Onyxia Unmasked!

nyxia was the first true raid encounter put into the World of Warcraft, and when she was released everyone tried desperately to be the first to kill the evil Dragonkin. Alas, it didn't happen in beta. Since then, several guilds over many servers have managed to kill Onyxia; but I got to witness first-hand the entire mystery behind her and her encounter.

I was a newbie Mage in Stormwind (level 10) walking through the front gate when I see an NPC named "Reginald Windsor"; a level 60 human that was dressed like one of the Marshals of Goldshire/Northshire. He began to walk through the gate into the Valley of Heroes when I noticed that General Marcus (The mounted General at the top of the VoH) and the Stormwind Guards had lined up across the Valley of Heroes and were not allowing Reginald to pass. I had to get through to my mage trainer, but these guys weren't letting up so I had to muster up my angriest face and charge right through them! (okay there's no collision size in WoW so I just walked right through them).

My computer crashed (aw crap) and I rushed to log back on because this looked like such an interesting event. I raced to my desktop, hit WoW and logged in. I skillfully managed to type in the wrong account/password no less than five times. Finally, I got in and found that the slow-pace of the NPC human had proved to be a good omen: they were still talking. Afther their exchange, the Stormwind General lets Reginald the NPC pass. The men and General all step aside and kneel before him (talk about a change in attitude!). Both the General and Reginald had commented that they served under Turalyon at one point in the conversation, so perhaps Reginald is a historical figure in Azeroth.

Reginald exclaims "Onto Stormwind Keep!" and sets his path to the Keep, where Stormwind's child King and his two advisors reside. We walk the long (and boring) path to Stormwind Keep and I notice every single guard that Reginald passes salutes him and exclaims "There walks a hero" or something to that effect. It seems he is a revered hero in the kingdom of Stormwind. I followed along, unable to shake the feeling that something big was about to happen. Being a lowly mage (who for some reason has huge muscular arms and a warped face), I was excited. and scared for my life.


Reginald enters Stormwind Keep, with two soldiers on either side of him giving him a salute


The overview of Stormwind's Throne Room

As Reginald walks the long path through the lavish Keep towards the throne-room of the King, my anticipation builds. In the throne-room is the young King and beside him is the Lady Katana Prestor and a level 500 body-guard. Reginald defiantly proclaims that Lady Katana Prestor is one of the Dragonkin and banishes her. (Lady Prestor a Dragonkin? Nice scales. But I digress.) Prestor says she will enjoy watching Reginald get the death sentence for coming in and accusing royalty falsely. Reginald then pulls out encoded tablets and begins to read from them.


Reginald reads from the encoded tablets


Onyxia is Unmasked!

But, you know, it's not enough being a raid-level dungeon boss and a Dragonkin, Lady Onyxia has to summon her Elite Guard. At this point, I'm soiling myself.



Anyways, the room is filled with at least 8-12 level 60 PCs waiting to kill the Dragonkin. That's when it clicked that this is the Alliance event that triggers Onyxia and that this group was getting the key to her lair. Her guards were elite level 55-60, and I was hoping that a puny level 10 Mage would get to watch everyone go at it, but as we see...



I was a prime target. I died, but I didn't release my corpse. The group fought furiously to bring down the guards and Lady Onyxia with the help of Fodgorn, the level 500 boss who was standing beside the child King. A level 60 Mage enters the room and blasts the monsters with a frost nova. She then weaves fiery magics and flamestrikes the entire group. Area of Effect magics went off and I swear I felt a tingle go up my spine.

Even though I crumbled like last tuesday's coffee cake at the first swing of a dragon guard, as my corpse timer ran down I was able to watch the fight. The mages of the Alliance used area of effect to slowly batter down the Dragonkin, while the priests and druids strove to keep Fodgorn alive. It seems that the level 500 boss (real level is masked) was doing a lot of damage; enough so that constant major heals to him would not draw aggro. After 3 minutes of flamestrikes and blizzards and other AoE's, the Dragonkin guards finally fell. In the final moment of my corpse timer, I was able to see the final battle. Lady Onyxia used her fiery magics to decimate the cloth-wearing alliance, but with a final strike, the Alliance took out Onyxia, and got the key to her lair.

I have heard complaints that the Horde has nowhere near as cool an event to get the key as the Alliance does. Another piece of evidence pointing to the conclusion that the Alliance always gets more polish than Horde? Perhaps, but perhaps Blizzard is trying to clear the air of another rumor. A long time ago there was an interesting post on the official forums. The author believed that Deathwing, the nefarious black dragon, had infiltrated Stormwind Keep and was using his powers to disguise himself as Lady Prestor. Who would have known he was right and the Lady was a dragonkin all along, just the wrong one.