Discovering Azeroth: The Pass of Death

«A gloomy and enchanted area that has been forgotten by many, hides unique and mysterious secrets that have no explanation. In the distance we can see a long tower rising out of the fog and we can hear the howling of the wind that runs through the steep rocks and gray trees of the place ».

General Information

• Location: Eastern Kingdoms
• Level: 58 - 60
• Terrain: Canyon
• Faction: Neutral

History of the area

El Paso de la Muerte is an area that, despite being currently uninhabited, has a fairly important history. Situated between the Duskwood and the Swamp of Sorrows it is a place decimated by dark energies, something that is not surprising having the tower of Karazhan as its main monument.

This tower was once home to Medivh, the last Guardian of Tirisfal, an organization charged with fighting the might of the Burning Legion. Medivh was corrupted by Sargeras before he was born without anyone knowing, and thus slowly, in the future Sargeras could dominate him however he wanted.
Since Medivh was an adult, he began to be totally controlled by Sargeras and since then he has participated in events that have changed the trajectory of Warcraft, such as the opening of the dark portal to bring the orcs to Azeroth.

The land was completely corrupted by Medivh's magic, taking on the appearance we can see today. People left the place fleeing from the undead, ogres, demons and all kinds of hideous creatures that appeared. It is rumored that monsters do not kill those they capture but instead bring them back to the tower.

During the First War, Medivh was put in search and capture and ultimately killed after an incursion by human armies into Karazhan. Since then it has been seemingly abandoned and its dangers still haunt those who get close enough.

It is not clear how the villagers in the southern part of the chasm died. Some think it was Medivh or some creature summoned by him while others maintain that it was the Black Riders hungry for death and destruction while searching for the Scythe of Elune.

Fauna and Flora

The state of the Pass of Death is disastrous, the vegetation is scarce and what little there is is corrupted by the energies of the place, be it petrified trees or ash-colored grasses. The fauna that we find is also scarce, we only see gigantic spiders that roam the place and vultures that take advantage of the waste of all the victims in the area.

What can we find

Karazhan is what stands out the most in this area, a dungeon from the beginning of The Burning Crusade expansion, this 10-person raid was made after the heroic dungeons, so it was the first band of said expansion, it provided equipment that allowed us Later carry out other gangs such as Grull's Lair or Maghteridon's Lair, something interesting to know is that before it required a fairly long chain of missions to be able to get the key to the door.

This band is for some players one of their favorites because it has a very good atmosphere and music that perfectly accompany the ghostly style of the tower, on the other hand in this band they began to use quite fun mechanics of bosses as is the case of the penultimate boss, the game of chess, where the players control the game tiles, surely more of one thought of Harry Potter doing so.

What is most striking about this area apart from Karazhan are the destroyed houses that are now inhabited by the ghosts of the former residents of the place, right at the entrance of Karazhan we can see these houses that contain quite large basements and underground conduits. Finally we can see a river that runs almost the entire area, which has no special use, only environmental.

Enemies

The enemies that we can find in this area are mainly undead: ghosts of humans, skeletons and lost souls; demons and ogres that inhabit the caves located in the southwest of the canyon. We also found beasts as described above, spiders and vultures almost everywhere in the area.

Curiosities

The Pass of Death is one of the places in World of Warcraft that keeps the most secrets and curiosities.

Ariden's Camp:

It is an area located in the Northwest, there we can find a totally deserted area with a tent. a cart and a small bonfire. Until now no one knows who or what Ariden is, he does not appear in any content of the game or in any story, which leaves us quite a big intrigue, but he is not the only strange thing about the place.

The trees:

One of the things that stand out in this place are the trees, they are gray in color and in their bark you can see the shape similar to a face or a spirit, the problem comes when you look at the trees until you see some that have corpses hanging from its branches, is when a somewhat shocking sensation comes to us.

Blizzard's smile:

Previously you could go to a pile of rocks at the back of Karazhan, where there was a quite small hole (so small that the Tauren could not pass through it) in which you could fall and go through the textures of the game, there we found a smile that Blizzard designers did on the ground, something quite curious.

The crypts of Karazhan:

In the back part of Karazhan, right next to the pile of rocks, there is a kind of tomb that is apparently inaccessible because there are bars that prevent passing, well ... or rather "inaccessible" because if you can go through textures; and you will say and what is in there? Well, nothing more and nothing less than crypts almost as large as the Pass of Death itself.
Its use? who knows ... they have been there since Vanilla and have not been re-modeled since then, but the most horrifying thing about this matter is what is contained in said crypts.

As soon as you pass the bars on the left there is a small well, you can jump through it, if you do it you will fall to the bottom and surely you will die from the fall damage, the strange thing about this is that you fall on a huge mountain of bones and your character it stays there, dead among thousands of bones. If instead of choosing the path of the well, you choose the other, you come to some corridors in which there are holes for graves in the walls, each time we move forward we begin to see strange things such as spaces with bars that have nothing inside and Labyrinthine areas, but the most shocking is the area where there is water and you can see hundreds of corpses hanging on chains.