15,000–12,200 Years Before the Dark Portal
As the pandaren and other emerging races began to flourish around the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, the mogu remained trapped in endless internal strife. It was in the midst of this cycle of violence and power struggles that a young warrior named Lei Shen began to rise.
Born to a minor warlord, Lei Shen grew up amid the brutality of clan warfare. He witnessed how ambition and betrayal corroded the potential of his race. Though he himself was a formidable fighter and victorious in many battles, Lei Shen saw the constant conflict and political scheming as a betrayal of the Titans' legacy. Still, he remained loyal to his father, following in his footsteps with discipline and honor.
Everything changed when a close advisor betrayed and murdered Lei Shen's father. Within days, the warlord's clan collapsed. Most of its members sought refuge in other clans, leaving Lei Shen in ruins. Only a handful of warriors remained loyal, refusing to abandon him. Instead of seeking revenge and continuing the cycle of violence, Lei Shen chose exile. He wandered far from the vale, reflecting on what he saw as the fundamental failure of his people.
But the answers he sought could no longer be found in logic or battle strategy. Lei Shen began searching for something greater—a purpose beyond personal ambition. He resolved to seek out the High Keeper Ra, the being who had once symbolized the Titans' power and will.
In recent centuries, the high keeper had become known as Ra-den, meaning "Lord Ra" in the new mogu tongue. Few among Lei Shen's kind believed Ra-den was still alive. The Curse of Flesh had ravaged their bodies, and many questioned why their ancient creator had allowed it to happen. Lei Shen rejected the notion that Ra-den had abandoned them. He believed the high keeper still had a plan, that their suffering was a test, and that Ra-den remained a living instrument of the Titans.
After years of searching, Lei Shen discovered an entrance to the hidden chambers north of the vale—sacred halls long forgotten by the mogu due to their unending wars. There, deep underground, he found Ra-den sitting silently in the dark. The high keeper did not react to Lei Shen's arrival. He said nothing, even when Lei Shen asked about the true purpose of the mogu and the legacy of the Titans.
Lei Shen's decision to relinquish his claim to his father's power had saved his life. In mogu tradition, when a clan leader was slain, rival factions would immediately kill the entire bloodline to erase it. Lei Shen's meditation was seen as a sign of despair and madness. Many believed he had lost his way and was no longer a threat.
Days passed, and Lei Shen grew increasingly frustrated with Ra-den's silence. Eventually, he realized the high keeper was not crafting a grand plan, not busy with the Titans' work. Ra-den had given up. The mogu's suffering was not part of a test—it was the result of their master's absence.
Lei Shen unleashed his fury. He accused Ra-den of abandoning the Titans and betraying their purpose. His words stirred the high keeper from his long stupor. Ra-den led Lei Shen to the Thunder Mountain, where eternal storms roared and split the sky. The mountain had long been considered forbidden by the mogu. Inside a vast dome adorned with ancient relics, Ra-den summoned the remnants of Aman'Thul's power and revealed to Lei Shen a hidden truth: the Titan Pantheon was dead, slain by one of their own. Their final hope was the world of Azeroth—but that world had already been poisoned by the creatures of the Void.
Ra-den believed this knowledge would shatter Lei Shen's soul, as it had shattered his own. But Lei Shen responded in an unexpected way.
He decided that if his master no longer wished to continue the Titans' mission, then he would do it himself. Without warning, Lei Shen attacked and subdued Ra-den. He bound the high keeper with enchanted iron forged to restrain primordial power. Lei Shen did not merely steal Ra-den's strength—he absorbed the power of Aman'Thul stored within the keeper's body.
Unimaginable power flooded Lei Shen's soul. He imprisoned Ra-den within Thunder Mountain, ignoring the keeper's rage and confusion at the betrayal. When Lei Shen descended the mountain and returned to his remaining forces, they fell silent at the transformation they saw in him. Rumors of Lei Shen's newfound power spread quickly among the mogu clans. Some believed he had torn out a god's heart and devoured it. Others claimed he had merged with the ancient power of the vale itself. Still others whispered that he was a Titan reborn.
