A Field of Wildflowers

Template:Campaign AFoW Forked**A Field of Wildflowers** was a campaign comprising a series of interconnected events that began during Antiquity and culminated during the Age of Mortals. A Void cult following the teachings of Heyak'awa'han tapped into the powers of the Muhale'awak, a tapestry inundated with energies from the Void. The events that followed were manipulated by an entity known as The Black Stag, eventually leading a party of Grand Alliance intelligence operatives and other interested parties into a journey to destroy the Dreamghost, a Tauren Shaman who sought to end physical reality and usher in the Void Lords.

## Origins

Before the dawn of the Tauren during the Age of a Hundred Kings, a Yaungol who served as royal Shaman to the Khan of the Bataari clan was accused of attempting to place a curse on the young male heir to the family's piece of Kun-Lai Summit. Exiled along with two of his loyal apprentices, he followed visions from his dreams which led him to the mouth of a cave across the continent, in the Thousand Needles. From within the cave, the voice of a long-deceased Y'Shaarj encouraged the shaman to enter. After thirteen days of meditation, he emerged from the mouth of the cave, feverish and pallid. Urging his two students to help him return to Pandaria, his vision of the waking world was completely overridden by a gnawing desire to produce an artifact of great power, as a tribute to the dark entities who spoke to him. The tapestry, fashioned in the deepest subterranean channels of the continent, came to be known by the Tauren who inherited it as the Muhale'awak, or the Tapestry of the Teeth.

### The Fall of the Mogu

During the collapse of the Mogu Empire, the shaman and his students sought out the restorative powers of the legendary Well of Eternity. Along with many other Yaungol who chose to travel to the center of Kalimdor, the shaman and his students were transformed, becoming Tauren. The master took the name of Heyak'awa'han, while his duo of followers became Aru-Negtu and Neinil Hi.

Guided by the voice within the living Muhale'awak tapestry, they sought out visions through long journeys on hoof throughout Kalimdor. Their pilgrimmage took them to ruins of various cultures, including the strange monoliths left behind by the Black Empire. As they continued to gather knowledge of the Void, Heyak'awa'han organized his teachings into songs, dance and other works of art with the intent to pass down his knowledge to a growing cult of followers known as The Long Shadow.

### The Long Shadow

The Long Shadow followed Heyak'awa'han, seeking wisdom and liberation from his ghostly state in the physical world. The Shaman selected

 File:Through the Water and the Wind.jpg  from among his mass of followers twelve students which would ascend to immediate prominence; among them, Apohache rose to become the finest of Heyak'awa'han's cadre. As a form of initiation into the teachings of Void Shamanism Apohache murdered his infant son and mate, and approached Heyak'awa'han in an oasis in The Barrens, seeking guidance towards a higher form of reality.

For ten years, Apohache learned from the wise Heyak'awa'han. Heyak'awa'han's favoritism alienated the eldest of his cult, Aru-Negtu and Neilnil Hi, who believed Apohache was too young to contemplate the Night Sky.

### Apohache's Ascension

With Heyak'awa'han on his deathbed, the ailing Shaman named Apohache as his successor. Apohache did not heed the dying words of his teacher, who asked him to lead the cult with dignity and honor. Using a forbidden shamanic rite known as the Ghost Chains, Apohache murdered and enslaved his eleven companions, as well as his own teacher, using the power of their collective lifetimes to grant himself exceedingly powerful abiliites.

After meditating in a cave for thirteen years in emulation of his teacher, Apohache rose as Hi-Washte, the Dreamghost, emerging into The Barrens with new visions, enslaving hundreds of innocent souls with the Ghost Chains and murdering Spiritwalkers he came across in the wilderness. Engaging with another forbidden shamanic ritual, the Dreamghost began constructing a great Spirit Campfire, sacrificing an entire village to haunted flames, in order to empower his efforts.

The Twelve Students followed Apohache unwillingly, all except for Aru-Negtu, who pledged himself to the Dreamghost of his own will.

### Many Heads of the Void

The Dreamghost

 File:Muhaleawak.png   made enemies of a Highborne Voidcaller known as Zelina Ama'vorin. While they both called upon the Void and had received visions from the entities who embodied it, they both had wildly different interpretations as to the best course of action for Azeroth. The Dreamghost and The Long Shadow believed that suffering was inevitable, and physical reality could only produce suffering; to them, the Void was the natural state of things, and creation was suffering. Zelina's cult of followers who, plumbed the mysteries of the Void from laboratories and temples built clandestinely in Suramar and Azsuna, believed that the Void could fundamentally be controlled by mortals, but only if the knowledge was hidden from the masses, all reference texts burned after being carefully studied.

Using his abilities to manipulate the causality of an ongoing blood feud between the House of Shalah'aman, House of Ama'vorin, House of Thel'barim and several other families of the Highborne Peerage, the Dreamghost turned the eyes of of Suramar towards the activities of Zelina and her followers. They were slaughtered, one by one, in a purge of those who followed religious practices that were not in direct alignment with the canon of the Highborne and the Kaldorei; both classes considered the mystery cults to be antagonistic towards imperial interests, and an affront to Elune.

### Suramar

The Dreamghost followed the narratives laid out in the Muhale'awak tapestry, seeking out the elven city of Suramar, where he was treated with suspicion by the xenophobic and haughty Highborne Peerage. A young sorceresss in training, Iahri, became the student of the Dreamghost unwittingly after her father, Illosien Shalah'aman, commissioned the wandering Tauren to teach the girl how to protect herself against dark entities and their horrific magic.

