accept the new power provided by Kil’jaeden, as well as the war declared agains the Draenei.  Throughout all this, Draka provided steadfast support for her mate, solidifying Durotan’s beliefs.  In return, Durotan spared her the responsibility of bearing children to become corrupted and join the Horde, once again going against Gul’dan’s wishes.

It was not until the Frostwolves were exiled in Azeroth that Drakar bore her first and only son, Thrall.  Drakar and Durotan were killed by Gul’dan’s assassins after warning Ogrim Doomhammer, the new leader of the Horde, of the corruption of Gul’dan and the Shadow Council.  Draka’s Legacy would live on in Thrall, who would become (and now is) the warchief of the New Horde that exists today in the World of Warcraft.

EDIT: Thrall’s grandmother is still very much alive as well.  Her name is Geyah, and is commonly known as the boss NPC of the Mag’har faction in Nagrand.

Vereesa Windrunner

She is the youngest sister of the Windrunner family, and the sister of Alleria and Sylvanas.  A high elven ranger under the leadership of her sister Sylvanas (who was later killed and resurrected as a banshee by soon-to-be Lich king Arthas), she helped defend her home city of Quel’thalas from the alliance of Orcs and Trolls during the Second War.

After the war, she was assigned to escort the rebellious mage Rhonin to the port town of Hasic, and much to her dismay, their relationship was rocky and awkward in the beginning.  However, due to the harrowing threat of the Dragonmaw Clan, the two were forced to travel to Grim Batol via gryphon.  What was initially a simple escort quest escalated into an adventure to free the Dragon Queen Alextrasza from the Orcs, who had used her and her offspring as weapons against the humans.  They destroyed the Dragon Soul in the process.

She and Rhonin were tasked by King Terenas II to travel around the Alliance kingdoms and warning the leaders of internal threats such as that of Grim Batol.  They fought valliantly in the Third War together, and fell in love, bearing twin children, the first instance of half-elven, half-human offspring in Warcraft Lore.  She later travelled again to Grim Batol (this time, without Rhonin), to avenge her Blood-elven cousin, Zendarin Windrunner.

She now resides in Dalaran, and is the leader of the Silver Covenant.

Mother Shahraz

She serves as the leader of the Shivarra concubines in the Black Temple in Outland.  She is the third to last boss before Illidan Stormrage.

Her abilities include a 7k melee attack, a frontal conal attack that deals approximately 30k damage spread out over 3 targets, an array of different beam attacks, and the infamous Fatal Attraction debuff, which causes the affected player to deal periodic aoe shadow damage to members of the raid.

Other than having 3 tanks facing Mother Shahraz away from the raid, positioning strategies vary.  Some setups include ranged groups standing in variable number of stacks spread out across the room.  Generally, the less stacks used, the more room is available for Fatal Attraction targets to run away to, but are prone to take heavy AoE damage should the targets be teleported into the group.  The more stacks used, less AoE damage is taken during teleports, but debuffed players have less room to escape to.  Another strategy involves the raid stacking up underneath her skirt to avoid beam damage, but is prone to mass silence should one person be hit by it.

Generally, during the BC era, this fight required massive amounts of shadow resistance, normally provided by epic-crafted shadow resist gear found in the Black Temple.  With the advent of the nerf patch in 3.0.2, as well as the level cap changed to 80, the requirement is not so demanding.

It is unknown whether or not Mother Shahraz is actually a mother, but due to her name, as well as being a concubine, one could possibly assume that she has children.  If she does, Light help us all.

UPDATE: Alexstrasza, the Life-Binder

Perhaps the biggest mother of them all, Alexstrasza is the Aspect of Life, the leader of the Red Dragonflight, and Queen of all dragons, as appointed by the titans.  Her earliest appearance in the Warcraft timeline is during the War of the Ancients (as reshaped by Rhonin, Krasus, and Broxigar during their trip through time).  Assisting the Night Elves in their fight against the Burning Legion, She alongside the other leaders of the colored dragonflights (Ysera, Malygos, and a consort of Nozdormu) was tricked by Neltharion (aka Deathwing) into surrendering some of her power to create the Dragon Soul, modernly known as the Demon Soul.

At the end of the war, she created Nordrassil the World Tree at Mount Hyjal after Illidan attempted to remake the Well of Eternity using stolen samples from the old well.  The Demon Soul was hidden by the red and her fellow dragons.  The disk was rediscovered during the Second War by the Dragonmaw clan, who successfully enslaved Alexstrasza and her dragonflight with the use of the disk’s power.  Forced to breed in captivity, Alexstrasza’s offspring were used as flying mounts during the Second War.  Most notably, these dragons were used in their seige against Kael’thalas, but were mostly ineffective against the High Elven City’s magical barrier.

During the events of Day of the Dragon, Vereesa Windrunner, Rhonin, and several others freed Alexstrasza from captivity by shattering the Demon Soul into many pieces.  The dragonqueen now currently resides in Wyrmrest Temple alongside her most loved consort, Korialstrasz.

UPDATE: Lesser-Known Human Mothers

For some reason, the human race’s leaders are mostly represented by men in warcraft lore, and not much information is given regarding the queens that rule(d) alongside them.  Two that come to mind initially are Queen Varia Wrynn, grandmother of Varian Wrynn (for some strange reason, no details exist regarding Varian’s mother), and Lianne Menethil, Wife of Terenas and mother of Arthas.  Given that Arthas has his own novel now, one would think that there would be SOME sort of information regarding her, but even Calia gets more screen time than Lianne.