But every story shared one truth: this "Thunder King" demanded all mogu bow before him. He claimed the Titans' birthright, and he swore to destroy anyone who defied his will.
Lei Shen was determined to unite the mogu and forge a new destiny for them as rulers of Azeroth and guardians of the world's soul. The petty quarrels and endless wars that had plagued their kind for millennia would no longer be tolerated. With lightning and thunder in his grasp, Lei Shen crushed all resistance. The fortunate died quickly; the unfortunate were shackled for centuries.
At first, most mogu sided with him out of fear. But the miracles he created soon inspired devotion. The Thunder King had mastered the magical tools of the keepers. One of them was the Engine of Nalak'sha, a powerful device he discovered beneath the northern vale. With this extraordinary machine, Lei Shen began shaping flesh and stone into new living beings. He even found a way to reverse the Curse of Flesh that had weakened his race.
Under Lei Shen, an era of prosperity and brutality gripped the vale. For the mogu, it was the beginning of a glorious new empire. But for the other races of the region, it marked the rise of a tyranny that would shake the entire history of Azeroth.
As Lei Shen's empire expanded in territory and power, the Thunder King soon came to regard every living creature beneath his sky as an absolute servant. To Lei Shen, the Curse of Flesh was an unforgivable symbol of weakness. Though not all mogu could be fully purged of this flaw, other flesh-bound beings—especially those not descended from Titan lineage—were always considered inferior and worthy of enslavement.
Lei Shen launched a massive campaign of slavery across the regions surrounding the vale. The wise jinyu had built their own small kingdom, complete with a deep spiritual tradition and a structured system of governance. Though they fought with remarkable courage, the brutal strength of Lei Shen and his mogu forces shattered the jinyu defenses. Their cities were mercilessly pillaged, and the entire jinyu civilization was left in silent ruins.
Upon hearing of the jinyu's tragic fate, the pandaren fled north to Kun-Lai Summit. There, they pleaded for protection from Xuen, the White Tiger—one of the August Celestials. When Lei Shen brought his armies to the base of the mountain, he challenged Xuen to a duel that would determine the fate of the pandaren. Xuen accepted, and for days, the thunderous battle between the White Tiger and the Thunder King shook the skies above Kun-Lai. But the Titan power stolen by Lei Shen was too great to match. In the end, Xuen was defeated and chained near the mountain's peak, forced to watch with open eyes as the mogu bound the pandaren into a cruel system of slavery.
Fearing that the pandaren's peaceful philosophy and spiritual teachings would undermine the foundation of his rule, Lei Shen issued a decree forbidding them from learning to read, write, or even speak in any language other than mogu. Disobedience meant a slow and brutal death, often made into public spectacle to instill fear among the other slaves.
With the blood and sweat of the races they conquered, the mogu built towering palaces and colossal monuments across the vale. In a short time, Lei Shen's empire boasted a unified language, standardized weights and measures, and the first written legal codes in Azeroth—brutal laws that cemented the mogu's position as absolute rulers over all other beings. Lei Shen also forced his slaves to become soldiers or expand the fortresses that had once served only to defend the vale from mantid swarms. From this project rose the Serpent's Spine, a massive stone wall dividing mogu territory from the wild, uncontrollable lands of the insectoids. When existing slaves perished or proved inefficient, Lei Shen created a new generation of slaves through the power of the Engine of Nalak'sha.
The machine birthed a variety of new creatures, such as the grummles—small but resilient beings known for their endurance and survival instincts—and the saurok, savage reptilian creatures designed for tasks requiring extreme brutality and stamina.
At the height of the mogu empire, the jinyu formed a close alliance with the hozen. Both agreed to support each other against the threat of Lei Shen. But on the eve of the jinyu's final resistance, the hozen betrayed their allies. In secret, they had pledged loyalty to the Thunder King in exchange for special treatment—a promise that, like many of Lei Shen's promises, was never kept. This betrayal ensured the jinyu's destruction and ignited a fierce racial feud between jinyu and hozen, lasting generations and leaving deep scars in the history of both peoples.
