Sign inC'Thun
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C'Thun is one of the Old Gods, a vast and ancient being imprisoned beneath the desert of Silithus. From his prison under the city of Ahn'Qiraj he commands the insectoid qiraji and silithid. He is the final boss of the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, the 40-player raid that opened with patch 1.9 in January 2006, and for much of Classic he was the hardest encounter in the game.
Biography
Long before the night elves, C'Thun and the other Old Gods ruled Azeroth through their elemental servants in what is now called the Black Empire. The Titans overthrew them and sealed them deep below the earth. C'Thun's prison lay beneath southern Kalimdor, and the insect races that grew up around it, the aqir and later the qiraji, came to worship him.
About a thousand years before the events of World of Warcraft, the qiraji swarmed out of Ahn'Qiraj and attacked the night elves. In the War of the Shifting Sands, the night elves and the bronze, red, green and blue dragonflights pushed them back and sealed them behind the Scarab Wall, locked with the Scepter of the Shifting Sands. The scepter was later shattered and its pieces handed to the dragonflights.
In World of Warcraft
The opening of the gates
Reopening Ahn'Qiraj was a server-wide event. Players on each realm gathered war supplies for the Cenarion Circle and completed the long scepter chain that rebuilt the Scepter of the Shifting Sands. When both were done, a player rang the gong at the Scarab Wall and the gates opened for all. The first player to ring it on each server received the [[forever:item:21176]]. See Opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj.
The Temple of Ahn'Qiraj
The Temple of Ahn'Qiraj holds nine bosses, ending at C'Thun's chamber in the deepest part of the hive. Throughout the raid, players hear C'Thun whisper to them: "You will die.", "Your heart will explode." and similar lines, shown only to the player who hears them.
The fight
Phase one: the Eye. The raid first faces the [[forever:npc:15589]]. It fires [[forever:spell:26134]], a green beam that jumps between players standing close together, so the raid spreads out in a wide circle. Every so often the Eye turns red and sweeps [[forever:spell:26029]] across the room, killing anyone it touches. Eye tentacles rise around the room and claw tentacles erupt beneath players.
Phase two: the body. When the Eye dies, [[forever:npc:15727]]'s true body appears. Giant claw and giant eye tentacles emerge, and players are periodically swallowed into C'Thun's stomach, where Digestive Acid stacks on them. Inside, they must kill two [[forever:npc:15802]]. When both die, C'Thun becomes weakened for a short time and takes much more damage. The raid repeats this until he falls.
Loot
C'Thun always drops the [[forever:item:21221]]. The quest [[forever:quest:8801]] takes it to the dragons in the next chamber, and [[forever:quest:8802]] sends the player to Anachronos in the Caverns of Time, who rewards the [[forever:item:21712]], [[forever:item:21710]] or [[forever:item:21709]].
He also drops the [[forever:item:20929]] and [[forever:item:20933]], which are traded for Tier 2.5 chest pieces, and items such as [[forever:item:21134]], [[forever:item:21126]], [[forever:item:21839]], [[forever:item:21579]], [[forever:item:22732]], [[forever:item:21596]], [[forever:item:21581]] and [[forever:item:22731]]. Players on the Atiesh quest also take the [[forever:item:22734]] from him.
Later history
The Old Gods became central to the story of later expansions. C'Thun's name appears across other Blizzard games, most notably as the face of Hearthstone's Whispers of the Old Gods expansion (2016).
Ahn'Qiraj and the gate-opening event returned in World of Warcraft Classic in 2020.
Trivia
- His whispers are a famous piece of Classic atmosphere. They appear in the same color as a whisper from another player.
- At release C'Thun was considered close to unbeatable with the gear of the time. A series of hotfixes made the second phase more manageable, and the first kills came within hours of one of them. The original, harder version was restored for Classic's Season of Mastery in 2021.
Sources
Categories: Characters