Blackrock Mountain Kings

*Lore Addition*

## Mountain Kings

The description for Mountain Kings implies they are the mightiest Dwarven Warriors under the mountain. Each of the Dwarven Clans have a mountain of some kind. The Bronzebeard Clan live within Ironforge, which itself lies within a Mountain in Khaz’modan, the Wildhammer Dwarves live within Aerie Peak, which itself lies within a Mountain in the Hinterlands, and the Dark Iron Dwarves live within the Volcano fortress known as Blackrock Mountain. While a Volcano isn’t a mountain definitively, they are basically a mountain for all intents of purposes of the class at hand. Before the Dark Iron Dwarves moved to Blackrock, they lived within Grim Batol, which itself lies within a Mountain in the Redridge Mountain range.

All three Clans have Warriors, while they may differ here and there, the baseline is still there and all three Clans also have Thanes. A Dwarven Warrior and Mountain King are said to automatically become Thanes, this is important.

There are two main abilities of the Mountain King that deserve special recognition:

###### The Stormbolt:

In the Manual for Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, the Stormbolt is listed as a Wildhammer ability that the Bronzebeard improved on. This implication is that it belongs to more clans than just that of the Bronzebeard.

###### The Avatar:

In the Manual for Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, the Avatar is listed as another ability of the Mountain King, Muradin Bronzebeard. Avatar is another learned and adapted ability that can be taught to dwarves from the Wildhammer, which again provides the implication that it can belong to more clans than just that of the Brozebeard.

Either ability learned personally being trained or by observing and adapting their own way.

## The Dark Iron Mountain King

### Argument for the Inclusion of Dark Iron Mountain Kings

With the above implications noted, a Dark Iron Mountain King should be possible. The unique abilities of the mountain king are not intra-clan, but inter-clan. It is noted that these abilities can be \*thematic, as per the Wildhammer and the Bronzebeard, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have to have a unique Magma-theme to them. Clan wars over the years are likely to have helped the Dark Iron adapt and extend their abilities to a similar extent as the Bronzebeard-specified abilities aforementioned and listed in the manual.

We do not see any named “Mountain King” in World of Warcraft for Dark Irons, but we see plenty of Thanes who are/were powerful warriors, some of which possess an ability or more that the Mountain King has. We know from before and it is an accepted fact that both Dwarven Warriors and Mountain Kings become Thanes automatically, so it is not far-fetched to draw the conclusion that some of these Dark Iron Thanes can hold the title of Mountain King.

###### Dagran Thaurissian

Dagran has a unique version of “Avatar”. That does not imply alone that he is a Mountain King. He was granted temporary powers by the Firelord as a Sorceror that he is known for, and both Ragnaros (as seen in Molten Core originally, and then the Firelands after the Dark Iron are liberated) and Dagran possess the similiar ability of growing large to increase strength.

###### Dark Iron Thane Spirits

It is observed that within the in-game raid Blackwing Descent you end up in the Athenaeum wherein several spirit ancestors of Dark Iron Thanes will fight the raid party. The following is observed from the Thanes present in the Blackwing Descent raid:

* Moltenfist: possesses the ability of Thunderclap with no thematic visuals.
* Thaurissian: possesses the ability of Avatar with no thematic visuals.
* Anvilrage: possesses the ability of Stormbolt with no thematic visuals.

This is three examples to the prior single example of Dagran Thaurissian, and the abilities are in-line with what we see from other abilities specific to the Mountain King.

## Dark Iron Mountain King Abilities, as listed

> |Stormbolt -> Volcanicbolt
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*Hurls a hammer imbued with Fire at a target dealing fire damage (rather than nature) and stuns the target for 4-6 seconds (1 Emote Turn)*

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> |Thunderclap -> Magmaclap
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*Slams the ground causing destructive shockwaves to erupt around him, staggering enemies, and small bursts of magma splurt out causing damage. (Fire damage rather than Nature damage. Burn DoT rather than slow attack speed)*

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> |Avatar -> Avatar of Flame
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*Grows in size and strength while fire envelopes them. Their skin resembles rock causing a small boost in defense as well and fire seems to erupt out from the cracks. Grants fire damage to attacks and an immolation aura.*

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