After Xuen was imprisoned, the other Celestials came to aid the pandaren. But like the White Tiger, they too fell before Lei Shen's power. Following his total victory, the Thunder King outlawed all forms of worship toward the gods, threatening death to any who defied the ban. The pandaren lost much of their spiritual connection to the Wild Gods—though not all of it. A few fearless slaves continued the teachings of the gods in secret, keeping alive a flickering flame of hope.
The ever-expanding mogu empire soon drew the attention of other civilizations across Azeroth. The elves and dwemer, who had built their cities on the continent of Kalimondor, chose to observe from afar. Their lands remained vibrant, especially due to the presence of war-loving trolls who thrived on the chaos around them. As long as the conflict did not touch their borders directly, neither elves nor dwemer would intervene.
But the Zandalari trolls were different. They were not only wary of the elves and dwemer—they harbored a deep hatred for the sharp-eared, slender-bodied creatures. From this, the roots of troll hatred toward the races of Tolkien's world began to grow, entwining with a long history of conflict and betrayal that would reshape the face of Azeroth.
Unlike the original history of Azeroth, where the trolls' hatred toward the Highborne stemmed from their expulsion from ancestral lands, the enmity now has far deeper and more complex roots. The trolls no longer despise the elves and dwemer due to a single incident, but because of a prolonged conflict that spanned thousands of years. Though skirmishes continued to erupt, each side refrained from triggering a full-scale war. The trolls understood they were no longer united as they had been during the golden age of Zandalar, when all troll races bowed under one banner and one will.
This awareness of internal division only intensified their fury toward the trolls who had transformed into elves. When they eventually discovered that some of their own kind had become night elves near the Well of Eternity, their rage would explode fivefold—not merely due to a betrayal of identity, but because the Highborne—once trolls themselves—had cast out their brethren from sacred ancestral lands. To the Zandalari, this was not mere exile, but a desecration of their history and bloodline.
Amid this turmoil, the Zandalari trolls in particular showed a deep interest in the arcane power possessed by the Thunder King. One of their revered leaders, a high priest named Zulathra, saw a golden opportunity in Lei Shen and the mogu empire. With calculated intent, he led a delegation of trolls into the Thunder King's domain, bearing an offer that seemed simple but brimmed with ambition: The mogu may hold dominion over the world, but the trolls possess knowledge of the land. If both empires were to unite, they would strengthen one another and share the deepest secrets of their respective legacies. And if the alliance succeeded, no force in Azeroth would be able to rival them.
The offer intrigued Lei Shen. For the first time, he encountered another living race that did not merely seek peace, but actively sought to conquer and reshape the world around them. The mogu, who had long avoided venturing far from their homeland due to superstition and sacred duty to protect the vale, now saw a chance to explore the world from a position of strength. They could remain in ignorance, or they could ally with the trolls and swiftly master the mysteries of the world.
Yet behind this noble diplomacy, both leaders harbored treacherous intentions. Zulathra believed the Zandalari could steal Lei Shen's divine power once they uncovered the deepest secrets of the mogu. Meanwhile, the Thunder King planned to enslave the Zandalari once they ceased to be useful to his empire. These schemes were kept entirely secret—even from their own people. In public, they brokered what appeared to be an ideal agreement: In exchange for Zandalari knowledge of the land and ancient magic, the mogu would train them in the arcane arts derived from Titan heritage. Additionally, Lei Shen promised a fertile tract of land near the vale as a new dominion for the Zandalari.
However, one secret pact held far greater importance. Lei Shen had devised a method to fully restore his spirit should he be slain. He did not entrust this knowledge to his own servants, knowing that the mogu were creatures greedy for power and likely to seize the throne if he fell. Only the Zandalari were given the key to resurrect the Thunder King. Without them, no being in Azeroth could claim that extraordinary arcane power. The trolls, too, understood that without this pact, they would never truly grasp the deepest secrets of the mogu—and would never have a chance to wield the power they had long coveted.
Though both leaders continued to plot betrayal, reality unfolded differently. The treachery never came to pass. Instead, as time went on, they began to see each other as invaluable allies. Their pact endured for years, becoming the foundation of a dark alliance that reshaped the political and power landscape of Azeroth.