#arcan'dor

Day 2: Suramar

The mighty Arcan'dor!

(there's a reason i'm never drawing traditionally and i think i'll end up going back to digital before the end of the challenge because it's painful)

The arcan’dor was an ancient species of mana tree created in tandem by the first elven practitioners of arcane magic and an organization of proto-druids many millennia ago [Quest: Arcan’dor, Gift of the Ancient Magi, Twitter: Don Adams]. The proto-druids, more formally known as treemenders or keepers, sought to bring the newly discovered chaotic forces of arcane into balance using nature itself as a vessel, thus leading to the creation of the arcan’dor [Item: Treemender’s Beacon, NPC: Keeper Selentia, Quest: Arcan’dor, Gift of the Ancient Magi]. However, because of the tree’s unique magical composition, should either the arcane or natural forces within it ever become severely imbalanced, the arcan’dor will die, resulting in a magical backlash powerful enough to kill and irrevocably warp those within its reach [Quest: A Growing Crisis, Quest: The Shardmaidens].

The arcan’dor’s magical nature makes it unlike most any other flora native to Azeroth. Invisible threads of magic bind every piece of an arcan’dor tree together, so that if a part is ever severed from the main body, it retains the tree’s magical properties and does not die, similar to the sea stalk plant [Quest: Branch of the Arcan’dor, Quest: Cultural Significance]. Additionally, despite their natural origins, all arcan’dor trees are created rather than bred [Quest: The Emerald Nightmare: The Stuff of Dreams].

A slow-growing blue fruit called Arcfruit grows on fully mature arcan’dor trees. When eaten, it reproduces the harmonious effects of the tree in a person by bringing their life essence and arcane spirit together [Quest: One Day at a Time, Quest: Arcan’dor, Gift of the Ancient Magi].

Shal’Aran, a portion of the Arcway located underneath the ancient elven city of Meredil, may have once housed an arcan’dor prior to the Sundering. The ghost of one of the members belonging to the organization of proto-druids who created the arcan’dor trees, Keeper Selentia, is initially found guarding a dead tree stump in Shal’Aran [Quest: Arcane Thirst]. Furthermore, the player’s arcan’dor seed fits perfectly in the pedestal on the tree stump, almost as if it was meant to have been placed there [Quest: The Valewalker’s Burden]. First Arcanist Thalyssra also surmises that the massive amount of leyline energy feeding into the chamber was for whatever the Keeper was guarding [Quest: Shal’Aran]. Since the Nightborne’s arcan’dor subsists off of the leyline feeds flowing into Shal’Aran today, it may not be too much of a stretch to assume that an ancient arcan’dor did much the same thing and that Shal’Aran was originally intended to hold one of the magical trees.

here’s the monthly illustration I did for my Patreon! this one was a freebie, so everyone can go get the wallpaper/full-res version here! 

Crystal -- A scene from my Legion story. 

Before the Arcan’dor we know came to exist, what if there were others? Failures that would never bear fruit, whose purposes were widely unknown?

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Hidden away in the depths of Shal’Aran is the salvation of the Shal’dorei. The arcan’dor isn’t just a tree – it’s the cure for the addiction to the Nightwell the Shal’dorei have been bound to for centuries. But what exactly is the arcan’dor? What is its purpose, and why is it able to do what some view as nearly impossible?