The Dreamghost was certain that Iahri was the same young elf who featured prominently in the prophecies of his teacher, Heyak'awa'han, and committed to leading her into the Void to bring about the destruction of physical reality.

### A Curse Upon the House

 File:Dreamghost.png  Concerned that his daughter was being led into a destructive lifestyle, Illosien interceded and confronted The Dreamghost, refusing to render him any payment for his services. Enraged, the Dreamghost massacared several members of the guardsmen of the House of Shalah'aman, using their bodies to perform a foul ritual he claimed would curse the family and their property for a thousand years.

The Dreamghost vanished into the shadows of Kalimdor with his followers, and plotted for the future, seeking guidance from the entities that haunted him.

### Journey to Silithus

The young Iahri travelled with her guardsman Ald'themir to the forbidding south, joining him on an expedition against the Sandfury Trolls, to observe the war from afar and engage her fledgling interest in archaeology. Mesmerized by the change in the landscape and the ruined monuments built by the Aqir and Qiraji, as well as the supposed location of the legendary city of Kalnaar.

Chaos spread through the encampments of the Desert Moon Enclave, and Iahri was attacked by several of her father's own servants. During the assault, the voice of C'Thun reached out into her mind and urged her to unleash him against her enemies. Following the instructions in order to save her own life, she watched as the men were strangled while some others were seized by cardiac arrest. Stepping away from the tent in horror, she was escorted back to Suramar by Ald'themir, who made haste along the great trade roads to the heart of the Empire.

### Lowly Gardens of Suramar

Iahri continued to seek further education of her own accord. Against her father's wishes, she mingled with the common people of Suramar and found a companion and lover in the rogueish Ethendral Kel'rasus, a Kaldorei con-artist who managed to convince many that he was an archival specialist and respected historian. He and Iahri soon fell in love, until her father Illosien put a stop to their relationship. Fleeing Suramar for the exterior regions of the Kaldorei Empire, Ethendral was haunted by strange visions which followed in his wake.

Divorced by thousands of miles from Iahri, Ethendral returned to his prior career as a sailor and fisherman. A storm nearly claimed Ethendral's life, capsizing his vessel. Awakening in a cavern, surrounded by gloomy figures with multitudionous tendrils, he desperately sought the shore. In the decades and centuries to come, Ethendral's visions worsened and eroded at his mind.

### Our Bodies Vanish and Yet We Remain

As the Twelve Students of the Long Shadow continued to age, their bodies could no longer support the immense weight of their troubles. The Dreamghost taught to them the final rite forbidden amongst nearly every Shamanic culture: they would awake in new bodies, reincarnating into the flesh of the newly-born, and preserve all of the memories of their prior lifetimes. Tauren elders warned against the rite, claiming that any Spiritwalkers who'd attempted such a feat were gradually driven to insanity as they assimilated the experiences of each ego body they assumed.

Many Tauren tribes, now aware of the activities of the Long Shadow, worked to undo their efforts. Sacredsun, a young Spiritwalker of exceptional talent, was tasked to embark upon a journey to hunt the Dreamghost, risking his own sanity to perform the very same rites in order to chase him through many lifetimes.

### In That Sacred Night, I am Waiting for You

 File:Fawn and Shawupeshwa.jpg  Aru-Negtu and Neinil Hi were not as fortunate as the other Twelve Students. Their bodies were violently pulled into the Blackened Woods, where they met with an entity known as Shawupesh'wa. A creature of the Void, born of the Tapestry, Shawupesh'wa communicated six secrets to Aru-Negtu and Neinil Hi, promising that at least five would come true.

Neinil Hi and Aru-Negtu were rescued by the spirit of Heyak'awa'han, who guided them to a chamber hidden within the Other Side, where they placed his skull. The artifact came to be known as Isha'heyak. The Twelve Students would often consult the skull privately for guidance, until the Dreamghost accused them of plotting against his efforts. The Dreamghost tightened the chains around each of their minds, removing much of their autonomy, out of fear that Heyak'awa'han would come to supplant him.

### The Echo Upon the Lake

As The Dreamghost attempted to reincarnate into the body of a Kaldorei newborn, he was confronted by Sacredsun and six elderly Spiritwalkers who had pursued the Long Shadow through the Other Side. Hopelessly outmatched in both numbers and malice, Sacredsun watched as the Dreamghost and the Twelve Students mutilated the spirit bodies of his companions. As punishment, the Dreamghost transformed their souls into the Endless Lake, a stagnant pool teeming with countless spirits of the dead. Their six bodies hosted a repository of immense power, which allowed the Dreamghost and his followers to more easily subjugate elemental water.

Fleeing in terror, the young Sacredsun emerged in Azeroth and expired shortly thereafter from his spiritual wounds, only to be resurrected in another lifetime.

### Ruin the Civilizations Which Represent the Titans

 File:The Long Shadow.png  The Sundering saw the end of the Kaldorei Empire and Highborne Peerage under Queen Azshara and the beginning of the Age of the Long Vigil. The collapse of the world's mightiest kingdom unleashed horrors once trapped beneath the crust of the earth. During the years immediately following the widespread destruction, the Long Shadow spent much of their time tracing the lineage of their order, working for The Dreamghost to uncover many of the secrets that Heyak'awa'han concealed from him. Out of a deep mistrust for his teacher's lessons, the Dreamghost continued to press harder and harder until relics uncovered from the ruins of the Black Empire further disintegrated his mind and body.

The Void Lords spoke through their servants to the Dreamghost, accepting the wayward Tauren as the official successor to the troubled lineage of Heyak'awa'han, affording the Void Shaman under his command with greater abilities.